Did you basically invent Berlin? Were you part of a high-impact genre of music spearheaded by women and women-identifying fronted bands? Have you flailed on stage in PVC knickers, flown in on a gold cape, or a beard, or worn a capelet made of tits? Have you fucked with the idea of gender long before it was a thing, questioned authority, got everyone going, and rocked out with Iggy Pop? Because Peaches has.
The Teaches of Peaches was released twenty years ago! You recorded it in your bedroom in Toronto on a Roland MC-505. I’m guessing that’s not how you work now?
Peaches: It was very much of the time, and of the mindset. I wanted to use this machine that had eight sounds to work with. I wasn’t interested in making layers of sound or having infinite possibilities, because I wanted to be able to produce it myself. Keeping it in that box helped restrict me.
The philosophy of the album was to be maximal with the impact and minimal with the sound. So in the same way that a punk band would use drums – kick, snare, crash, hi-hat, bass, guitar – I wanted that to be the approach to the electronics.
What have you been doing for the past twenty years?
Have you released five albums, numerous art shows (including recreating Yoko Ono’s groundbreaking Cut Piece), released books, a semi-biographical concert, a film, had your tits cast by Cynthia Plaster Caster (RIP), played the entirety of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar as a solo show, appeared in The L Word and Transparent, and also created an iconic song with just a few simple drum sounds and a guitar – a song with no radio play and no video?
Do you work in a similar minimal way now?
Peaches: There are infinite possibilities. It was a different time and a different way back then – it will never have that sort of… you can make a roughness now, but it’s changed. Like anything has changed. Like when you write and you have a certain way of writing, and then you change because you’ve done that. It’s a way of growing.
What feels subversive in 2022?
Peaches: It depends where you’re looking. The universe and attitudes are all expanding exponentially in every direction, all the time. So we can pick what’s controversial and what’s not, and that might be something in one second and then change for you.
Going back to the electroclash era – it very much happened in real life. It wasn’t online.
Peaches: I made the first album in Toronto, where I was very weird. I had no idea what electroclash was. I’d play my music for people and they’d say it sounds like Chicks on Speed, or Miss Kittin, or Le Tigre. But I had no idea who they were – these zeitgeist groups who were having a good time with technology and writing empowered, direct lyrics. They were all women or women-identified. I don’t know any other genre like that.
What were people’s reactions to you in Toronto? Intrigued?
Peaches: Intrigued is the right word. There would be people standing there being like, what is this? Art? Music? Should I dance? Leave? Also I liked to fuck around with people – play air guitar and then pick up an actual guitar.
What is your favourite moment on The Teaches of Peaches?
Peaches: If I can be more general, I’ve had to recreate all the songs on my machine for the tour. It blows my mind that I’ll go to program the verse of a song, and the verse is one bass note and a snare. And the chorus is like, add a cymbal. That’s it.
It’s such a great exercise in life to see how minimal you can be with how much impact. Cutting out the noise but making it really loud.
Did it feel at the time that it would have an impact?
Peaches: I had no idea. I just thought it felt good to me and I was excited to play it. But I had no expectations in that way. I wanted to do music full time. I’d visited Berlin and a small label – who hadn’t even heard the songs, only experimental jams – signed me for like 4000 Deutschmarks.
This label, Kitty-Yo, sent out the track to so many different kinds of people who had immediate reactions – from electronic dance fans to popstars to punk bands. In each area people understood it. They were classic sounds but with a punky edge and this riot grrrl message. It was at the apex of things people could understand.
How will you excite and arouse the crowds now?
Peaches: Hey, you saw me at Trash – you know it’s not a problem. All I need is a pair of knickers and a mic. I am planning a lot of things, and I’m making conscious choices not to do some things. But if someone said, you gotta do the show tomorrow, I’d just take my knickers and go.
How do you feel about playing the songs again? I guess you couldn’t imagine singing those songs 20 years later…
Peaches: It’s a head fuck, you know. It’s like visiting an ex and being like, let’s go back in time! The message is still pertinent. And the music sounds great!
The twentieth anniversary tour of The Teaches of Peaches starts June 10.
Are you a spiritual person? That was a pretty cosmic answer.
Peaches: I do believe in the universe telling you things and you being open to it. Because that has happened to me – those wow, this is where it should go moments. But I’m not like MANIFEST NOW MANIFEST NOW. I don’t have a mood board. I think I could benefit from it, but I’m somewhat cranky about doing that kind of thing – in the same way I’m cranky about making budgets.
I like spontaneity and how things evolve through interactions. I like interacting with people in terms of understanding philosophy and where you’re at – people with different skills who have the same mindset. That’s been a lot of how I’ve evolved what I’ve done. When I started I had a certain mindset, and it drew people who said, I’m about that too, check me out. I think that is very important.
You have broken a lot of barriers with your work, and it spans visual art, music, performance. Do you feel you have to create all the time?
Peaches: In terms of music, I don’t write every day. It’s more project-based. I don’t know if I would say creating is a compulsion. It’s more that I need to do what I want to do, and when I get into it, I do it.
It’s not like [growls] I have to do something, grrr grrr.