Speaker 1: And then after a year I was not interested in
Speaker 1: being in a folk band. I was like, I want
Speaker 1: to do more than that.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of casual
Speaker 2: interviews with leading musicians, published weekly at midnight to suit
Speaker 2: these informal and often under researched conversations. This week's episode
Speaker 2: is hosted by me Stuart Stubbs, editor of Loud and
Speaker 2: Quiet magazine. Joining me on episode one hundred and seven
Speaker 2: of the podcast is artist, musician, theater maker, electroclash pioneer
Speaker 2: and queer icon Peaches. Peaches started making music in her
Speaker 2: home city of Toronto in nineteen eighty nine in a
Speaker 2: folk group called Mermaid Cafe, but it was in the
Speaker 2: year two thousand when she really became the artist we
Speaker 2: know her as today, releasing her seminal debut album, The
Speaker 2: Teaches of Peaches. She originally intended to be a director
Speaker 2: of musical theater and physical performance, as all always been
Speaker 2: a big part of her shows, where she often jumps
Speaker 2: into the crowd and quite frankly, freaks a lot of
Speaker 2: people out. Peaches spoke to me from her home in Berlin,
Speaker 2: a city she first visited with previous Midnight Chats guest
Speaker 2: Chili Gonzales, an old friend of her since her early
Speaker 2: days back in Toronto, where the pair also used to
Speaker 2: play in a band called The Shit. A link to
Speaker 2: the film that I mention that features early footage of
Speaker 2: the two of them playing in Berlin is below this
Speaker 2: podcast in the show notes, along with links to a
Speaker 2: few of the other things that we cover. I'm not
Speaker 2: exactly sure when a new Peaches album will be, but
Speaker 2: in the meantime, she has recently dropped a new single
Speaker 2: made for Lockdown called Pussy Mask. There's also a link
Speaker 2: to the illustrated video for that track below. There's only
Speaker 2: one Peaches, and here she is on episode one hundred
Speaker 2: and seven of Midnight Chats. Have you been living in
Speaker 2: Berlin since essentially the first time you went there in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: Ish, Yeah, I have. I moved to LA for a while.
Speaker 1: I've moved to early a few times, Like in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. I was there for a year, just
Speaker 1: you know, making my album, and then I got a
Speaker 1: place in LA and I was there, you know, for
Speaker 1: a few years, making rub and considering living there and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But I got pulled back in to Berlin.
Speaker 2: You've got pulled back to Berlin. There's a few years
Speaker 2: ago I saw when it came out. I think it
Speaker 2: was a couple of years ago, the Chilly Gonzales film
Speaker 2: Shut Up and Played the Piano. Within that, there's some great,
Speaker 2: really early footage of you and him in Berlin playing
Speaker 2: in some like basement venues and things. What year with
Speaker 2: what years would that have been?
Speaker 1: When the two thousand, two thousand and one?
Speaker 2: Sure, and that was like the first time that you
Speaker 2: arrived in the city, right, because he had been living.
Speaker 1: Well, we lived, we arrived. We actually were visiting in
Speaker 1: like nineteen ninety eight. We first visited and then he
Speaker 1: moved there and I went back home. I had a
Speaker 1: job and couldn't just move. But yeah, we visited there
Speaker 1: and then came back. Made my first album in Canada
Speaker 1: in Toronto.
Speaker 2: What do you remember from that time? And from those
Speaker 2: early shows they looked wild and exciting and great. What
Speaker 2: was That's what it was.
Speaker 1: It was just it was just like no holds bar
Speaker 1: and who who gives a fuck? It's just like, let's
Speaker 1: you know, whoever was playing, everybody else would just join,
Speaker 1: Oh can I come with join on stage in your show?
Speaker 1: You know? Friends that were, you know, performing and things
Speaker 1: like that. It was always like, you know, like a
Speaker 1: gang kind of feel like a group, fun thing to do,
Speaker 1: or even if you were alone, it was just there
Speaker 1: was never a sort of like a set a set.
Speaker 1: It was just let's see what happens. You know. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, exploring with my groovebox the and I always
Speaker 1: had the beats programs, but I could always like you know,
Speaker 1: mix them and shift them whatever way I wanted to,
Speaker 1: and it just gave a sense of it was more
Speaker 1: about an energy and spontaneity, which was really exciting.
