To look at her now, it’s hard to believe that Peaches was once a preppy suburban 80s’ mall-girl called Merrill. As the bisexual queen of dirty electro-cool sashays into the studio for her photo shoot – clad in an impossibly fab gold dress, funky leather jacket, and gold stillies with slave ankle cuffs – there’s not even a sniff of the wholesome, all-Canadian Jewish mall princess about her. Not until she opens her mouth, that is.

Every sentence is liberally sprinkled with ‘like’, ‘yeah’ and the occasional exclamatory ‘woah!’ I hold my breath for a ‘dude’ or two, but none are forthcoming – it’s possible I’ve watched too many bad US teen flicks in my time. Besides, she’s Canadian.

But back to the mall, where the Peaches story begins. As a teenager, growing up in a brand-new development on the outskirts of Toronto, Peaches – aka Merrill Nisker, now approaching her 40th birthday – had no inkling of the future that would await her as an international star of electroclash. She didn’t even know she wanted to be a musician. She was, by her own admission, ‘excited that the 7/11 was a 15-minute walk away’. And – boundless joy – there was a mall. It became the hub of her social scene, and a place where the ever-changing fads of youth culture were adopted and cast off. ‘I had dates in the mall. I’d wear lots of make-up and go hang out there. I went through a preppy time. I wish I could show you – my sister haunts me with a picture of me in a Lacoste sweater with a little polo buttoned-down sweatshirt and blow-dried hair. Then I went mod, then I went hippy. Whatever.

Her particular ‘burb was ‘30% Jewish population, 30% Black, and 40% white’, and she hung out with about 40 other kids. ‘It was a big gang, and we were really loud and crazy,’ she drawls.



Music and dancing played a big part in the gang’s social cement. ‘I was, like, a disco and early hip-hop kid, because that’s what would play when we’d go to our school dances in junior high. When early hip-hop came out, we didn’t even know – we just thought it was good dance music. We didn’t realise it was a whole new revolution.

‘The black kids of course were amazing dancers, and they would be doing the Freak. And so if a black guy came over and danced the Freak with you, then you knew you were doing well! I’d go, ‘awwwriiight!’ – ‘cos we were just a bunch of girls trying to learn all the dances.’

But the gang drifted apart. A lot of Peaches’ friends moved away, and some started thinking about what they wanted to do with their lives. ‘Performing arts schools started to come into existence. I didn’t even get it – I didn’t understand that I was an artist.’

It was, in fact, a touch of the Sapphic brush that then brought Peaches into the world of music performance. ‘I had a girlfriend, and she played acoustic guitar, and I did as well. And we just started playing. ‘Yeah,’ she says pointedly, ‘she was my Girlfriend-girlfriend. ‘When we decided to split up, someone asked her to sing acoustic at a show, and I muscled my way in and said, “Hey, let’s do it together!”

‘We thought we were The Indigo Girls,’ says Peaches wryly. ‘Because we were learning, it was easy to pick up an acoustic guitar and sing shit about your girlfriend and how much she’s hurting you or hates you. Like, that whole fake honesty thing that I can’t stand.’

But morbid lezza singer-songwriter mistakes aside, Peaches was hooked. ‘I realised, “oh yeah – I guess I’m a musician”. I was in my early 20s then.’

Peaches saw the folky error of her ways and quit the band amid high ex-girlfriend dramas. ‘But I met up with her recently – it was fun. She’s playing music, and doing some kind of massage therapy and stuff.’ A lesbian ex, doing massage therapy and acoustic music? To her credit, Peaches manages to relay this information without the slightest hint of a smirk.

Moving hastily along, we skip to the present – and, praise the Lord, it’s a world away from blow-dried ‘dos and budding Beth Ortons. The diminutive Peaches – dress size 8, if you must know – is now unmistakably cool. She’s based in Berlin, reached the number six slot on NME’s 2003 cool people list, and mixes with the big names of the fashion, art and music worlds. ‘I’ve worked with some of the people I dreamed about working with – like Iggy and Joan Jett. I also got to perform live with a lot of people. I went backstage at a Suicide show, to say “hi” to Alan Vega, and then he said, “Come and do Frankie and Johnny with us!”’

Spontaneous live stints with mates have also seen her performing with the Flaming Lips, The Dresden Dolls and a Christmas show for John Waters, in which she cavorted with ten sexy dancers. ‘I had my period in my pants, singing a Hanukkah song. It was funny. But the best part,’ she laughs, ‘was when John Waters came on, and he was like, “I always wanted to have naked elves running around with huge erections, sucking each other off before I went on stage. But I got Peaches!”’

