Speaker 1: Pushkin. Peaches has spent more than two decades pushing boundaries
Speaker 1: and electronic music and performance art, inspiring the look and
Speaker 1: sound of edgy pop artists like Lady Gaga and Grimes.
Speaker 1: But long before she was known for her outrageous stage shows,
Speaker 1: Peaches got her start as part of a folk trio
Speaker 1: in Toronto. It was in the mid nineties, after discovering
Speaker 1: she could become a one woman band with her rolling
Speaker 1: drum machine, that Peaches began developing a provocative new persona.
Speaker 1: In two thousands, she moved to Berlin and released The
Speaker 1: Teaches of Peaches, featuring the song Fuck the Pain Away.
Speaker 1: The track has been cited by Tom York as an
Speaker 1: inspiration while making Radioheads in Rainbows, and has appeared in
Speaker 1: countless movies and TV shows, including South Park, Gloss in
Speaker 1: Translation in The Handmaid's Tale. Peaches has spent the last
Speaker 1: several years creating works for stage and screen, including serving
Speaker 1: as a subject for two recent documentaries. Now, after more
Speaker 1: than a decade, she's returning with No Lube So Rude,
Speaker 1: her first album in over ten years, recorded in Berlin
Speaker 1: with producer The Squirt Deluxe. On today's episode, Lea Rose
Speaker 1: talks to Peach is about making No Lubes so rude,
Speaker 1: and how the album addresses identity, bodily autonomy and offers
Speaker 1: an antidote for all the friction in the world. Peaches
Speaker 1: also discusses how she recently discovered her dad pleaded with
Speaker 1: the bar Mitzvah band to give her her first shot
Speaker 1: performing live on stage, and she shares her deep love
Speaker 1: of seventies rock and roll trivia. This is Broken Record,
Speaker 1: real musicians, real conversations. Here's Leah roodse with Peaches. Head
Speaker 1: over to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast to
Speaker 1: see the full video interview.
Speaker 2: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: I was just watching different video interviews and reading old
Speaker 3: interviews and stuff, and I read about your first ever
Speaker 3: experience with the stage and you actually started as a
Speaker 3: wedding singer.
Speaker 4: I started as about Mitzvah, bar Mitzvah singer.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, yeah.
Speaker 4: I have a lot of cousins in New York, and
Speaker 4: when I was little, I don't know I was. I
Speaker 4: love music. There was no musical talent in my family.
Speaker 4: We listened to a lot of albums and I was
Speaker 4: at my cousin's bar Mitzvah in New York where it
Speaker 4: was like, you know, a big deal. They had the
Speaker 4: bar Mitzvah band, and I turned to my mom and
Speaker 4: I said, can I sing with the band? And she's like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, can you sing? You know, which is
Speaker 4: just funny, Like I don't know why I thought the
Speaker 4: audacity of me. And I just learned this year that
Speaker 4: my dad actually bullied the bar Mitzvah band and said,
Speaker 4: my daughter wants to sing. Let her sing, because they
Speaker 4: I think they said no, but nobody told me that.
Speaker 4: And yeah, my dad said she wants to sing. Let
Speaker 4: her sing. This is something she wants to do. So
Speaker 4: I don't get to thank my dad for it now
Speaker 4: he's past, but I'm letting him know that that was
Speaker 4: a beautiful thing to do for me. And I sang
Speaker 4: Barber streisand the way we were, which is very inappropriate
Speaker 4: for a seven year old to sing about like a
Speaker 4: divorce breakup in the seventies, but that's what we used
Speaker 4: to listen to at home. So I sang that and
Speaker 4: Uncle Morris cried, Oh Wowmars cried, and then I had
Speaker 4: to sing that song at every barmits VN wedding up
Speaker 4: until I was a teenager and could say, listen, I
Speaker 4: can't do this anymore.
Speaker 3: Do you ever listen to that now? And reminisce like,
Speaker 3: is there any songs from your childhood that you listen
Speaker 3: to that you just love and makes you feel like
Speaker 3: warm and cozy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I am a crazy song quiz fin. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you know this game where you like,
Speaker 4: I want to they play you like a part of
Speaker 4: a song and then you have to guess the artist
Speaker 4: and the song. And I cannot get enough of the seventies.
Speaker 4: I can sing every little every lyric from every song
Speaker 4: I know, every artist I know, like stupid trivia about it.
Speaker 4: So no, it warms my heart. And yeah, there's lots
Speaker 4: of albums from my childhood, like like Hair, the album
Speaker 4: Hair I used to like. You know, I'm sure that
Speaker 4: had a big influence on me listening to that or
Speaker 4: you know, it's funny. I listened to Neil Diamond live
Speaker 4: like whatever my parents had. Also ROBERTA. Flack, which was
Speaker 4: a huge one, which is first time ever I saw
Speaker 4: your face. That just kills me. Even talking about that
Speaker 4: song brings tears to my eyes.
Speaker 3: Oh that is such an intense, beautiful song. It's amazing
Speaker 3: speaking of hair. I was going to ask you about this.