Speaker 2: Would this has been the time that you and Chillie
Speaker 2: were in the band The Ship or is this post
Speaker 2: that band?
Speaker 1: Definitely post that The Ship was in Canada and I
Speaker 1: was very me and Chili con Cells and Machi. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know. Maki did a lot of
Speaker 1: production for fives. He worked with Kalai, He's done a
Speaker 1: lot of it, makes his own beautiful albums. And another
Speaker 1: girl named Sticky. I was friends with this girl, Sticky,
Speaker 1: and we were very dissatisfied with our own bands. And
Speaker 1: she said, I know these two guys and one is
Speaker 1: my neighbor and he has like a jam space in
Speaker 1: his basement, so can we all jam? And I didn't
Speaker 1: even know them, and we jammed, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be in an all girl band, so I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want jam with boys or whatever. But it
Speaker 1: was really fun. We just got super high and then
Speaker 1: started to switch instruments, which I'd never done before. I
Speaker 1: had never played like keyboards. They're like, here's keyboards. I
Speaker 1: was like, WHOA like a kind of I was called
Speaker 1: the SAH one thousand, but it had you know, filters
Speaker 1: and things. I was like, this is really cool. I
Speaker 1: started to play the drums all in this one jam,
Speaker 1: and you know I would played electric guitar and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I remember after that jam, we just all looked
Speaker 1: at each other and we said, I think we're a band.
Speaker 1: Now what's our name? And we were like with shit.
Speaker 1: So that it was kind of like the way that
Speaker 1: we all kind of got out of our own sort
Speaker 1: of ideas of what we could do in music and
Speaker 1: really set ourselves free. So that started me on the path,
Speaker 1: the Peaches path, because we all renamed ourselves and I
Speaker 1: said I want to be Peaches because I want Nina
Speaker 1: Simone just to sing the words Peach it just the
Speaker 1: word peaches to me, like, you know, just really on
Speaker 1: that raw level, just that the passionate way she says
Speaker 1: the word. I wanted her to be saying it to me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what the shit was about. And Operate
Speaker 1: actually Operate came from that band. That was like one
Speaker 1: of the first songs I wrote. But that was also Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was just exciting to like, you know, it's when
Speaker 1: you have certain bands or you have certain performances and
Speaker 1: you know that you know whether they were whether they're
Speaker 1: connecting with people.
Speaker 2: You know, sure by the time that you first come
Speaker 2: to Berlin and are doing those those basement shows that
Speaker 2: I mentioned that were in Chili's film, What was it
Speaker 2: about that place that has essentially made you stay there
Speaker 2: ever since? What was it that made you connect with Berlin?
Speaker 1: Well, I think at the time in Canada and in
Speaker 1: Toronto it was still didn't they you know, it was
Speaker 1: very they didn't really understand what I was doing. It
Speaker 1: was just always like, you know, if you want to talk,
Speaker 1: you know, we would always call ourselves the Weird Ones
Speaker 1: on last you know, we would play these nights and
Speaker 1: they would always be like okay, and now let the
Speaker 1: Weird let Gonzales or Peaches or let them on last,
Speaker 1: because you know, then every at least the night's over.
Speaker 1: We just people didn't really understand what was going on.
Speaker 1: And I remember when we went to Berlin it was
Speaker 1: just seemed like it was more open and there was
Speaker 1: just it was just that kind of place in time
Speaker 1: where people were just experimenting and the paths seemed to build,
Speaker 1: and the excitement in terms of not even like we're
Speaker 1: gonna make it, it just more like let's be creative.
Speaker 2: Because on your as we were chatting today, I've gone
Speaker 2: way back into Peach's history and also pre Peaches. So
Speaker 2: where does Mermaid Cafe? Who I didn't know about until
Speaker 2: literally yesterday?
Speaker 1: That goes really weird.
Speaker 2: This is way back, right, this is one of your
Speaker 2: Is this like this is one of your very first bands?
Speaker 2: Kind of a folksy roots roots band trio of you. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's like eight eighty nine.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, right really early. Yeah, So there was I
Speaker 2: saw a short piece of footage yesterday. If you I
Speaker 2: don't know if it was on like local Canadian TV.
