Peaches
An iconic feminist musician, producer, director, and performance artist, Peaches has spent more than two decades pushing boundaries and breaking barriers, dramatically altering the landscape of popular culture as she forged a bold, sexually progressive path that’s opened the doors for countless others to follow. Through music, art, film, theater, television, and books, she has upended stereotypes and embraced taboos, challenging social norms and patriarchal power structures while championing LGBTQ+ rights and issues of gender and sexual identity with biting wit and fearless originality.
She first catapulted to international stardom with her “surreally funny [and] nasty” (Rolling Stone) 2000 debut, The Teaches of Peaches, an album which upended stereotypes and embraced taboos as it introduced the world to Peaches’ raunchily explosive persona. Since then, she’s released four more critically acclaimed albums prompting the New York Times to dub her a “genuine heroine” and Uncut to rave that she brings together “high art, low humor, and deluxe filth [in] a hugely seductive combination.” In addition to collaborating with everyone from Daft Punk and The Flaming Lips, to P!nk, and Yoko Ono her music has been honored with the prestigious Polaris Heritage Prize, and been featured in cultural watermarks like Lost In Translation, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Broad City, and studied at universities around the world.
An equally prolific visual and performance artist, Peaches has directed over twenty of her own videos, curated a stunning book of Holger Talinski photographs documenting her life on and off the road, and participated in some of modern art’s most prominent gatherings, including Art Basel Miami and the Venice Biennale. In 2010, she unveiled Peaches Does Herself, an electro-rock opera spanning material from throughout her career that was arranged into a loosely autobiographical narrative. It morphed into a film of the same title, which premiered at the TIFF in 2012 before traveling to more than 70 festivals around the world. Peaches continued her foray into theater with a one woman production of Jesus Christ Superstar, redubbed Peaches Christ Superstar, which continues to be performed at theaters and festivals globally and was featured in 2016 as part of the Kammerspiele Munich repertoire. Ever eclectic, she sang the title role in a Berlin production of Monteverdi’s epic 17th-century opera L’Orfeo and joined forces with Yoko Ono on a recreation of her iconic 1964 performance Cut Piece at the 2013 Meltdown Festival in London. Ono later said that Cut Piece will never be performed again with such eloquence,” adding “I have a clear vision of future women artists led by the creative courage of Peaches.”
In 2019, Peaches starred as Anna in the Staatstheater Stuttgart’s new adaptation of Brecht/Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and launched her first institutional solo art exhibition that premiered at the Kunstverein in Hamburg entitled Whose Jizz Is This? At
the Kampnagel Summer Festival, Peaches’ futuristic stage happening There’s Only One Peach With The Hole In The Middle celebrated its world premiere. This production featured 16 dancers, a 12 piece orchestra, special guests, and a fully redesigned stage and light extravaganza. There’s Only One Peach… played at Royal Festival Hall (London, UK), Musikhuset Aarhus (Aarhus, DK), and Volksbühne (Berlin, DE).
Peaches only continues to break new ground. In 2020 her seminal album The Teaches of Peaches turned 20, which NPR says fundamentally “shifted the window for sex in pop.” In a viral moment, Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin’s 2020 Hanukkah Sessions sparked delight with a Grohl/Peaches duet of “Fuck The Pain Away.” She released the kinetic “Flip This,” which Rolling Stone said “challenges status quo and calls for systemic change.”
2021 saw her influence only further manifest. Peaches released the delightfully subversive “Pussy Mask.” “The perfect release” (Paper) was hailed by critics, including Stereogum who said it “combines her inimitable political critique, ribald wordplay, and enveloping electro.” She was also cited as the main inspiration for designer Anthony Vaccarello’s AW21 Saint Laurent collection and “Fuck The Pain Away” was used as a climactic moment in Netflix’s Sex Education Season 3. She celebrated the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with friends Cyndi Lauper, Nona Hendyrx, Linda Perry, and others on Amanda Shires’ “Our Problem.”
In January 2022, Peaches announced The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour, kicking off in Seattle, Washington on May 16. A celebration of the 20th anniversary of Peaches’ seminal The Teaches of Peaches, she will be performing the album in its entirety across North America, Europe, and the UK. In addition, Peaches is currently working on a brand new album, with more details to come.