Speaker 3: I'm sort of jumping around a little bit. Ye, I
Speaker 3: was going to ask you. So in the Teachers of
Speaker 3: Peaches documentary, a lot of the costumes for the review
Speaker 3: of Peaches that you were doing and going back through
Speaker 3: that album and bringing that back to the stage, a
Speaker 3: lot of hair, a lot of costumes with hair, like
Speaker 3: what's the hair about?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: Well, hair was very important to me as a symbol
Speaker 4: of understanding what beauty is when I was first starting Peaches, Like,
Speaker 4: why is it that if I don't shave my pubic hairs,
Speaker 4: I am dirty or gross, but only because I'm female identified.
Speaker 4: But if I grow the hair on top of my headlong,
Speaker 4: I am beautiful. Or if I have long eyelashes, I
Speaker 4: am a symbol of beauty. But if I shave my
Speaker 4: eyebrows then I'm weird. If I don't shave my legs
Speaker 4: or my armpit hairs, then again that is unacceptable. So
Speaker 4: it's just hair, and we all have it, and there
Speaker 4: are different standards for different constructs of gender. So it
Speaker 4: was me exploring that idea, and so I started with
Speaker 4: the little hot pants and the pubic hair, and I
Speaker 4: met Charlie Lymondo, who is a hairstylist who started when
Speaker 4: he was twelve. His uncle taught him how to do
Speaker 4: hair and he's done hair for everybody, every celebrity, every
Speaker 4: fashion show, you know, through the years. And he showed
Speaker 4: up in Berlin when I was when he was seventeen
Speaker 4: and said, I'm your addresser. Now he's French, I'm your
Speaker 4: addresser and just started doing my hair and cutting hair
Speaker 4: in dark rooms, literally in dark rooms in Berlin. And
Speaker 4: then he turned into.
Speaker 2: Hair like intentionally dark.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like sex dark rooms that were dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: And the first time he dyed my hair was during
Speaker 4: a DJ set where he hid anunder the DJ set
Speaker 4: and with bleach and a blow dryer and a bottle
Speaker 4: of and like a bottle of water and a bowl
Speaker 4: and he's like, hey, just come down, come up. And
Speaker 4: at one point I disappeared in the DJ set and
Speaker 4: came up with with blonde hair from and.
Speaker 3: Put on a nine minute song and you're like exactly,
Speaker 3: and people thought it was mad or where would I go?
Speaker 4: And when it came back and the people who were
Speaker 4: you know, a little too high or drunk, they were like, wow,
Speaker 4: like did you have blonde hair before it was really
Speaker 4: kind of exciting, and we started to do like performative things,
Speaker 4: and Charlie and I have collaborated a lot, and he
Speaker 4: makes hair fashion. He's also you know, moving into that.
Speaker 4: So some of those, all those outfits were made by
Speaker 4: Charlie and so they're quite amazing and so we use them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then that's carried over into the new project.
Speaker 3: It seems like I saw the newer photos on your
Speaker 3: in there's more hair. There's hair showing up in different places.
Speaker 4: There's hair. Yes, definitely, the theme you know that was hair.
Speaker 4: My themes have also been a lot you know, imagery
Speaker 4: of like the absurdity of our bodies and how we
Speaker 4: are shameful of them, and also making the ridiculous fun
Speaker 4: and question to like raise questions. So I had which
Speaker 4: Charlie also made a multi multi breast bathing suit, or
Speaker 4: like all Dick costumes, there's like a vagina head that
Speaker 4: I wear, or my dancers turn into huge vaginas. And
Speaker 4: this time around the theme is get Ready prolapse. Prolapse
Speaker 4: is like when it all just kind of blurts out.
Speaker 4: It's it's kind of like dropping gravity. So yeah, and
Speaker 4: also like growing, vulging, you know, festering, and so that's
Speaker 4: kind of I think it feel like where we're at
Speaker 4: understanding our bodies and understanding the world.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're yeah, so yeah, prolapse.
Speaker 3: So then that leads right into hanging Titties hang exactly.
Speaker 3: So tell me about Hanging Titties? Why is that the
Speaker 3: first song? And also when you're when you're sequencing an album,
Speaker 3: do you think of it sort of as like creating
Speaker 3: an arc? Or how do you put the songs together?
Speaker 3: Is it just what sounds good coming after another, like
Speaker 3: thinking like a DJ? Or how how does the sequencing
Speaker 3: work for you?
Speaker 4: It's all of that. It's definitely you know, you want
Speaker 4: to think thematically and you definitely want an arc, or
Speaker 4: I do because I I think of it as an album. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you do think about an arc, but you also
Speaker 4: have to make sure that the songs work together, and
Speaker 4: the same with when you're making a live show, which
Speaker 4: won't be the same kind of order because you listen
Speaker 4: differently than when you experience it live, I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So I thought it was just such a strong statement.
Speaker 4: I don't know, can you say anything on this podcast?
Speaker 4: I guess so I don't know, so, I mean, I
Speaker 4: just thought it was so strong to just own the
Speaker 4: hanging titties as cunt, you know, like older than you
Speaker 4: looking so cunt. Oh look at you, all of my
Speaker 4: cunt thirsty much. My hanging titties hit like the punch, like,
Speaker 4: you know, because everybody's always like my teenies and I
Speaker 4: defy gravity and they're cute and you love them, and
Speaker 4: you know, which is great and that when you're that
Speaker 4: age and you have them, you should own it. So
Speaker 4: I'm owning what I have and I'm representing my age
Speaker 4: and owning it and you're loving it.
