That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Jake Shears

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

This week, Gaby welcomes singer, songwriter, actor and all-round showman, Jake Shears! They talk about his new role in Cabaret, his new album 'Last Man Dancing', writing a musical with Elton John and the Scissor Sisters days. Jake loves being creative and is so passionate about his art! We loved having him in the studio and hope you enjoy listening to the chat! You can see him in Cabaret at The Playhouse Theatre in London......and find his new album on all streaming services, including Spotify(and if you like the pod - and can spare 20 seconds - please do rate and review it for us!!! We'd be very grateful! Thaaaankuuuu) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

and welcome to another episode of Reasons to Be Joyful. This week I'm thrilled to be joined by a fabulous singer, songwriter and actor and all-round showmen who shot to fame in the early noughties as the co-lead singer of the Scissor Sisters and has since appeared on Broadway and in the West End and co-written a musical. I am of course talking about Jake Shears.

Jake is so lovely, full of Joie de Ville and is passionate about the arts. We talked about his early life running off to New York, his amazing career and his new role in London's West End. I hope you enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think I've ever been more excited about somebody going into cabaret than you. Jake!

Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! How excited are you? It just feels like a strange dream. I mean, I just, it's something I've always wanted to do. I feel like the production itself is so amazing. I'm just, and I can't wait to just get into a show. I love being in a show, whether I'm making it or whether I'm acting in it.

I just love being in that focused bubble with a family and, you know, working hard. It's my favorite spot to be. Oh, but the casting is so clever. So the Kit Kat Club here in London is they've taken over the theatre. You suddenly transported to both. Berlin and the way they do it is incredible. But you as the MC, that fit is perfect. I hope so.

I mean, I've got to really work on my German accent. There's a lot of work to do, you know. It's like I'm not a, I'm not a great actor. I wasn't a great actor. And I've really, over the years, the stuff that I've done, I've really worked on it. And like, I did kinky boots on Broadway for a while. Exactly. Hello. Hello. You've done Kinky Boots on Broadway. Yeah, and I really did learn so much from it, but I knew going in that I had to really, really, really work.

And I don't think this is going to be any different. You know, I don't think it's going to be a cakewalk. I think I'm going to really have to buckle up and get my hands dirty. But I'm excited about that, you know. And the amazing thing about doing a show like that eight shows a week is it's almost like a video game. A video game? I've never heard anyone say that. It's almost like a video game where you've got the level.

The show is, each act is like a level in a game, right? And you do it over and over and over and try to score, you know, do the best you can and score the highest points. And at the end of the act, at the end of the show, the entire thing resets. And you get to do it all over again sometimes in the same day. Yeah. So it's like playing a game and you try things slightly. differently and it's you're never going to get it perfect. But that's good in a way because anyone that goes, okay, tonight was perfect, then where

have you got to go? Where have you got to go? You're never going to get it perfect, but you're always going to be able to change it a little bit. And it's just a really exciting way to work. And I'm really, really looking forward to it. I cannot wait. I will be there.

I will be cheering you on. So self-esteem is going to be Sally Bowles. Yes. Who I love and we've gotten to know each other a bit and sort of have been hanging out. And I just think she's such an incredible person, so much fun to hang out with, so funny, so smart. And not only that, I'm just excited to get to meet more people and see who's in this cast and get you become a family over a long period of time. So that's kind of the most one of the most exciting things about it. But also you love an audience.

And I mean that in a lovely way. You're a performer. That's what you are at heart, aren't you? And so the live audience, doing the dance. I mean, because obviously dancing for years as well, dancing and the singing and the entertaining and the performing. Put it all together with the live audience. That's just.

Yeah. And with a structure, with such an incredible structure and such great songs underneath it. And yeah, like I said, it's just, it's basically doing, it's getting to do. that, but in a whole new format with a whole new story. You know, it's just, and it's, and what a great story it is and what great music, Kander and I've wrote. And also that, the tunes have always, you know, those Kander and Ebb songs from Chicago, from cabaret, I mean, those have always informed everything I've made from Sissor Sisters

onward. It's always been in my music. You know, I've pulled so much from that canon that it feels really good to be stepping. actually into it. Oh well congratulations. Thank you. Break legs. Have an amazing ride. It's interesting though.

Even before I knew that, you know, I read about that you'd done shows as well. Because obviously you did it in the States on Broadway. That I, to me, you're a performer. It's not just that you're front in bands and you're a solo artist and you write and you're a performer. Do you mind some, is that okay with you? Does that sit okay with you? I think that's first and foremost what I am. I think that the music that I make and the sort of things I do around it

and the songwriting has always kind of been a means to get on stage and a means to perform. Even though songwriting is one of my favorite, and cutting records is my favorite thing on the planet, yet I always did those things so I could get on stage. So you were like that as a child as well. I mean, reading your book and reading about your childhood, if we may, just going to go back to the San Juan Islands.