She’s also appeared alongside Anita Pallenberg, Skin and the All Saints’ Shaznay in a John-Malkovich-directed film of Bella Freud’s fashion collection, and has had her songs featured in several films, including Lost in Translation.
But Peaches still clings to her DIY chic, and with lyrics like hers she ain’t never gonna be a mainstream music whore. She’s always sniffing out the new, the interesting, the unsigned, but, unlike Madonna, she doesn’t pilfer or repackage it for a huge mainstream following. She just admires it, hangs out in the dark clubs of Berlin, and makes friends with people she thinks are cool.

We talk about where she thinks the burgeoning creativity of the Noughties is to be found. ‘I think there always is that in local scenes. I don’t know, I’m sure you might just go, “urgh”, but something like Myspace really helps that. Because people can be whoever they want to be now, and they don’t have a middle man. Or they don’t need TV and they don’t need print. They are actually their own media machines.’

Punk DIY mentality has transferred itself to the internet, then. ‘Yeah. But I have this scary feeling that the internet will become more exclusive. Somehow, they’re going to make it more bourgeois, so that all these DIY things can’t occur.’
Does she hope that the independent artist spirit will crop up elsewhere if it’s quashed online? ‘Yeah, it has to. Like pirate radio came up. Like when those cool pixel video cameras came out for kids, and the artists started using them. Then they took them off the market.’

DIY can also be luxurious, though. Peaches has just finished recording her third album, in Laurel Canyon. ‘We did it in a studio with a heated swimming pool, and a five-bedroom house. So I could be a workaholic, or I could be a party-aholic, or whatever. I didn’t rent a car, so I couldn’t leave.’

The album, ingeniously called Impeach My Bush, features Queen of The Stone Age front man Josh Homme and Joan Jett on guitar.

‘Joan came over on her 47th birthday just to hang out. Then she liked the song You Love It, and ended up playing on that.’

Peaches’ birthday gift to Joan was a winner. ‘I gave her a big go-go dance in a gold bikini while she was playing the guitar, and then while she was singing, I pressed my gold bikini-bottomed arse against the studio glass for her. So she could have some inspiration.’

Another guest on the album is Samantha Maloney (drummer for Hole, Courtney Love band, Motley Crue, and Eagles of Death Metal). ‘I just met Samantha last year on New Year’s in New York. She was so cool, because we didn’t know each other and she said, “Let’s just work together. I’ll come to Berlin. I don’t care” She’d never been to Berlin, she doesn’t know me – and she came for two weeks. We had so much fun. But we also worked for ten or eleven hours a day – just hung out in my strange studio that I have in Berlin.’

That studio is the renowned art centre Tacheles, a former squat that started life as a Jewish department store in the early 1900s and is now, according to Peaches, ‘kind of like a Disneyland squat – tourists are there all the time. You have to lock your door, otherwise tourists would constantly be coming in, going… ’ She pauses to adopt a goofy voice. ‘“Oh, hey, that’s pretty cool, what you do!”’

Berlin’s lesbian scene isn’t quite to Peaches’ taste. ‘It’s not that Berlin’s dead on the lesbian scene – it needs to have more of a scene. It just seems kind of behind – or like there’s just one kind of lesbian. It’s still in this strict lesbian scene.’

Peaches has now been with a guy for the last four years. He’s 6’5” to her 5’4” – and he looks ‘kind of heavy metal-ish’.
‘He’s a stand-up, amazing, strong but silent guy who has a high tolerance,’ she laughs. ‘I want to be monogamous with him. I still kiss people. I dunno – I think everybody kisses! Everybody has a little fun. He’s fantastic.’

She says he has the patience needed to deal with her constant touring. And she’s soon to embark on a tour opening for Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus in large stadiums across the US. She’s undaunted by the prospect. ‘I opened for Manson in stadiums all over Europe. Got spat on a lot. Got in a lot of fights. It wasn’t good, but then I turned it around. I mean, a lot of people would’ve just walked off the stage, and rightly so. But I’ve got this sickness called, “I Need The Challenge” so I just went out there and told them that they’re sheep in black, instead of black sheep. I told them they all should get rainbow outfits.’

So this tour should prove interesting. ‘Piece of cake! I’ll have a band. No problem!’

Indeed, for the first time, Peaches will be touring with a live band. And, hallelujah, it’s an all-gal effort – with the delicious JD Samson from Le Tigre on keytar and sequencing, aforementioned Samantha Maloney on drums, and Courtney Love guitarist Radio Sloan. They’ll be hitting the UK shores around September – and, if her Fatherfucker show at London’s Scala in 2003 was anything to go by, it’ll be one of the dirtiest, most rocking, electric, wild and hilarious performances you’ll ever see. Even if you’re not already a fan, leave the mall, ditch the massage therapy for a night and go see her. Get the album. Like, Peaches rocks. Woah.

Impeach My Bush is out on July 10th. For more information, visit www.peachesrocks.com