Speaker 3: How does it feel now that your body's changing and
Speaker 3: you're on stage and so much of you is revealed?
Speaker 2: At times?
Speaker 4: I think it's even more important. And that's that's I
Speaker 4: think by virtue of me being like that, that's that's strong.
Speaker 3: Does is there any apprehension like, oh fuck, like I
Speaker 3: have to get on stage like my body's changing.
Speaker 4: No, this is me, this is my this is also
Speaker 4: my reckoning, this is also my manifestation, like and come on,
Speaker 4: I'm not old.
Speaker 2: I'm not that old.
Speaker 4: I'm just and I'm also saying like come on, I'm
Speaker 4: not that old, like Also, we're living longer, you know,
Speaker 4: people are living till one hundred. You no longer have
Speaker 4: to think about your life in thirds, right, I think
Speaker 4: about it, I guess in thirds, and now you think
Speaker 4: of it in quarters. And also if you think about
Speaker 4: when you were young and your parents or your grandparents,
Speaker 4: what they what they experience as being that age, and
Speaker 4: it was it was a little it was different. They
Speaker 4: understood things different, they went through different things. They didn't
Speaker 4: have this pop culture experience that we do now and
Speaker 4: continue to have and find joy in. So you know,
Speaker 4: it's more like the kids, the parents and the grandparents
Speaker 4: are like, let's go, let's go, Like we understand coming
Speaker 4: together in physical spaces more than the younger generations do.
Speaker 3: So I read that you have been exploring yourself more
Speaker 3: deeply in recent years, and I'm just curious what that
Speaker 3: means and how or if that connects to the new
Speaker 3: album at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess exploring myself deeper sounds kind of elusive,
Speaker 4: but I guess what it means is, you know, at
Speaker 4: the age I'm at, there's a recogning that happening happens.
Speaker 4: This is a reckoning that's happening in terms of like,
Speaker 4: I feel like the work I have done has been
Speaker 4: very performative and very outward and very direct obviously, and
Speaker 4: I realize that a lot of them are manifestations. They're
Speaker 4: not always completely this is how I am, and we're
Speaker 4: never this is how I am. You know, they are manifestations.
Speaker 4: There are ways to help us come into these beings,
Speaker 4: and as we do, there's also voices behind, or little
Speaker 4: things behind, saying like what is the deeper meaning of that?
Speaker 4: Or what is what is your feeling? Even though you're
Speaker 4: doing those manifestations and putting them out in the world
Speaker 4: and performing them and discussing with a community and that
Speaker 4: helps also motivate themselves and mobilized people together and all
Speaker 4: those things, there's still things inside yourself that you need
Speaker 4: to reckon with. So that's where I think the exploration
Speaker 4: is showing up in the album. So there's still obviously
Speaker 4: me advocating and finding creative and humorous and entertainment ways
Speaker 4: and camp ways of dealing with the world around us,
Speaker 4: but I'm also dealing with myself.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Peaches after the break.
Speaker 2: I know that you've been super busy.
Speaker 3: This is I think it's like your first full length
Speaker 3: album in ten years, but you've been doing a bunch
Speaker 3: of other stuff in the meantime. Yeah, why now, like,
Speaker 3: why did you decide to do the album now? Was
Speaker 3: it something that you always knew you wanted to do
Speaker 3: another album, or did it sort of just come together organically.
Speaker 4: I did want to do another album. I did a
Speaker 4: teaches of Peach's twenty year anniversary tour actually twenty two
Speaker 4: years after because of COVID, so we had to delay
Speaker 4: it a little bit, but it again, you know, and
Speaker 4: I also was still playing live a lot. And I
Speaker 4: understand that I have a huge body of work and
Speaker 4: a legacy and a point of view, and that I
Speaker 4: could be a sort of review of myself, you know,
Speaker 4: just take the body of work and keep doing it.
Speaker 4: But I just thought, after all the projects I've been doing,
Speaker 4: let's go back to music, and let's let's get out
Speaker 4: there with new material and fresh, fresh takes on what
Speaker 4: is going on with me where I'm at now, and
Speaker 4: also with the world, with the world and where it's at,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's very important to express these new
Speaker 4: ideas and also hearing people and coming together, you know,
Speaker 4: physically coming together and also getting out here and talking
Speaker 4: to you everybody, and you know, because you put out
Speaker 4: a new album, then it does put a resurgence into
Speaker 4: people wanting to talk to me and interview me and
Speaker 4: and and it helps expand my platform and help mobilize.
Speaker 4: I'm really using that word mobilize a lot. But that's
Speaker 4: that's what I really feel like. That's the motivating factor
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite part of this process?
Speaker 3: Do you enjoy the creative part, the performative part, the
Speaker 3: marketing part. There's so many different hats you have to
Speaker 3: wear when you're out creating and then promoting a project.