Yeah. I filmed there years ago, whale watching. Really? And I went to Friday Harbour. My hometown, yeah. And when I read that you were from there, it blew my mind because every time I say to somebody, one of the most extraordinary places I've ever been was the Friday Harbour of San Juan Islands. Yeah.

And you really, you're from there. Yes. Probably when I was filming, you were at school there. Could have been. Oh, my word. Yeah, we lived on the water. My family, we were there for a long time. We moved there when it was probably about six.

And it was just an amazing place. And this is, we moved there in the mid-80s. And it was a very sort of different place than than it is now. But this is, we're talking an island that's in the Pacific Northwest that is about five miles across from British Columbia. from Vancouver Island. So it's sort of the farthest you can get almost to Canada if you're in Washington State up there. And it's a beautiful spot. It's the nature is.

Wales. You've got whales. Was it whales in front of our house three times a day in the spring, summer? You know, it was a, you know, a childhood all kind and never get, forget. But it also was a very small place to grow up. And for someone like me, it was tough in a way because I just, I needed more. How did you know you needed more? I know coming out, and I know the whole story and, you know,

you've spoken about it so many times, but coming out as a young teenager and the advice you were given and parents' reaction, how did you know in the San Juan Islands? Because it is like something out of a movie. It's sort of unreal as a place. And a tiny little town. Tiny, tiny, tiny. I remember people walking up and down and they were buying boxes of Budweiser

and everybody would stop along the way. and they'd hand them out to the people because they all knew each other. It's a strange memory I have at that place. But how did you know that what you had inside you was this performer? I think it was just culture that I was looking for. I mean, we had, there was a satellite dish that kind of half worked. There was one channel that we got from Vancouver.

So I didn't have much access to TV, really. Music? There was, they sold. CDs at the gas station in town and there was like a drug store where they sold some CDs so I was listening to music but I'll tell you the first thing that really got my attention

and it still is something that's a massive passion of mine is film and you had to really go off island to see movies we had a little movie house that would run one or two movies a month you know they would sometimes change weekly but I had a friend's mom

that would take us off island to go see just to go see movies and that just getting a taste of that like stepping into movie theaters and multiplexes and like knowing that there was like so much out there was really inspiring to me and I just became like a little sort of film nut first and foremost even before I kind of was getting into into music but it was culture that I wanted and that I needed and there was just enough there on the island I mean we did have a community theater we had our little movie theater and, you know, our little movie rental spots and whatnot. But it was those things that, like, sustained me as small as they were.

Yeah, I get that. I completely get that. And it's so interesting that you hear from a lot of performers, whether whatever part of the arts they're in, that film did that to them. And I think film is very important for young people as well to see film, to see art. There's a very good book.

I know about all of that as well. But for young people to see what else is out there and to open their mind. And it's the same as reading. I love reading books. Yeah, and that's what I also, that was then the other link that I sort of had to the outside world was just books. And I had them always with me wherever I went and was just a massive, a massive reader. And it's stumbling on those things accidentally that you find that really change your life. It's this, you know, strange, you know, accidentally, like, catching Barton Fink by Cohen Brothers,

like when I was, you know, 12 years old that, like, just blew my mind. It's those things that you sort of accidentally stumble upon that stick with you. And then I have this theory that, like, all those things growing up that affected you in your development, all those things that you're fascinated by from the time that you're three till you're 16. As a creative person, I feel like you're constantly going back to all of that stuff

and trying to repurpose it and recreate it in various ways. Oh, that's interesting. The case for me, and I think for a lot of other people, I think those things and those years are so important for what it is that you've taken in.

And I just think you keep going back to that well and there's no way around it. And I think that's, I don't know, That's just how I've always felt about it. That's so interesting. But then you went off and you did to try and break in and you were dancing. And I love the sort of the stories of you dancing. And I think somebody put it as go go dancing and all that.

Ran off to New York. I ran off to New York when I was 20, you know. I knew I'd tried out Los Angeles for a year of college. It wasn't right for me. I'd been out since I was 15 years old. And like so it was strange at that. time in the 90s, it was like there weren't a lot of other really young people my age that were out.

