Proud to be camp rock band the Scissor Sisters are back with a new album and a world tour.

The band's flamboyant female singer Ana Matronic tells Matthew Jenkin why Elton John is usually right, what it was like performing with Kylie and why the gay community is so important to their music.

WHEN a queen tells you to can months of hard work, you do as you’re told. So when Elton John ordered the Scissor Sisters to scrap what was intended to be their third album, the band knew what they had to do.

“Elton only confirmed what we all knew, which was we weren’t finished yet,” says Ana Matronic — the band’s lone female singer.

She said: “Despite being ready to get back out there and play shows, I knew the material wasn't all there.

“It was really good advice and when Elton gives his opinion, he's usually right.”

But after frontman Jake Shears went in search of inspiration in the Berlin club scene, the upbeat and devilishly dirty album Night Work was born.

The glamour pusses who sprang from the seedy bars of New York’s East Village are at their flamboyant best live in concert and are currently on a world tour, visiting The O2 Arena in December.

But since they stormed the charts back in 2004, Lady GaGa has raised the bar for performers putting on a big budget arena show.

So has the new queen of pop stolen a little of the band’s camp thunder?

“I don’t think she’s stolen anything,” Ana laughs.

“She has actually cited us as an influence.

“I feel very proud we’ve inspired people to delve into their freaky sides.”

Ana and the Scissor Sisters share GaGa’s love of the theatrical, as well as a fetish for gender bending — a passion which clearly stems from the band’s origins in the New York gay scene.

Even the name of the band is a cheeky reference to a lesbian sexual position.

She said: “I identify myself as queer, even though I am married to a man.

“The gay community is very important and inspiring to all of us.

“It’s where we come from and it’s where we return to.”

Gay fans are notoriously loyal — Judy Garland still has a thriving fanbase almost 40 years after her death — so when the band returned to the Glastonbury festival in June, they knew a performance with Kylie Minogue would send their fans wild.

Ana said: “Sharing the stage with Kylie was a blast.

“I had no idea how much fun it was going to be until I got a load of her outfit.

“She's so much fun. If you were to look up bubbly in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Kylie Minogue.”

Despite enjoying a quick on-stage snog with the pint-sized pop princess, what really made Ana’s heart flutter was her 2005 collaboration with her musical heroes New Order on their single Jetstream.

She said: “It was incredible. New Order were a very important band for me growing up and took me outside my suburban setting in Portland, Oregon.

“If the future me had visited that 15-year-old me and said I would do a song with them, I think I would have passed out.

“I still to this day pinch myself that I got to do that.”

Scissor Sisters: Night Work tour. The O2 Arena, Greenwich. December 15. Call 0844 8110051 or visit theo2.co.uk