Speaker 2: It's on YouTube and there's somebody interviewing you in this
Speaker 2: in this bar, the three of you, and I think
Speaker 2: you described the music to her as homemade acoustic homemade
Speaker 2: acoustic pizza.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, we tried to have some kind of
Speaker 1: like name. But the thing is I mean that that okay,
Speaker 1: well let's go away. If you want to go way.
Speaker 2: Back, sure let's do it.
Speaker 1: I yeah, sure, of course. I I didn't really realize
Speaker 1: I was a musician, you know. I I knew that
Speaker 1: definitely I was. I would I would have to be
Speaker 1: part of, you know, the arts and performance. I only
Speaker 1: knew like musicals, you know, I wasn't really like that's
Speaker 1: what I knew. I went to theater school. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a theater director. I wanted to direct cool musicals.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're in university and you want to
Speaker 1: you say, yeah, I want to be a director of
Speaker 1: cool musicals, and people like that is not what we're
Speaker 1: doing here, you know. So I quickly realized I also
Speaker 1: didn't want to be a theater director because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to have a heart attack before I was thirty.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to have to like just all the
Speaker 1: institutional things you'd have to like deal with, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of like just even budget lighting. Then you know,
Speaker 1: you don't always have control over everything. And it was
Speaker 1: just like all of this, It just seemed like it
Speaker 1: would have been so many compromise, compromise and all this,
Speaker 1: and so I actually quit in the middle of I
Speaker 1: got into a directing program. There were like seven of us,
Speaker 1: and I quit in the middle of it. I took
Speaker 1: and was still in university, got like a BFA, so
Speaker 1: did a lot of took a lot of different arts courses,
Speaker 1: opened my eyes to a lot of things, had a
Speaker 1: lot of fights with teachers about what art is or
Speaker 1: you know, which was really you know, healthy and good
Speaker 1: and growing. And I started to play acoustic guitar and
Speaker 1: my girlfriend at the time played acoustic guitar, and you know,
Speaker 1: we got together even like yeah, that's jam that's how
Speaker 1: we met and stuff. But then she got a gig
Speaker 1: opening for somebody, and I said, oh, can I join?
Speaker 1: And we spent like a week maybe working. She had
Speaker 1: a lot of songs and I wrote two, and then
Speaker 1: actually just a lot of people showed up. I guess
Speaker 1: we had a lot of friends, but they really liked it,
Speaker 1: and the owner of the small club said could you
Speaker 1: play here weekly? So all of a sudden we were
Speaker 1: a band. Of folk band. So I never meant to be.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a one night thing. And
Speaker 1: then another friend of ours, Joe, he taught me acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I taught you acoustic guitar, I write songs.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be part of your band. And so
Speaker 1: it was just the three of us, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we were a band and playing a
Speaker 1: weekly show and writing songs. And then I was like, oh, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm a musician. That's cool. It's writing songs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And then after a year, I
Speaker 1: was not interested in being in a folk band. I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to do more than that. So
Speaker 1: that's how it came in. And then I realized I
Speaker 1: was a musician. But then I was like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do folk.
Speaker 2: Last year was kind of marked twenty years of peaches.
Speaker 2: Do you allow yourself to take a minute to think
Speaker 2: about the things you've achieved.
Speaker 1: That's a good question, I think pandemically speaking, I have
Speaker 1: to find it dangerous to do that and just fallen up,
Speaker 1: like so, I haven't been doing that during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but I do like to look back and see like
Speaker 1: in terms of like understanding what sort of performance wise
Speaker 1: and lyric wise and music wise, what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and how I would like to do it, or how
Speaker 1: I could reconfigure it or recontextualize it, or how it
Speaker 1: has or has not still gained relevance or meaning to me.
Speaker 2: Another thing that I was listening to yesterday was your
Speaker 2: I don't know if you would call it your debut
Speaker 2: solo record or is it a kind of the record
Speaker 2: that you made under your birth name rather than Peaches.
Speaker 2: Do you consider that your debut or do you consider
Speaker 2: Teachers the Peaches your debut.
Speaker 1: I mean that consider Teaches the Peaches my debut. That
Speaker 1: was like another It was like very big part of
Speaker 1: my life and experimenting again, like it was after I
Speaker 1: had the folkn and then I was like, I just
Speaker 1: want to have a band, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: my experimentation with writing and experimenting with my voice, and
Speaker 1: you know, a self funded. It wasn't like it was
Speaker 1: on a label or anything like that, so it's good.