In LA. Adjusted anywhere, really. A lot of times I would meet other gay teenagers, but they would just be having a lot more problems than I was necessarily going through a lot more. Or, you know, I was just really lucky that somehow I was able to sort of, I was pretty well adjusted. By the time I was 18 years old, I was like, fine with it. I was ready to take on the world, but other gay 18-year-olds my age weren't necessarily in that same spot.

So that was difficult. But when I moved to New York, when I got to New York when I was 20, the world really just opened up in an even bigger way. And it was just a magical time. Like the possibilities seemed endless. Just being in New York and being sort of lost there in a way and not knowing what it was I was going to. be doing why I was there. Lost in an exciting way? Yeah. Yeah, you could just end up anywhere on any random night and meet any cool person that could sort of take you. I was just so open to wherever things were going to take me. And it was a very exciting time. I'm one of my favorite

TV shows of recent years was Pose. And I have this picture of you. I just, I love, love that show and Billy Porter and all of that. But I sort of picture And I know it's many years earlier than that, but Studio 54. And I imagine a sort of amalgamation of those worlds that that was the 90s in New York in a way. It was so funny because by the time I showed up there, showed up in 99 in New York. Past all of those years. Everybody was telling me it was dead. No.

I got to New York and everybody was telling me that, you know, too bad you weren't here a few years ago because the city's really just nothing like it used to be. it's over, it's done. Giuliani had come in, he'd cleaned up Times Square. And I've always just thought that was really interesting to realize that everyone was so wrong. And actually, there was a whole other wave of New York that was happening and about to happen in a really big way.

And I always feel like I'm always suspicious when people say that kind of thing. I always think in my head, and at the time, I would get a real chip on my shoulder and be like, well, what are you doing about it? That's so interesting. I feel like that about TV because people always say, it's not like the golden age. No, now can be the golden age. It just changes and evolves and grows.

Yeah, you just have to, you've got to do something. Like, if you're not doing anything, you're sitting there, you know, complaining about it. So what did you do to make that world for you? You said it was exciting and magical. Anything. I was just getting up. going to these weird open mic nights. I got pulled in by a bunch of kids in the experimental theater wing at NYU and started

getting put in their plays. So I was doing these plays at Tish at NYU that I wasn't even going to NYU. But I was still like in these. So how did that happen? It just did. Like I just met this person who introduced me to this person. Next thing I know, I was like in this whole gang of like, of, you know, improv students. And like, in these plays.

And I didn't, that, I was just doing it and having a good time. Oh my God, that's amazing. But it was, it's interesting because it's just like this leads to that, leads to that. That got me sort of comfortable, like improvising, sort of just being wacky with these kids. And, you know, just finding any, just anything to do, throwing parties. I can look in your eyes that you suddenly had a memory of throwing parties. throwing pot ah you suddenly went there for a second totally um and and and and then just then sort of accidentally kind of writing songs with my friends and then being like oh maybe let's go sing this

somewhere wouldn't that be funny it's a really silly song accidental really is anything an Accidentally, meaning we were just doing it to be goofy. The first song that Baby Daddy from Scissors and I ever wrote was called Bicycle of the Devil. And it was a ridiculous song. It is not anything I would sing now. I think it would probably offend a lot of people. But it made us laugh. Like we thought it was hilarious.

So we just thought it would be really funny to get up on a, on a little stage and sing it and make people smile. And that's so that, yeah, accidentally. And then we just kept sort of doing that. We kept making more songs that were making us laugh. And then suddenly there were ideas for better songs that were sort of more rooted in emotion and sort of rooted in life. And next thing, you know, like we had a band and we became Scissors Sisters.

So that transition, I mean, because also you talk about, you know, some very down times that you've had. But yeah, when you talk about the past and the present and the future, because we know about cabaret as well now, and I'm sure there'll be more out more, more and more from you, that your eyes light up, that you get excited by life. So even when you've been really, really down, I still get the feeling that you were excited by life. I can be completely wrong. No, you're right. I do get, people say that to me sometimes when I'm talking about something that I, you know, that I'm working on sometimes or that I care about or that I'm excited about. Like, I do get excited by.

Love it. talking about things and thinking about them and even when I am down I mean God like this I got to say like this this last month has been one of the hardest months of my life really just been oh I'm sorry it's been so tough and just flat like sometimes I'll sit there and be like I am feeling as flat as I possibly could. But, you know, even then, I just have to remember that it's just not always going to feel like that. I'm not going to, it's not going to be that forever. And you can do that for yourself, even in those flattest times.

Do my best. And even like earlier I was, you know, just talking a few minutes ago about, about, you know, I've been so cranky. I think that flatness has made me cranky. and I find myself complaining about things and grousing about things and calling up my friends and grousing about this or that or something.