Speaker 4: I always get stressed out doing press. I think I'm
Speaker 4: always like, no, I don't want to do it, And
Speaker 4: then when I actually do it, it helps me understand
Speaker 4: everything that's going on, and I really I get to
Speaker 4: where people are at and it's actually really great, but
Speaker 4: I'm so begrudgingly like, But then when I get there,
Speaker 4: I'm so excited about it. Yes, and so I do
Speaker 4: enjoy that. That is a big learning for me. And
Speaker 4: but my love is on the stage. I love the stage.
Speaker 4: I'm a show gulf.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like when you start a show that
Speaker 3: you have to like get the crowd comfortable or get
Speaker 3: people to sort of like jump start their fun. Is
Speaker 3: that sort of like a pressurized thing for you? Or
Speaker 3: how do you sort of like ease them into it
Speaker 3: or get them excited?
Speaker 4: I feel like they're so damn excited or any Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I just can and they're like, which way is
Speaker 4: she going to do the show? Is it going to
Speaker 4: be through silence? Is going to be a big dance?
Speaker 4: Like There's so many ways I have presented shows, and
Speaker 4: I feel like they're all effective in different ways. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as you were coming up and figuring out who
Speaker 3: you were going to be on stage, at what point
Speaker 3: did you really figure out how to work the crowd?
Speaker 2: And when did you feel like, Okay, I have this power?
Speaker 4: That is a very good question. I feel like it
Speaker 4: evolved when I saw how people were reacting to me
Speaker 4: and how I was not interested in just you know,
Speaker 4: I wanted to be connected to people. I wanted to
Speaker 4: be in their face. I wanted to be a performer.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be in the moment. So I would
Speaker 4: just keep trying things. Yeah, I would just the more
Speaker 4: I would go and then I would go like, oh
Speaker 4: now let me try another little costume. Or let me
Speaker 4: do a costume change, or people would actually give me
Speaker 4: things like costumes and I'd be like, oh, I could
Speaker 4: use that, or let me try that out. So it's
Speaker 4: also like really came from from people responding to what
Speaker 4: I was doing in real time or through through gifts
Speaker 4: or being inspired to give me things by what I
Speaker 4: was doing.
Speaker 3: And I'm also curious about the evolution and how you
Speaker 3: came to Peaches. So you started as a bot mitzvah singer,
Speaker 3: that was your debut, and then talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about the different you know, genres or different type of
Speaker 3: styles you tried and how you got to Peaches because
Speaker 3: Peaches didn't happen till you were in your thirties.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, Yeah, So I started as a bar mitzvah singer.
Speaker 4: I loved singing. There was no real outlet, you know.
Speaker 4: I could play the recorder in music class, but I
Speaker 4: never thought it could really be a musician, because I
Speaker 4: thought you needed to have like people in your family
Speaker 4: playing music, or that you needed training or all these things.
Speaker 4: Like I said, we spent a lot of time in
Speaker 4: New York. I saw a few Broadway plays. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of weird, amazing musicals on late night TV
Speaker 4: in Toronto, and I what I came too is that
Speaker 4: I wanted to be a theater director, so that was
Speaker 4: more of my focus in theater. But it always centered
Speaker 4: around music, so I never really realized that it was
Speaker 4: like music that was driving it. There was something about
Speaker 4: theaters that didn't have this immediacy that I wanted. But
Speaker 4: I ended up going to theater directing school for university
Speaker 4: for first year and then said I wanted to do
Speaker 4: cool musicals to people, and other directors would scoff at me,
Speaker 4: they'd laugh at me. They'd say, we are doing ibs
Speaker 4: in here, we are doing checkof so nobody really took
Speaker 4: it seriously. I thought it wasn't so serious. I thought
Speaker 4: it was going to be a really cool way. But
Speaker 4: I dropped out of the program and I just started
Speaker 4: to take other arts and understand where I was at.
Speaker 4: And I needed a job and I worked at a
Speaker 4: daycare and I was playing acoustic guitar and realized that
Speaker 4: these kids are very bored and the teachers are bored,
Speaker 4: and I started to develop sort of theater games and
Speaker 4: music where these young kids could relate to and role play,
Speaker 4: but really learn and process and not have to like
Speaker 4: like stand in front of their parents in it too
Speaker 4: too and say a line like I'm pretty you know.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't about the parents. Weren't allowed, they weren't
Speaker 4: even invited to this conversation. It was just about the kids.
Speaker 4: And every week they would like develop these things and
Speaker 4: it was an amazing program. I worked at the YMCA
Speaker 4: and then head a YMCA recognize what I was doing.
Speaker 4: I started working around the holes all the YMCAs in
Speaker 4: Toronto and then private schools because I wasn't a teacher.
Speaker 4: And while I was learning acoustic guitar, I had an
Speaker 4: ex girlfriend who also played acoustic guitar, and we were
Speaker 4: writing songs and we got a gig together at a
Speaker 4: small pub and it went well, and so we played
Speaker 4: every week and another friend joint, so we became a
Speaker 4: trio Mermaide Cafe and we would be singing folks songs,
Speaker 4: mostly breakup songs, singing harmonies about breaking up with each other,
Speaker 4: which was funny.
Speaker 2: But were they original songs?
Speaker 4: All original songs. The name Mermaid Cafe came from Joni
Speaker 4: Mitchell's song Kerry. That was the only song we covered,
Speaker 4: I think yeah, And they were all originals. And so
Speaker 4: I was teaching during the day and you know, learning
Speaker 4: that I was a musician. At night, we would practice
Speaker 4: three I wasn't I was one of the writers, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't like the main, main writer, you know. But
Speaker 4: we would all write songs and perform them that week.