Speaker 2: I was listening to it yesterday again for the first time,
Speaker 2: and I was enjoying it. I thought like I could
Speaker 2: kind of see how you'd gone from even though I
Speaker 2: only saw a clip of Mermaid Cafe, I could kind
Speaker 2: of see how you'd gone from that to that record.
Speaker 2: But then how do you how how do you see
Speaker 2: the kind of transition from because Pete when Peaches, when
Speaker 2: Teachers of Peaches came out, it just felt so fully
Speaker 2: formed and such a like from a listening point of
Speaker 2: view from a fan, it just felt like it was
Speaker 2: just everything was right, it was all in its right place.
Speaker 1: I think that's what happened. Yeah, it just that that
Speaker 1: was the moment where it all came together. So I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, when I was talking about the ship,
Speaker 1: that was the band. You said it was under my
Speaker 1: real name, Meryl Nisker, but the band was called Fancy
Speaker 1: Pants Sudilm. But when I made the album, I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe it should called my name because it's my you know,
Speaker 1: kind of it's all me. But I'll call the album
Speaker 1: fans Panzylm because that's like just the project, you know.
Speaker 1: So I was just sad, like I think interesting in that,
Speaker 1: but it was popular and it could have continued. And
Speaker 1: then when I started fans Pants Hudim, they were not
Speaker 1: having it. I had no audience. I never really had
Speaker 1: an audience for that at all. Nobody nobody, They weren't
Speaker 1: having it.
Speaker 2: So was that just a timing thing, which is like
Speaker 2: the mood at the time in Toronto? What was the
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't connecting with people, and maybe I wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, really I was just experimenting, but it wasn't connecting.
Speaker 1: And that's why the ship was so important, because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden then it was like, Aha, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm connecting. I'm getting closer to understanding, you know,
Speaker 1: my gut feelings about how to perform and what I
Speaker 1: want to say.
Speaker 2: You spent a year or so studying theater, thinking that
Speaker 2: that was going to be your thing. Within that course,
Speaker 2: did you study performance art? Was that part of it?
Speaker 1: I don't know what performance are was?
Speaker 2: Right? So there was nothing from that course that essentially
Speaker 2: led directly to what became Peaches.
Speaker 1: No, and I think that, you know, I just came by.
Speaker 1: I think I realized that, oh, you can be a
Speaker 1: performer and a writer, and you can direct, and it
Speaker 1: can all be in your own hands. That was the point,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, someone else doesn't have to
Speaker 1: tell you what to do or how to produce. It
Speaker 1: or what to say or you can all do it
Speaker 1: on your own, and you can also can completely change
Speaker 1: it and also have the spontaneous element that theater never has,
Speaker 1: you know, it always is kind of one step behind,
Speaker 1: you know, it never has this full spontaneity. So that's
Speaker 1: that was what. So I learned what I couldn't do
Speaker 1: in theater and tried to do it.
Speaker 2: What were you what were you learning on that course? Then?
Speaker 2: Was it about what was the syllabus that they were
Speaker 2: teaching you about? That essentially turned you off it and
Speaker 2: made you decide, actually, I don't want to be doing.
Speaker 1: This because I just wanted to make cool musicals and
Speaker 1: you know that was not in the curriculum.
Speaker 2: Was any musicals in the curriculum?
Speaker 1: No, no way, no, it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't a thing. My wife teaches at Golden Smith's, which
Speaker 2: is arts, and I know about I still now and
Speaker 2: they have a musicals degree there now they do. That's
Speaker 2: fairly new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, what what what happens there? Should I be
Speaker 1: going there?
Speaker 2: You should be going there? I mean, they just they
Speaker 2: study and they make their own musicals.
Speaker 1: I think do you think you could put in a
Speaker 1: good word for me?
Speaker 2: For I'm pretty sure they would have you. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: I mean I can, I can, I can, I can
Speaker 2: pull what what short strings I have?
Speaker 1: What is interesting to me is that, you know, ten
Speaker 1: years into my Peaches career, I was asked to do
Speaker 1: a production at a very you know, underground but well
Speaker 1: sought after a theater and I got to make my musical.
Speaker 2: Is this Peaches Christ Superstar?