Not necessarily for me. No, but I mean for people, for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's just important to sit there and recognize that it's happening. Good for you, but that is very powerful. And be like, I'm grousing. Yeah.

I'm being cranky and just to look at it and realize, oh, that's something I can shift again and it's time to maybe think about that and shift out of that. So I don't know. Yeah, I do. I'm very passionate. I get very excited. I'm just a passionate person.

But that's, I love, I mean, but that comes out in your music as well. And the way you perform your music. And my favorite thing, though, is like, wait, I've made this, I've made this musical this last year with, with Rupert Gould and James Graham, Elton John, Tammy Faye. Tammy Fay Baker. And, you know, when we are in the heat of it, when we are brainstorming and arguing our points and stuff, that's my favorite. When, like, I will get so, I will get so excited. Passionate. I will grab shit and throw it across the room.

You know, I will throw notebooks. But I'm laughing while I'm doing this. But, like, I just get to overcome with, yeah, just that sort of intention. I mean, well, let's, you've mentioned it, so let's talk about time of fake. Because, and I've interviewed you before, and when you talked about it, I can just see how excited that makes you as well. I'm going to, I know I've used the word excited. I'm going to keep using it. I like the word.

I think excited is good. Yeah. But, and hopefully there's going to, is that going on? Are we going to see it? Oh, we are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can talk about it. Well, I mean, I can say that it's going to have a life.

I can't give any details on it. But it is. going to happen. Yeah, it's overwhelming to think about. But yeah, it's got, it's definitely going to have, it's so strange with musicals, you know, they can go any which way. But hold on, you, Rupert, and sorry, Elton, you know, it's got quite a good background of people to, you know. Yeah, you knock on wood. I mean, it's, I love the show so much. But it's, it's, it's, musicals are just such, their long-term projects. But that's what I mean. You, you guys are not exactly non-war. You're not hard workers. You know what you're doing.

You're focused and you're passionate about it. So putting you guys together, I can't imagine it not working. Also, that every single person that saw that show said it was one of the greatest things they'd ever seen. So that's why I'm delighted that it's going. I'm stoked. I'm stoked to keep seeing it. I mean, it would be my dream to have a show in the, you know, in the canon and the sort of musical. theater canon would be awesome. I mean, there's songs. I just, I fantasize about like, you know,

those NYU theater students singing some of these for their auditions, you know, into whatever. Like I, oh, that's such a lovely thought. I think about those things. Like when, like, will, the 19-year-old Tish student sing this when, you know, when they're auditioning for this other piece or whatever. Like, is that what this song will be? And I sort of fantasize about those things. What was your audition song? I don't think I've ever had one. You've never had to audition. My life has been my addition song. So when you go for the musicals, you just sing the song from the musicals? Yeah, well, I never, I guess I've never, um, I'm kind of thinking back. I've never really, you know, you know,

never had to do an audition song. No, because I've never really sought out to be in, theater's always sort of fallen in my lap even though it's been like a passion of mine it's not uh yeah i've i've never like I'm trying to think I've done TV auditions and stuff to go onto shows you know but I've never gone into like a and sung a song for an audition I can't believe you never had an audition song

you don't need one of course because you're you're even those days so I love that you're thinking of the actors who are coming up and that they're going to use your songs. That I find, what a wonderful way to look at it. That's so inclusive. You just hope. You know, you fantasize about what this is going to, where stuff can go.

Like, what is it going to be the diaspora of this work? You know, and you just, I try to, like, think of those things and have, you know, visions for them. If I'm writing songs, you know, you have fantasies about where they might go or where someone might hear it. Do you feel like that about, So the album that's out now and is fantastic and you're playlisted on Radio 2 again,

which is amazing with Last Man Dancing. It's been great. When you're writing those songs, do you look at them in the same way? The people who are going to listen to it and sing along to it and dance to it? I get excited about thinking about people hearing them. I think it's funny with back in the scissors days, right,

If I thought too hard about the audience itself, it can sort of make you freeze. Why then? But not as of you as a performer. Why would that make you freeze? I guess because the pressure was so high back in Cesar's just days, right? You know, I don't have that kind of pressure anymore. I mean, it was just different days when we were, you know, pushing CDs and, you know, 20 years ago. And there's other there.