Speaker 4: And then after a year of that, I was like,
Speaker 4: I don't want to I think I want to explore
Speaker 4: more than being an acoustic musician. And I started playing
Speaker 4: electric guitar and I had more posts kind of indie rock,
Speaker 4: trying that out, and it didn't really resonate with people.
Speaker 4: I mean, I learned lot, and then I had this
Speaker 4: epiphany jam with a friend who was in another band.
Speaker 4: She was kind of dissatisfied with that band, and I
Speaker 4: wanted to start ah girl band. Yeah, that's gonna be
Speaker 4: the way, and she said, well, I have a crush
Speaker 4: on this guy. And my neighbor, who also is a musician,
Speaker 4: has some space in their basement and we could jam there.
Speaker 4: And so I went begrudgingly again like guys rare, but
Speaker 4: I didn't say a word to them. I was really like,
Speaker 4: I brought my electric guitar and I was like, we're
Speaker 4: gonna jam, and we smoked a big, huge joint and
Speaker 4: then we started playing and everybody just started yelling anything
Speaker 4: like sexual and profane things, and it was really exciting.
Speaker 4: And then someone out people yeah, someone yelled switch and
Speaker 4: we switched instruments. I had never played drums before, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, I was playing drums, switched again,
Speaker 4: and I was on like a synthesizer, which I always
Speaker 4: at that point thought was anna cool because I was like,
Speaker 4: punk is a synthesize, And then I was like, whoaa, synthesizer.
Speaker 4: You could play one note and then like filter it
Speaker 4: and do things, and I was like amazed by it
Speaker 4: and amazed by the whole experience. And the four of
Speaker 4: us got together after and we said, we're the shit.
Speaker 4: This is the shit. So we called ourselves the shit,
Speaker 4: and we said, let's rename ourselves. And I said, I
Speaker 4: want to be Peaches because there's a Nina Simone's song
Speaker 4: Struggle about four women's and there is in no way
Speaker 4: that I thought the struggle was my struggle. But the
Speaker 4: way she said at the end of the song about
Speaker 4: the fourth women, they call me Peaches, it was so
Speaker 4: passionately said that I was like, I want her to
Speaker 4: be saying that to me, and there's no way she's
Speaker 4: going to be saying they call me Meryl. So I
Speaker 4: changed my name to Peaches, and you know, we would
Speaker 4: play and we really resonated with people, and we resonated
Speaker 4: with ourselves. But after a year people moved on. But
Speaker 4: I really wanted to continue this, and people moved away.
Speaker 4: So I got a machine. I went into a music
Speaker 4: shop and I saw this machine on display and it
Speaker 4: was called the Rolling Groovebox five ah five and you
Speaker 4: could program things and this is but I didn't have
Speaker 4: a home computer. Nobody did. This is like nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, this is cool. This could
Speaker 4: be my drummer, and this could be my bass player,
Speaker 4: and this could be my synth player and blah blah everything.
Speaker 4: So I took it home and started to play around
Speaker 4: with it and use the principles of what we were
Speaker 4: talking about in the shit, and also think about how
Speaker 4: I wanted this like rock energy like Stooges energy, punk energy,
Speaker 4: but craft worky sounds or you know, make this instrument
Speaker 4: a punk instrument, and also be very direct. And I
Speaker 4: was questioning about who's allowed to say what sexually. I
Speaker 4: think we talked about that at the beginning, So I
Speaker 4: was like, and why is it that, you know, remember
Speaker 4: it's nineteen ninety eight. Why is rock people? Why do
Speaker 4: rock people hate dance music? And why do dance people
Speaker 4: hate rock music? And how can I put them together?
Speaker 4: And how can I have my take in my perspective
Speaker 4: without a male case?
Speaker 3: What was happening in popular music at that time? Like,
Speaker 3: I feel like that is sort of like.
Speaker 4: Brittany Britney Spears, was Happenings's child maybe des Child, Yeah,
Speaker 4: maybe a little yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Think like Lilith Fair was sort of like happening. I
Speaker 3: think that ended in ninety nine. Was any of that?
Speaker 3: Were you like listening to any of what was happening
Speaker 3: in in pop mainstream music or were you just in
Speaker 3: your own kind of like indie punk land in that
Speaker 3: anything that Were you referencing that at all?
Speaker 4: No? Not really, No, I wasn't really referencing that. I
Speaker 4: was referencing more like punk, the the epic noess of rock,
Speaker 4: but from my machismo, you know, And the I was
Speaker 4: I was listening to more like Missy Elliott and Little
Speaker 4: Kim was was a big one for me too. And uh,
Speaker 4: the miseducation of Lorne Hill and you know, and in
Speaker 4: the mid nineties, I was I was like moving away
Speaker 4: from you know, all my older influences to like, you know,
Speaker 4: Sonic Youth and all these like indie post punk indie bands.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 3: So were you actively trying to be different from things
Speaker 3: or was that not even a factor?
Speaker 4: I was just trying to like put it all together.
