Peaches

Photography by Suzana Holtgrave Interview by Nicola Phillips Production by Marcel Schlutt + Nico Sutor Styling by Anita Krizanovic Hair and make up by Timo Bloom Set Assistant Vivian Mönch

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Pe a ches BLOODY HELL!

Leather mask by Marina Hoermanseder Body by DSTM

For almost two decades Peaches has deservedly earned the title of Queen of electroclash. Brushing away stereotypes, gender norms and presenting her own philosophy, whether it be in an Abe Lincoln hat with matching beard, sequined hot pants, golden jumpsuit topped off with a dildo, or a dress adorned with several dozen breasts, performance artist and musician Merrill Nisker worked on new album ‘Rub’ with Vice cooler, follow up to 2009’s

‘I Feel Cream’, with a last minute appearance at YOSISSY! Festival, Berlin this year before her extensive ‘Rub’ tour. As the cover star of our new ‘Rough It Up’ collection we couldn’t think of a more fitting spokesperson to express freedom of expression, having your own agenda, and being proud of being whoever the fuck you want to be.

You’ve been living in Berlin for years now, what persuaded you to move in the first place?

I was travelling around Europe and Berlin seemed like a cool place, it had some really weird underground places. I went to one place, which is now a Pan Asian food spot, and there was just people doing kind of, whatever they wanted in this space, and they let me perform there, and I dunno, it just seemed like a place that was open and it had a lot of potential where I could enjoy myself.

Do you think it still has potential now?

Hell yeah! Way more. You can still find crazy shit and do whatever you want. People complain, but they shouldn’t because there’s way worse cities you could be in. There’s things you can do here that you can’t anywhere else. Even some of the clubs. I recently went to a night at Kit-Cat Club, it’s incredible. Even for the sheer fact that they’ll let you drink out of a glass by a pool! You can’t do that anywhere else, nevermind have sex and do whatever you want, wherever you want. Or you know, act any way that you want. Even in L.A. you can’t swim in the pool without a shirt on, or naked, you have to have the proper bathing suit on or they’ll kick you out. No glassware, no running. It’s just the tolerance here, there’s no hysteria, it’s like if something happens then we’ll work on it. It’s not like, “Oh my god! Somebody’s in the pool naked!”. You know? I remember that night, some guy was just riding his bike and fell off. No one was like, “have you got insurance?”. Five people just got him back up and sent him on his way. People just want to live. Let’s not call the police on each other.

Did you record the new album ‘Rub’ here in Berlin?

No, in L.A. I’m living between there and Berlin. I’ve lived in Berlin for around 15 years now, but I bought a little house over in L.A. with a garage, and that’s where I recorded it.

This album, like the last, doesn’t have any guitars in it, is there a reason for that?

We did try some guitar, it just didn’t work. There was actually this really good song that I did with Nick Zinner together, and it wasn’t actually that we didn’t love it, but Adult Swim they do the Summer Singles so we were like, okay maybe we can work on that song, so we did and it ended up being really good. So that’s got a lot of guitars in it, but it’s not on the album.

Could you tell me a little about your book?

There was a photographer, Holger Talinski, he was fresh out of photography school and just a skater kid, and just started getting into taking pictures at shows, and then more and more he asked if he could take a picture of me smoking a joint, a picture of me sleeping, a picture of me meeting my parents, you know, just pictures like that. So over four years we had a big collection and started editing them together, because I can’t you know, just let him do what he wanted to do, but I let him insert my aesthetic too which was important because I’m the subject of the book. We had a very different aesthetic actually, because a lot of the pictures he took were not completely in focus, but I just thought that they captured something real and something raw. And he really liked the technical aspect, so it was really good to work together and I think we understood each other after laying tonnes of pictures on the living room floor, going over and over, “Why don’t you like this one?” he would ask. We never really fought but we definitely had different opinions.

Were there thousands of photos?

Yeah! There are still thousands, and sometimes now I’ll say “Hey, do you have that picture of me in that purple jacket?” or whatever it is, and then we’ll look at it and think, “Fuck, why 64

I love how he’s captured every single concert you played and caught nearly every single moment on stage and behind it.

Yeah and you know, beyond backstage, the duality of the human and the superhuman.

Do you think you’d allow him to continue his work?

Erm, I mean he has started to take a few more pictures of me. I think it’s nothing that you want to force.

I read the part in your book about Yoko Ono on her 80th birthday, that must have been incredible!

She came to Berlin with The Plastic Ono band to do a concert, and they asked me to pick my favourite Yoko song so that we could perform it. I thought that, you know, there would be other people asked to do this but I was the only one. That was really bizarre. And then she asked me to do the ‘Cut Piece’, which is almost 50 years old. She originally did it in 1965. It’s incredible because it’s a very, very strong piece that’s lasted a long time. You think it’s such a simple idea, but then if you’re involved in it, it’s incredibly powerful.

Did Yoko approach you personally to do it?