So it's not just you. It's you got to make sure everyone's okay. Yeah, and it's a little bit, it's a lot less pressure now, which I like. And when I'm making, when I'm making songs, I get very excited to play them for my friends and to play them at parties. But I also love making stuff that just gets me super excited that I love listening to. Good. And this album, you know, I just played it to death because I'm, you know,

was always doing tiny tweaks on it, the sound design of it I'm really proud of. Like it just sounds, it's like a sort of an audio journey. There's so much detail in it that I'm really proud of. But it's funny when you put a record out, when I put a record out, you say goodbye to ever listening to it again. I'll never listen to this record again. And it's... Really?

But even when you have to perform it? You sing it. But you don't listen to it. But you'll never really... Every five to ten years, I will put it. I will put it back on and listen to something from front to back. And it's really weird. It's like remembering a dream or something.

But it's kind of one of the sad things about putting out a record or a piece like this is that when you hand it over, it's just like, you know, it's not really yours anymore. And yeah, I just never, I'll never listen to it again. That's fascinating. I suppose a lot of people would do the same because is it, is it also? a case of, oh, I've done that now. That's done. Is it, do you,

do you, is it a closing off? Or is it a moving on? I think you're just giving it away and it's just not yours. It's just not you anymore. Like for, when you're working on something like that, whether, even it's a musical, I remember when Tammy Fay was just getting ready to open, whatever, it just feels like such a part of your identity.

It's yours. You're hanging on to it. It's like, it, it really is something. It is part of like who you are. and then you sort of You have to let go Let it go It's really depressing

I mean God the day after Tammy opened I was just inconsolable I wouldn't get off the couch It was just so yes Well it's that come down from the excitement Definitely yeah And that wasn't so bad with this album I didn't get it so bad

With Last Man Dancing I didn't have time to I was just like Nonstop Going really hard yeah So With everything that you do, I hope you're never going to pigeon yourself, pigeonhole yourself, ever, because there's so much that you can do now. I mean, it's sort of, it's, you can touch everything and they're all possible.

And I get the feeling that I hope that you're not quite sure that, but I hope you know it. Does that make sense? Yeah. And it's, it's, I have so many dreams and, and. and fantasy is always going on in my head at one time. Yeah, I feel like I just want to do as much as possible. I want to like, I just want to get to the end of my life. You know, my dad turns 95 this year.

It's his and my mom's 50th anniversary this summer. And I look at my father and he was born in 1928 and has just had the most incredible life where he taught himself how to do what. whatever he wanted to teach himself, whether it was flying planes, plane engineering, whether it was racing horses, doing race cars, learning how to sew leather. He just, and he taught himself how to do all of it. He didn't, he never. He taught himself how to fly a plane.

Yes. Yeah, when he was 16, 17 years old. As you do. Yeah, what he was doing was he was, he was. He was working at the Palm Springs Air Strip when he was a teenager, and he would get $15 a week plus, I think, an hour of flying lessons at the end of that week. So by the time he was 17, he had his pilot's license. But he's just had this extraordinary life and is now 95 years old and can just look back and, you know, thinking of all the things that he's done. It's kind of mind-blowing.

and I look up to him as sort of, that's what I wanted be, is 95 and, you know, just looking back at all of the things and knowing that I did everything that I wanted to do. Jake, I cannot for one second think that that won't be your life. Knock on wood, you never know, you know, life, you never know what life is going to throw to you. But even if, even if a bus hit me today or whatever. No, hopefully it doesn't. Hopefully it doesn't, but I would be, you know, I've got no regrets so far. Oh, so please. Oh, you're wonderful.

Just I need to spend every day of my life with you. That's it. My husband's out of the house with coming and moving in. My girls love you. I'm a fun hang on the sofa. You know, I am. I've got great tasted movies. And you love Chorus Line, the musical.

I love Chorus Line. I love Chorus Line. I am down. I'm one of those people that I am like, I will, I love just. sitting on a couch for like 72 hours. I work so hard. 72 hours. I will just hang out. I just won't even want to go outside.

Do you eat? Yeah. What are you eating on this? You're hanging out for 72 hours. You know, try to be healthy-ish, but maybe some like bad foods too. You know, but I do love totally being a couch potato. And I think it's all about balance. Life is about balance.

I'm constantly thinking about balance. like in everything. I think that's, you know, that's the key. Jake, thank you. And break a leg with the MC. You're going to just be wonderful. I will be there cheering you on. Thank you for having me, Abby. Isn't he fabulous? Oh, we love Jake. And I cannot wait to see him and self-esteem in cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, the Playhouse Theatre in London. Look out for our bonus show and tell episode with Jake, which will drop this Friday. And remember to subscribe and follow the podcast from wherever you listen. Thank you.

I'll be back next week with another episode of Reasons to Be Joyful, and I hope you can join me then.