Speaker 4: I didn't have, you know, Also, this machine, I didn't
Speaker 4: really know a lot about it. You know, my first
Speaker 4: beats were all one twenty bpm because I didn't know
Speaker 4: how to change the bpm. You know, things like that.
Speaker 3: There's no like YouTube tutorials back then, like you like
Speaker 3: literally about two thousand and six, right, you had to
Speaker 3: learn it on your own, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which is super cool.
Speaker 3: Didn't you teach Mia how to use a drum machine?
Speaker 4: Well? One of my first tours was opening for Alastica.
Speaker 4: Do you remember that was also big? Alaska was big,
Speaker 4: and PJ. Harvey was big for me too, in like
Speaker 4: ninety five. Yeah, and Justine had heard a single of mine,
Speaker 4: Lover Tits and asked me to come on tour, and
Speaker 4: may m Ia was more interested in being like a
Speaker 4: documentary and art filmmaker and she was doing a documentary
Speaker 4: on her father as a Tamil Tiger and also very
Speaker 4: good friends with Justine and documenting the last tour of
Speaker 4: Elastica together. And we met there and she was fascinated
Speaker 4: because she came from a huge hip hop culture and
Speaker 4: loved music but never thought about making music and then
Speaker 4: saw the machine and thought, wow, what is that? And
Speaker 4: I was like, it's easy, you should do it. And
Speaker 4: her and Justine, I think they worked together and she
Speaker 4: got one and yeah, really served it. Oh, really served
Speaker 4: her well.
Speaker 1: Nas Break will be back with Leah Rose and Peaches.
Speaker 3: I wish that more people had the opportunity or I
Speaker 3: had that approach like, oh it's easy, you can do it,
Speaker 3: cause it does seem so intimidating.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it can be difficult and it can
Speaker 4: be complicated, but you have to find the way that
Speaker 4: it works for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about Fatherfucker. So Fatherfucker turned
Speaker 3: twenty two last year. First of all, do you ever
Speaker 3: listen back to albums in full?
Speaker 4: Not so often, but I did listen back to you
Speaker 4: know sometimes like when we when you finish the album,
Speaker 4: then you're like, how does it how does it sound
Speaker 4: like with the other albums are But yeah, there are
Speaker 4: certain songs in Fatherfuckers that I think I overlooked that
Speaker 4: I really like. Oh like what the Inch I think
Speaker 4: is a really cool song. I always love Tombstone. I
Speaker 4: think it's really really cool. Then there's all the like
Speaker 4: you know, the more known ones to me anyway, like
Speaker 4: kick It or Operates?
Speaker 2: Yeah, which one of your albums is your favorite?
Speaker 4: They're all my babies. But I do I feel like
Speaker 4: Fatherfucker has a has a very strong place in my
Speaker 4: heart because you know, Teachers and Peaches was so well
Speaker 4: received and so powerful for in music circles, but Fatherfucker
Speaker 4: was They were like, this is a failure. What is
Speaker 4: Peach is doing? But in terms of like community and
Speaker 4: cultural cultural relevance and understanding queerness more going really hardcore
Speaker 4: into the queer aspect of my work, it's such a win.
Speaker 4: And so many people from those communities tell me what
Speaker 4: Fatherfucker meant to them. Yeah, so I'm really proud of that.
Speaker 3: Do the things that people say to you when someone
Speaker 3: comes up to you and tells you how meaningful your
Speaker 3: work is to them, does that change at all the
Speaker 3: way that you approach other artists. Like, let's say you
Speaker 3: met Anne Wilson from Heart and you wanted to tell
Speaker 3: you wanted to just gush about one of her songs.
Speaker 3: But having the experience of having so many people tell
Speaker 3: you, you know, like how impactful your work is to them, Like,
Speaker 3: does that change how you talk to others?
Speaker 4: Just become a blubbering fan. There's nothing you can do
Speaker 4: about it. You're just like yeah, and you're like, but
Speaker 4: you don't understand. I mean, I see I'm teaching. Maybe
Speaker 4: you don't know who I am. It doesn't matter. You're
Speaker 4: just a blubbering fan and you love them and hopefully
Speaker 4: they will take mercy on you.
Speaker 3: Have you had any what felt like awkward experiences with
Speaker 3: people that you've met where you just turned into a
Speaker 3: blubbering fan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I've also had awkward experiences where just they're
Speaker 4: just like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who just working.
Speaker 3: I know you've worked with Iggy Pop and he was
Speaker 3: a big influence early on.
Speaker 2: How is that experience?
Speaker 4: It was amazing because he's so spontaneous. He was also
Speaker 4: like when we were in the studio, He's like, if
Speaker 4: I don't get it, I'm not gonna do it. Okay,
Speaker 4: So let's just try it. You know, he's just he
Speaker 4: wants to give, he wants to share with, you know,
Speaker 4: generations that also relate and love what he does. But
Speaker 4: he's also going to be real. If it doesn't work,
Speaker 4: it doesn't work, but I'm glad it worked.
Speaker 2: So if he didn't get the track, if he didn't
Speaker 2: get the.