Speaker 1: No, this is Peaches does herself?
Speaker 2: So this to celebrate ten years of pages, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so and so. In that way, I was responding
Speaker 1: to jukebox musicals that at the time had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the actual music of the artists, you know,
Speaker 1: like we will rock you, you know. So this was
Speaker 1: before they decided to you know, honor Freddie Mercury and
Speaker 1: and delve into more of his personal life. So we
Speaker 1: were rocky. Was this Do you remember this musical which is.
Speaker 2: Like the little yuristic Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like set
Speaker 2: in the future when music's been banned.
Speaker 1: Music's band and we have to find a secret guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that, and then have you seen it?
Speaker 2: Did you get?
Speaker 1: I saw it in German. I was invited to the opening.
Speaker 1: Brian May was there actually for the opening and it's
Speaker 1: like really, I was just like, I'm not having this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, So it was kind of a response to
Speaker 1: jukebox musicals and also response to what people would say
Speaker 1: about me in the myths, myths around who I am
Speaker 1: and what I am and then so it was quite
Speaker 1: exciting for me to take my love of musicals from
Speaker 1: like early uh, you know, Buzzby Berkeley style to you know,
Speaker 1: west Side Story, to like you know, Tina Turnier as
Speaker 1: the Acid Queen or you know, other kind of Ken
Speaker 1: Russell film versions of musicals, and to more experimental ways
Speaker 1: to like Twila Tharpe style or you know, like just
Speaker 1: bringing all the history and bringing all my love and
Speaker 1: going like, finally I get to do this musical. And
Speaker 1: I have been doing the research for the last ten
Speaker 1: years on myself. So that was super, super satisfying. I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell you a story about when if we
Speaker 1: want to continue on the musicals, But when Rocky Horror,
Speaker 1: the Rocky Horror Show came to Berlin in like two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine or something like that, and I was
Speaker 1: super excited and my my friends, I think got me
Speaker 1: a ticket. My friend got me a ticket for me
Speaker 1: her and her mother to go see it. So I
Speaker 1: was super excited. And when you walked in, they gave
Speaker 1: you a little package with a piece of toast in
Speaker 1: it and some cards and some confetti and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I was like, great, everybody's up for it, you know.
Speaker 1: And the first thing that happened is, you know, the
Speaker 1: narrator came on and was like broad and drug, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's all in German. Not that I speak German,
Speaker 1: but and I just yelled at barring, you know, like
Speaker 1: your breast thinks and all those things you're supposed to yell,
Speaker 1: and everybody in the theater just turned around him looked
Speaker 1: at me, and I was just like what you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I was handed you know, the tools, and
Speaker 1: this is what you do. So anyway, yeah, you's what
Speaker 1: you meant to do. And then of course, like there's
Speaker 1: a light comes on and I'm like jet it, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going on. People are staring at me whatever, not
Speaker 1: as much. But then in the middle, like you know,
Speaker 1: they had an intermission and my friend explained to me
Speaker 1: that the actor who was playing the boring Man, it
Speaker 1: was his first time back on the stage in like years,
Speaker 1: and he had had this huge, horrible drug problem and
Speaker 1: it was like a huge thing and he was nervous
Speaker 1: and all this. So I didn't know any of that.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to play a love. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. So everyone else is like playing on that
Speaker 1: stuff and I'm I'm just like trying to have a
Speaker 1: good time. But and also people started, as Germans do,
Speaker 1: they started to drink during the intermission, and then everybody
Speaker 1: kept turning to me during the show, like.
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 1: Now? I do? Now? What should I say? You know,
Speaker 1: because they realized that they were supposed to do that,
Speaker 1: Like they were showing me like the cards and like
Speaker 1: cards for sorrow. Yeah, let's go. So it was it
Speaker 1: was kind of funny. It was very a very German
Speaker 1: moment too.
Speaker 2: So you said that you met Jali because you were
Speaker 2: introduced through a friend and to kind of jam in
Speaker 2: the basement and stuff. Where does Feist come into your life?
Speaker 2: Because I kind of see the three of you as
Speaker 2: a sort of gang of sorts, seen as the amount
Speaker 2: that you've worked together over over the years.