Yeah, she asked me to do it for Meltdown festival that she was curating. It’s funny because I’m so in your face and in control of everything, so this is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been on stage. I didn’t move at all, I didn’t talk at all. And I actually got a performance from the audience because people were coming up and approach me, some people would cut off parts of their clothes and offer it to me, people wanted to talk to me about stuff, people would be perverted and cut particular areas of my clothing away. And the audience would also respond to all of this happening too.

Was this the first time that you’ve been involved in performance art in this way?

I find what I do is very close to performance art, and I don’t get shy about it and I think that it’s important, but that’s the first time that I was still and quiet on stage.

Did you ever think that you’d be this big of an influence?

I never really thought about having a musical career. I just thought about combining music, like Riot Grrrl and electro, and making it this electronic rock force. This really strong, good repetitive force. I was just trying to experiment with all of these different things, and then it just seemed to be a gateway into the next 15 years of music. And attitudes too! And also when I was expressing, it was with not just sexuality. Basically my philosophy, or whatever you want to call it, is just to make sure people feel comfortable in their body, whatever body that is. Whatever combination of femininity or masculinity they have, without being bullied or feeling ashamed or feeling like they have to hide it. There’s so many things in our world, religion, sociological pathways in jobs and politics, that take us away from this. And this is the most important thing that we need to know, you just need to be yourself. I wanted to be myself, so that’s the way I like to express it.

I like that you’ve expressed your philosophy in this entire rock opera of yours too.

Yeah, ‘Peaches Does Herself’. I actually, after high school, went to theatre school, I wanted to be a theatre director. I wanted to make cool musical, like The Who’s ‘Tommy’ or ‘Phantom of the Paradise’, ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’, the cool ones. And then I quickly got very disillusioned with theatre, it’s kind of always like a step back, and also working with so many people I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to focus on what I wanted to do, like getting the actor to do this, or getting the lighting correct.

“Basically my philosophy, or whatever you want to call it, is just to make sure people feel comfortable in their body, whatever body that is.”

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Body by DSTM

So I quit. And then I found music, and I experimented and then I happened upon Peaches, where I continued for ten years and then a theatre asked me to do a production, which was really funny because I never thought about making a cool musical again. And then I was like, “Oh! There’s my cool musical!”, the sort of research of what I’ve done the past ten years during all of my performances and what I’ve said, my iconography. So it was quite exciting to do that. And who doesn’t want a cool musical?

Would you do another musical, or performance type piece?

I don’t know, I’m really enjoying making the videos for the album. I mean, I’ve made videos for every album, and my first album I made seven using Super8 so they were really like performance pieces. It’s really fun this time around because I have my own record company now, and it’s my own money, but it’s even more like there’s no infrastructure for where videos should take place. They’re just short films that you want to do. You can go as hardcore as you want.

Do you have any ideas for your next videos?

Yeah I’ve already done six for the new album. The girl in the video with the laser for a butt plug, that was Empress Stah.It was all her act and she asked me to write a song for it. I wrote the song and then I asked if I could make a video for it.

Will all of your videos have a theme running through them?

I’m trying to make them have some sort of connection, but there’s so many different ways of working. It’s even incredible that I’ll get them out before the album is released because the last album took two years for all the videos, so yeah. But the whole thing probably won’t be a cohesive movie or something.

Hollywood tends to be ageist towards women, do you think the music industry is similar?

Fuck yeah! I think that Hollywood is fighting back in a really good way though. Like Meryl Streep has started a new foundation for women over 40 to screenwrite. So you know, things like that are really cool. And I think that now women who have power are doing really cool things with it, it’s getting better, but it’s still like a bit weird. This comedienne, she was like “Remember when Sally Field was Tom Hanks’ girlfriend and all of a sudden she was Tom Hanks’ mother?” You know like, the men get to stay young. Let’s say some young actor is in his 20s, then he’s 45 but the women are still in their 20s, it’s just like a weird standard that doesn’t make any sense. It perpetuates this image of women in this certain way.

Have you gotten into Amy Schumer at all? She’s a really great comedienne and she did this one skit on her TV show called “The Last Fuckable Day”, with Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette. Amy happens upon them while they’re all sitting down celebrating something, and she’s like “Wow, I love all ya’ll, what are you doing?” and Tina is like, “Oh well, we’re just celebrating Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Last Fuckable Day!” and of course, she asks what it is. “Oh you know, it’s the day where Hollywood tells you that you’re not fuckable anymore”. Julia is just sat there, looking all excited, saying how she’s going to stay home and knit, and she’s looking forward to it. Amy asks, “Does this happen to men?”, and they all just started laughing like she’s crazy. I relate a lot to female comediennes, especially the older ones. They’re kicking ass at the moment with their cutting humour.

Would you do another collaborative type project, like the one you did with The Flaming Lips?

Yeah I mean I love doing side projects, like the Peaches Christ Superstar thing. It’s good. It keeps you going. I like doing other projects on the side because I can go back to what I was doing and enjoy it more.

Out of all of your videos and tours, do you have a favourite outfit?

I like a lot of outfits of mine. I really like the pink leather outfit, that’s got really big shoulders almost like teeth. Yeah, I really like that. I like walking on people wearing that.