Biography
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Born
3 October 1978 (age 45)
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Born In
Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States
Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards on October 3, 1977 in Arizona) is the vocalist for the American alternative music group the Scissor Sisters.
Sellards attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. When Sellards was 19, he traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to visit a classmate, who introduced him to Scott Hoffman (Babydaddy). Sellards and Hoffman hit it off immediately and, a year later, both moved to New York.
In New York, Sellards attended Eugene Lang College, where he studied fiction writing, and wrote pieces for the gay magazine HX. For a while, Sellards was a fixture on the New York gay and electroclash scene, as well as a stripper in alternative gay bars (including the legendary IC-Guyz).
Sellards and Hoffman formed the Scissor Sisters in 2002 as a kind of performance art lark, playing outrageous shows in clubs like Luxx, the heart of the electroclash scene in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Sellards lived. After a couple years struggling in New York (working with record label A Touch of Class, who produced Comfortably Numb and Filthy/Gorgeous), the Sisters finally found success in the UK/Ireland - ending 2004 with the biggest-selling album of the year in the UK.
In concert, Shears is known for provocative dancing and often going near-nude, hearkening back to his former occupation as a stripper. He, along with his band, has become especially popular in the GLBT community.
Shears, as well as fellow band members Babydaddy and Del Marquis, are openly gay.
Shears performs with Erasure's Andy Bell on Thought It Was You, on Bell's 2005 album Electric Blue.
He has also collaborated with Tiga, and wrote the hit single, I Believe In You, for Kylie Minogue with Babydaddy.
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