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Explaining away the decade-long wait for new music, Peaches deadpans, “I was doing shit.” She isn’t joking. After wrapping up three years touring her 2015 LP Rub, the iconoclastic electro-pop artist born Merrill Nisker busied herself creating two immersive performance art installations and playing the lead in Stuttgart State Opera’s production of Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins. Plus, there was the small matter of overseeing not one but two career-spanning documentaries and playing a string of belated 20th anniversary shows for her seminal, taboo-busting second album, The Teaches Of Peaches.
Finally, the Canada-born Berliner is back with her seventh album No Lube So Rude, recorded with mysterious producer-cum-“spiritual entity” The Squirt Deluxe Deluxe. Eschewing the brash, lo-fi feel of her early work, it finds the 59-year-old utilising polished yet suitably transgressive electro-punk as a means to assert control in the midst of chaos. Advocating for bodily autonomy, freedom of expression, trans rights and an end to white supremacy, armed little more than jack-hammer beats and some eye-watering sexual sloganeering, these are protest anthems you can fuck to, should you so wish.
Ahead of its release, we gave Peaches a call to discuss near-death experiences, AI and the benefits of ageing disgracefully.
1. Hi, where are you today?
Bethnal Green. I came over here last week to take part in Jonny Woo’s Un-Royal Variety Show.
2. Tell me about the sound world of No Lube So Rude. It feels so much more expansive than your previous work.
Yeah, that was the point. My style has always been very minimal, but I wanted it to sound like Peaches in 2026. I understand that electroclash is back, and it has that essence to it, but I just wanted it to hit harder. I wanted to turn it up a bit and make it more clubby. I love that nothing is purist anymore.
3. Does that absence of purism mean there’s more freedom for musicians to go wild nowadays than there was when you started out?
People will always find a way to go wild but the younger kids definitely don’t care if music is punk or if it’s super pop or polished or completely noisy, and that makes for really interesting, weird sounds. You’ll have nu-metal with, like, Mariah Carey singing. It’s great.
4. On Not In Your Mouth, None Of Your Business, you sing: “We will stop you fucking up our lives / I cannot be squashed or minimised.” Who are you addressing?
It is addressed to anyone who feels it is their privilege to have bodily autonomy over anybody else, or to assert their idea of what a woman is or what a man is. Because if it’s not in their mouth, it’s none of their business. So it goes out to the TERFs. It goes out to the white supremacists.
5. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This is a very good question, because I really didn’t want to be anything. I didn’t want to be married. I didn’t want to have a baby. I didn’t want to be a firefighter. I literally didn’t think about it.
6. What’s the best thing about getting older?
Not giving a shit and realising that it’s important not to sweat things that don’t really matter. And to focus on things that do.
7. What do people assume about you that is incorrect?
They think I want to have sex all the time. I do not.
8. Has that ever caused any awkward encounters?
For them, yeah.
9. Who or what is your current musical obsession?
Lambrini Girls. The sheer power of political punk is infectious and radicalising – wow! And Phoebe [Lunny] is really one of the most engaging and energetic performers I have ever experienced.
10. What is your karaoke song?
I will karaoke any 80s power ballad but Wuthering Heights [by Kate Bush] is my go-to song. I kill that.
What do people assume about you that is incorrect? “They think I want to have sex all the time. I do not” – Peaches
11. What’s your favourite lyric ever?
“I shot my mouth off, and you showed me what that hole was for.“ It’s from an old Pretenders song called Tattooed Love Boys.
12. How would you define your personal style?
Calculatedly not giving a shit.
13. What is the closest you’ve come to death?
I almost drowned in a swimming pool when I was five. I was unconscious at the bottom of the pool. I remember when I came to, I puked a bunch of Kraft macaroni and cheese everywhere. This is gonna be a great interview. [Laughs].
14. What is your greatest quality?
I have a good aura around me and you just want to hang out with me.
15. What is your biggest vice?
Giving in to anxiety.
16. What makes you hopeful?
Community.
17. What is your most controversial opinion?
I wouldn’t think this was a controversial opinion, but I will say, as a progressive Jewish person, I have major, major compassion for Palestine and it freaks me out that not everybody really understands how important this is as a big picture. Never again means never again for anybody.
18. What are your thoughts on AI?
I have so many thoughts about it. I’m so intrigued by it and so scared of it and so not willing to have it take over the world. I’m also very curious about all the things it could help me with as a collaborator. But then it’s a slippery slope into all of our demises.
19. Who would play you in a film of your life, and who would direct?
I want Amy from Amyl and the Sniffers to play me. And to direct? I’m gonna give it to Charli XCX.
20. How do you see your purpose as a musician?
My purpose as a musician is to not water down myself and to continue to forge my path in letting people know that they need to be who they need to be. This record is for everybody, and I want them to understand that you can just yell it out, be yourself, be loud and proud, feel safe and enjoy this record in all its brashness and boldness.
No Lube So Rude by Peaches is out now.