Speaker 1: Well, and also there's Taylor Savvy, and there's Marky and
Speaker 1: then there's you know a whole host of other people. Uh,
Speaker 1: Fist comes into it. I think Chile and Feiss were dating, right, okay,
Speaker 1: way wait, way way way back, and then and then
Speaker 1: Feist became after that, Fist became roommates with with Savvy, right,
Speaker 1: and then after that Taylor moved out and I became
Speaker 1: roommates with Feist, so we were roommates and we were
Speaker 1: we yeah, we were roommates.
Speaker 2: And the pair of you came to you did it?
Speaker 2: You came and did an early tour here in around
Speaker 2: two thousand, right, and you stayed with Justine Frishman from Alastica.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well I had done some tours, I did
Speaker 1: tours with Chile, I did my own tours, and then
Speaker 1: Justine asked me and Chile to come on tour with
Speaker 1: her in America and then then just I stayed with
Speaker 1: her and her at her place with her roommate you know,
Speaker 1: h M I a Maya and uh. Feist was still
Speaker 1: in Canada, and I was like, would you can I
Speaker 1: just bring you over here because you need to come
Speaker 1: to Europe, like I think she just I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't even remember, but somehow maybe I even I
Speaker 1: was just like get over here and you can just
Speaker 1: join my tour because you know, we would always join
Speaker 1: each other's show and just and then you can start
Speaker 1: working on your stuff, not that I was like, and
Speaker 1: then you can start you know, she was of course
Speaker 1: working on it. But yeah, she came over and was
Speaker 1: doing shows with me. Yeah, I know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: continue on because I know where you're getting out with
Speaker 1: the Justine Fisher and thing. But so we played at
Speaker 1: ninety three.
Speaker 2: Feet east, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's close to where
Speaker 2: I am now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so Feist was just she was kind of
Speaker 1: my big girl called bitch lap Lap that was her name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and you know, we didn't bring a sound person,
Speaker 1: so there was a sound person there who came down
Speaker 1: and was like, hey, you know, like let me let me,
Speaker 1: let me know what you need. And it was Paul Epworth.
Speaker 2: He was a pretty good, pretty good sound.
Speaker 1: Guy, pretty pretty good sound guy to have. But you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't know he was he because he you know,
Speaker 1: he was doing the sound there. And and uh, Justine
Speaker 1: came to the show of course, and Maya was was
Speaker 1: was filming because that's what she was doing. She went
Speaker 1: she was doing more documentary filming. And this was like
Speaker 1: before and it's just a funny moment that then we
Speaker 1: all went over to Justine's house. So it was like Me, Phiz,
Speaker 1: Maya and Paul just hanging out. It's just so funny,
Speaker 1: just like key guys, we're in Justine's place. Wow.
Speaker 2: You know, had you been had you been an Elastica
Speaker 2: fan in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I was. Alastica Alaska had that energy
Speaker 1: that really you know, there was like something about Alastica
Speaker 1: that made me think maybe it's just because of the
Speaker 1: beginning of uh of you know, where they had the
Speaker 1: toy Toy electronic you know beat, but I always thought
Speaker 1: there was some little bit of an electronic feel to them,
Speaker 1: like they could even maybe go electronic because and they
Speaker 1: had this really just very very stark, direct playing you
Speaker 1: know that I really liked, you know, in the same
Speaker 1: way that the B fifty twos had that like very
Speaker 1: you know, early B fifty two.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, your.
Speaker 1: Instrument knows what it does and it just does this
Speaker 1: and you know, which is the way I wanted to
Speaker 1: make electronic music. So that was influence. And also yeah, thee.
Speaker 2: And what was going what was going on here? And
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to think back to around two thousand
Speaker 2: what was going on?
Speaker 1: It was electrode clash.
Speaker 2: Was it? Was it already electro clash? I think that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it came a bit, Yeah, that's what did they not
Speaker 2: come up?
Speaker 1: It was then? No, it was then. I mean I
Speaker 1: was asked to play these electroclash nights and with electrocats.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know it was a thing, but I
Speaker 1: was like headlining these nights of like you know, the
Speaker 1: Zeitgeist where it was like, you know, mostly and led
Speaker 1: by by women, which was amazing, and like a music
Speaker 1: movement led by women, which was like very performance oriented,
Speaker 1: very you know, uh humorous, very self conscious, but also
Speaker 1: very spontaneous and uh yeah, I think I already said
Speaker 1: very performative. So it was like Chicks on Speed, which I.