Speaker 4: Or didn't feel the tribe, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ooh, that's kind of like feels pressurized. Oh I
Speaker 2: hope he likes it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but also he's being real and I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: So okay, So once you had Peaches established and you
Speaker 3: were on that journey, looking back, like, how has Peaches
Speaker 3: evolved and what do you like with the new album?
Speaker 2: Are you filling in holes? Are you?
Speaker 4: I'm a woman in control of all my holes? That's
Speaker 4: one of the other lines I love on this album.
Speaker 4: So I am filling in those holes. The holes are filled,
Speaker 4: the holes are filed. I guess the evolution is just
Speaker 4: to like bring Peaches, which is not difficult into twenty
Speaker 4: twenty six. Part of the conversation that started back in
Speaker 4: two thousand and continued on with the last album being
Speaker 4: two thousand and fifteen and not just bringing it into now.
Speaker 4: And I really feel like it has that feeling. And
Speaker 4: I think the production is incredible.
Speaker 2: And the production is incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that it's really good. Yeah, So
Speaker 4: I'm I'm super happy. I had a spirit helped me
Speaker 4: produce this album named Scort Deluxe.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 4: And Yang, this amazing mixer in Berlin. She did all
Speaker 4: the mixing used had amazing choices also, and have a
Speaker 4: country you know as a master who is the master
Speaker 4: of the masters. So it was a great team.
Speaker 3: How do you get into the mood to record since
Speaker 3: you're making sort of like sometimes atbeat or more maybe
Speaker 3: party music, Like can you just roll into the studio
Speaker 3: at any time of day and get into that headspace
Speaker 3: or do you have to do like do you have
Speaker 3: to have a drink?
Speaker 2: Do you have to smoke?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: How do you get into that space?
Speaker 4: There's no there's no rhyme or reason. You just have
Speaker 4: to get into it. You just have to get in.
Speaker 4: I used to smug a lot of weed in there,
Speaker 4: and now I don't know, I just kind of it
Speaker 4: wasn't easy. There was a you know, that's a you know,
Speaker 4: also when you have so much material and some and
Speaker 4: you want to make it fresh, but you also are
Speaker 4: really uh, you know, your concerns are still a concern.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not it's not easy, so just keep trying.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm very fortunate that
Speaker 4: me and my partner we built a studio. Well they
Speaker 4: built the studio, but we have a studio in our basement.
Speaker 4: So and it's soundproof.
Speaker 2: Wuief.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so now it's sound proof and ready to go.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I saw that in the Teachers of Peaches documentary You
Speaker 3: in the space?
Speaker 2: Did you end up building this studio in that same space?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Wow? Yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker 3: So okay, so you don't you don't have to be
Speaker 3: in a specific mode to record it, just sort of
Speaker 3: when it happens, it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm also not super spontaneous. I know it sounds like
Speaker 4: party music, but there's a lot of thought and agony
Speaker 4: that comes into it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, are there any specific sessions you remember
Speaker 3: where maybe something interesting happened, Maybe this song wasn't sort
Speaker 3: of working and then one thing changed and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden something clicked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything you remember.
Speaker 4: I just know that not in your mouth none of
Speaker 4: your business, which if you've seen the documentary, comes from
Speaker 4: my partner's line about not in your mouth, none of
Speaker 4: your business. Just that I was that just came spontaneously,
Speaker 4: like that just rolled right out of my mouth because
Speaker 4: it was just like I need to say this now.
Speaker 4: So that was cool because we didn't even know we
Speaker 4: would have that song.
Speaker 2: Very cool. What is your favorite track on the album?
Speaker 4: If you have one, They're all my babies, They're all
Speaker 4: my babies. I mean I I I guess right now
Speaker 4: it is Hanging Titties because it's its high energy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: do you have a favorite track.
Speaker 3: Or I like hanging Titties and I like.
Speaker 2: Fuck, how you want to fuck a lot?
Speaker 4: Great? I love that song too.
Speaker 2: I love that And then I love the last song
Speaker 2: on the album.
Speaker 4: Be Love Beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, tell me about that one. How did that
Speaker 2: come about?
Speaker 4: Be Love is just like like we were talking about
Speaker 4: how an album has an arc, and be Love is like, hey,
Speaker 4: in the end, we really just have to be love
Speaker 4: and we have to come from a place of love.
Speaker 4: And that is really the song that most reck with
Speaker 4: myself because there's a lot of like discon you know,
Speaker 4: talking about my being disconnected or feeling anxiety and things
Speaker 4: like that, but also like just have to push through
Speaker 4: for love, not be loved, but give love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you do to sort of make yourself
Speaker 3: feel better? Like what are your little self care things
Speaker 3: or what do you do to sort of comfort yourself
Speaker 3: when you're not feeling good.
Speaker 4: That's something I still have to work on. I feel
Speaker 4: like I have a hard time letting go, you know,
Speaker 4: of those feelings. So I have to learn to like
Speaker 4: sit with them and really just feel what they are.
Speaker 4: But I don't have a go to thing. Do you.
Speaker 3: Probably getting like super cozy in bed with tons of blankets.
Speaker 4: Oh that's Cute's that's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love being cozy. That's a big thing for me.
Speaker 3: And then being outside going on walks. It's so great
Speaker 3: for that breathing air, sunshine, weating.
Speaker 2: Weating, I like weading.