Speaker 2: Didn't know, but you know, and then there was like
Speaker 2: what was that single, that Chicks on Speed single that
Speaker 2: first we.
Speaker 1: Don't play guitar.
Speaker 2: Song?
Speaker 1: Yeah I got to play. I got to be the
Speaker 1: anti guitar player on that. And then there's like Letigra,
Speaker 1: you know, the plastics, and then and then there's like
Speaker 1: miss Kitten. You know, we were all doing this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, but it was really not even influenced by
Speaker 1: each other. It all came out really at the same time, like, hey.
Speaker 2: Did you ever play a trash?
Speaker 1: Yes? I did play a trash. I played a trash.
Speaker 1: I mean even on the there's like a soundtrack. There's
Speaker 1: a version of Rock Show Live from the Trash recordings.
Speaker 2: That was a great cub.
Speaker 1: Was it called the End The End?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the night was called trash.
Speaker 2: With Errol Yes, yeah, right in the town. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Errol was a you know, big part of all
Speaker 1: that whole scene too, and Too Many DJs, you know,
Speaker 1: making the connection between electronics and rock together.
Speaker 2: I remember like Fuck the Paint Away being on that
Speaker 2: Too Many DJs mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, that's where a lot
Speaker 1: of people in those circles heard about Fuck the Paint Away.
Speaker 1: And it was like with Lou Reed, was it take
Speaker 1: a Walk on the Wildside or Bishop or something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know, so it was like, yeah, when when
Speaker 1: rock was still like.
Speaker 2: A thing, thinking about all of the kind of I
Speaker 2: suppose the different types of crowds you've played in front
Speaker 2: of from like that when you were playing in those
Speaker 2: folk clubs, you know, when you you've toured with like
Speaker 2: big kind of stadium rock guys and you've done clubs,
Speaker 2: and you've done your big theater shows, and you've done
Speaker 2: so You've played so many different types of shows and
Speaker 2: so many different types of people in front of so
Speaker 2: many different types of people. Are there any crowds or
Speaker 2: kind of situations where you think, oh, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: about this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that can still definitely happen, which I think is exciting,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, because in the early years, you know,
Speaker 1: like I would play in more of an art crowd,
Speaker 1: and I would do things like I would wear white
Speaker 1: pants and stand there with a microphone and just let
Speaker 1: blood come, you know, outro from like I was having
Speaker 1: my period and get really embarrassed and people would be horrified.
Speaker 1: And then I would you know, rip those pants off
Speaker 1: and and run around the room and chase chase, like
Speaker 1: every collectors that I didn't even know. They were just
Speaker 1: like what about that? You know, And then years later
Speaker 1: if I would do the same thing, they would be
Speaker 1: in the know. So it was kind of fun when,
Speaker 1: you know, when people don't know about you too, because
Speaker 1: then you just can have your way with them and
Speaker 1: you know, which is really quite fun. You know. When
Speaker 1: I would open for bands like Queens of Stone Age,
Speaker 1: a lot of those, and I'll call them dudes, would
Speaker 1: like turn around in protest to not look at me
Speaker 1: like what is this? What is this music? Who is
Speaker 1: this person? So I would like run off the stage
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, the stage is that way, you're
Speaker 1: facing the wrong way, you know, or my banter became
Speaker 1: very good that way. But you know, there are a
Speaker 1: few times some you know, where you're just you're booked
Speaker 1: for something and just people don't get it and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm back in this place. But also those are really
Speaker 1: exciting because you can see the sort of evolution during
Speaker 1: during the performance of people getting it or not getting it,
Speaker 1: and that's that's real and that's fun.
Speaker 2: It's so fearless to me for you to have done that,
Speaker 2: you know, for you to have to have especially when
Speaker 2: you weren't, as you say, is when people didn't know
Speaker 2: what to expect to get to go out there and
Speaker 2: do that. Have you always been that fit? Are you?
Speaker 2: Are you that fearless in everything you do? Have you
Speaker 2: always been that well?
Speaker 1: Well? Well, I mean I never, I guess I it
Speaker 1: was never you know, when I would do the other bands,
Speaker 1: it never needed to be a feelss. It was kind
Speaker 1: of sort of like the situation came up and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, whoa, okay, let's work with this, you know.