Speaker 4: I do a different weating, but yes, but I also
Speaker 4: like singing for me if I just like sing out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what kind of songs do you like to sing?
Speaker 4: Oh? Power ballads? Eighty power ballads? Yeah, like some old
Speaker 4: heart Oh my god? Yes, what don't they want someone?
Speaker 4: A terrible Yeah, that's amazing, She's so amazing, So amazing.
Speaker 4: I want to see that documentary about Anne Wilson.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're so great.
Speaker 3: No, they have a they have an audio book that's
Speaker 3: really interesting.
Speaker 2: They have a great story.
Speaker 4: Oh I know they probably have like wild music music
Speaker 4: industry stories.
Speaker 2: Too, totally.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In their early careers started in Canada.
Speaker 4: It did Mushroom Records on the West coast because they
Speaker 4: are the seventies and I know weird trivia about those.
Speaker 2: We need to start a weird trivia show. We're trivia
Speaker 2: with Peaches. Let's go. I would listen to that.
Speaker 4: It's not really very weird, right, Well.
Speaker 2: You got to get the people to listen, so say weird. Okay, weird?
Speaker 4: Weird is it?
Speaker 2: I'll bring them in Okay, okay, So I will let
Speaker 2: you go soon.
Speaker 3: Is there anything about the album that you want to
Speaker 3: talk about, like anything that I didn't specifically ask you about,
Speaker 3: or anything you want to say about the album?
Speaker 4: So I was writing it was literally writing down what
Speaker 4: about love? Because I'm constructing.
Speaker 3: My karaoke list constantly that that's a hard song to sing.
Speaker 4: Oh No, I wouldn't never, I've got it, I got
Speaker 4: you done that. I don't want to blow at your
Speaker 4: mic right now?
Speaker 3: What are your favorite power ballads? Like, what comes to
Speaker 3: mind when you think power ballads?
Speaker 4: Well, now that one for sure. It's I Love more
Speaker 4: T It's U Laura Brannigan. She also did Oh that Night,
Speaker 4: It is My World. I love I love singing her
Speaker 4: any Pat Benatar song is amazing. My go to is
Speaker 4: Weathering Heights Kate Bush Nice I love. There's so many.
Speaker 4: I just love awesome. Yeah, they're really for the teachers
Speaker 4: of Peach's anniversary. Dour I did a twenty minute or
Speaker 4: twelve to twenty minute version of It's All Coming Back
Speaker 4: to Me Celine Dion with starts and stops and new
Speaker 4: lyrics and things like that. So that was also hard
Speaker 4: to say. That was very voice expanding. Also, Private Dancer
Speaker 4: is a big one for me.
Speaker 2: Oh so good. Yeah, I love that video.
Speaker 4: Private Dancer written by Mark Knopfler from from What's the
Speaker 4: name of it now? I don't remember the name Brothers
Speaker 4: in Arms. Someone out there was saying the name of
Speaker 4: the band is uh, you know? They also did they
Speaker 4: did the MTV theme, did they we Got the stormuck?
Speaker 4: Whatever of you know?
Speaker 2: That's oh Dire Straight Dire Straights.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I had it like a brain freeze.
Speaker 2: That song was the ship. That video was on MTV
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 4: Well because it wasn't I want min Yeah. So the
Speaker 4: singer from that band and the writer Mark Knopfler wrote
Speaker 4: Private Dancer, Wow, which is strange.
Speaker 2: Look at him. Yeah, that is weird.
Speaker 3: So is there anything else about the album that you
Speaker 3: want to touch on or talk about about the creation
Speaker 3: of the album or.
Speaker 4: I'm just super excited about it and I love it
Speaker 4: and I'm glad you mentioned the song fuck How You
Speaker 4: Wanna Fuck? I think it has some really good stings
Speaker 4: and powerful messages in there, and i just want to
Speaker 4: get it out there, and I'm excited for the tour.
Speaker 4: It starts February twentieth in the States, and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is last question.
Speaker 3: If you were to put together like an essential Peaches playlist,
Speaker 3: what would be on it?
Speaker 4: Oh? I mean I would I mean I would put
Speaker 4: on of course, you put on fuck the Paint Away,
Speaker 4: you'd put it boys want to be Here? You put
Speaker 4: on to Operate. I would put on Tombstone or put
Speaker 4: shake your dicks dick in the air, rub is big
Speaker 4: for me. I'd also put on Free drink ticket. Uh what,
Speaker 4: there's like, so many songs to put on it.
Speaker 2: This is hard hanging titties.
Speaker 4: Hanging titties. I wasn't even give no lub so rude.
Speaker 4: Fuck how you want to fuck? I'm gonna just start
Speaker 4: naming every single song I wrote. So I don't really
Speaker 4: know what to do about this.
Speaker 2: That works.
Speaker 3: Thank you Peaches so much for thank you talking. Thanks listen, Yeah,
Speaker 3: have fun on tour.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thanks yay by.
Speaker 1: In the episode description, you'll find a link to a
Speaker 1: playlist featuring Peach's latest album, No Lubes So Rude, as
Speaker 1: well as a mix of her past releases. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast
Speaker 1: to see all of our video interviews, and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
Speaker 1: help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Ben Tomaday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats Justin Richmond