Speaker 1: Like and I guess also when especially like opening for
Speaker 1: whatever said band was big at the time that you know,
Speaker 1: I was not a part of that scene. My model
Speaker 1: was stay on stage, just make it to the end,
Speaker 1: you know, because if you don't, then you know, nothing happened,
Speaker 1: you didn't win. You just just stay on there. What's
Speaker 1: gonna what's gonna you will what will happen if you stay?
Speaker 1: Just stay Because so many bands I know, they would open,
Speaker 1: they would just leave the stage just like forget it.
Speaker 1: What's the point of this? I try to keep just
Speaker 1: trying to like figure out what where's my way in
Speaker 1: or how how what an interesting situations could be, you know,
Speaker 1: without putting myself in danger.
Speaker 2: Sure, And I mean you must have had some shows
Speaker 2: where staying on the stage, even in that moment by
Speaker 2: the end of the stage completely worked, and like you
Speaker 2: had that moment. You must have had those moments where
Speaker 2: you're like, I'm glad I stuck this out because it's
Speaker 2: now we've turned a yeah.
Speaker 1: With with the you know, on the Manson tour, because
Speaker 1: it was like six weeks. I had gotten so good
Speaker 1: at banter. I'd had so many good tricks up my sleeve.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun in London. I knew that
Speaker 1: you couldn't that, you you know, I started a bottle fight.
Speaker 1: I knew they only had plastic bottles, so I threw
Speaker 1: a plastic bottle, and then the whole show people were
Speaker 1: just throwing bottles at me. And you know, of course
Speaker 1: I was saying binary things like you throw like girls
Speaker 1: and things like that, and your sheep dressed in black
Speaker 1: and stuff. But all the time I had a plan
Speaker 1: with the catering service. I was like, can I borrow
Speaker 1: a big like a water cooler filter thing container? And
Speaker 1: I had it in the back and so they're all
Speaker 1: like throwing and yelling at me, like it was really hilarious.
Speaker 1: I wish I had I don't have this on video.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the show, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and I brought it out at this huge bottle,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were like, we have been fucked with.
Speaker 1: Then they realized like she started this and we've been
Speaker 1: fucked with. And I threw it in there. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't hard, but I threw it in there. The
Speaker 1: crowd and they were like, oh, wow, we've been had.
Speaker 1: So I just started to have fun with it because
Speaker 1: it was not fun at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Have you seen anyone else perform who has kind of
Speaker 2: affected you in a way that maybe some people would
Speaker 2: be affected by seeing you perform? Have you been to
Speaker 2: see a performance if someone and gone, wow, they went
Speaker 2: for them? Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah. Who have you seen?
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's a little known band from Canada called.
Speaker 2: Stink Stink Mit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they always you know, they were just they
Speaker 1: were just so messy and amazing. And I remember Betty Ford.
Speaker 1: She would perform without pants on, you know, like walk
Speaker 1: through the crowd no pants on, and people were like
Speaker 1: horrified because you know, some people decide no top, but
Speaker 1: they would they'd just be like looking and look down, like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't look down, you know, but but they were just
Speaker 1: they would just really do your head in and it
Speaker 1: was really exciting. Christine, I don't know, you probably know Christine, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So Christine is like, you know, my daughter, basically my
Speaker 1: performance daughter. Yeah.
Speaker 2: She's amazing, isn't she.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know top of the pops here in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was I was on it.
Speaker 2: You were on it, right, but it didn't They didn't
Speaker 2: air it. They didn't air it. Why did one? What?
Speaker 2: What did you perform on? What made them not not
Speaker 2: air it?
Speaker 1: That was one of those moments where nobody understood me.
Speaker 1: It was like, why is she on this? The audience
Speaker 1: was like they were not having it. I think it
Speaker 1: just wasn't a hit and it just didn't work and
Speaker 1: people didn't understand it. They like to say that it
Speaker 1: was too The legend is that it was too raunchy,
Speaker 1: but you know, people just didn't get it. They were
Speaker 1: pointing out my very short shorts and my you know,
Speaker 1: puba care coming out, but I don't know, it just
Speaker 1: didn't work.
Speaker 2: For previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your podcast
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Speaker 2: For more information on the music magazine that makes this series,
Speaker 2: visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
Speaker 1: Anyway, goodnight,