The Squirt Factory
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For more than two decades, Peaches has built a career out of saying the quiet parts loud — and then turning the volume up even further.
Long before pop culture embraced frank conversations about gender, sexuality and power, the electro-punk provocateur was delivering them in songs that were confrontational, hilarious and impossible to ignore. Tracks like “Fuck the Pain Away” became unlikely cultural touchstones, blurring the line between satire, liberation and performance art.
But as Peaches prepares to bring her latest tour to Walter Studios on Tuesday, March 24, the artist says the real danger today isn’t scandal.
It’s politics.
“When you said danger,” she says, “all I think about is how we are in danger of losing all our rights — slowly chipping away at our human rights. So that’s what I see danger as. And I see that as urgent.”
That urgency runs through her new material and her upcoming performances — but it’s also the continuation of a career built on challenging who gets to speak, and how.
When Peaches emerged in the early 2000s with her breakthrough album “The Teaches of Peaches,” her music didn’t fit neatly into any genre box. Electro, punk, dance and performance art collided in songs that were as provocative as they were playful.
The friction was intentional.
“I was definitely responding to the way I heard music and who was allowed to make this music and what point of view it was coming from,” she says. “It just seemed very male-gazy.”
At the time, Peaches says, the kind of blunt perspective she wanted to bring into music didn’t seem to have a clear space in the culture.
“It didn’t seem like there was a place where, with the music I wanted to make, I could be direct and say what I wanted in the same way I found my male counterparts doing music like this,” she says.
Instead of waiting for permission, she built her own lane. “Instead of just asking questions, I answered them creatively.”
Part of that creative language has always been camp — exaggerated, theatrical and intentionally absurd. “Camp is a great edutainment tool,” she says. “It’s very entertaining. It’s over the top. Sometimes absurd.”
But the absurdity, she says, often mirrors reality.
“I look at situations and I find them, like real-life situations, so absurd,” she says. “If you switch them around, people find what you’re doing absurd — but it will never be as absurd as what is really going on in reality.”
That approach has helped keep Peaches relevant across multiple mediums. In addition to music, she’s worked in theater, film and installation art — though she says music remains the anchor of everything she does.
“All of it starts with the musical idea,” she says.
Even some of her most infamous songs have taken on lives far beyond their original context. Her 2000 single “Fuck the Pain Away,” for example, has become a kind of generational anthem.
“Across the board, it means something to a lot of people,” she says. “It serves as that moment in your life where you become your own sexual being or take charge of being your own sexual self.”
Her latest album, No Lube So Rude, shifts the focus outward, exploring a world that feels increasingly divided.
“It relates to the friction of the world and how we’re so polarized right now,” she says. “We’re not coming together and talking to each other about these really polarizing situations because it’s so explosive.”
In classic Peaches fashion, even that theme gets filtered through an unexpected metaphor.
“I wish we had some kind of magic lube that could fill in those cracks so we could relax a little bit and maybe see each other’s point of view,” she says.
As for what Phoenix audiences should expect from the upcoming show?
The answer is both simple and very Peaches.
“I hope they understand that you can be who you need to be,” she says. “You have the right and you deserve to express yourself.”
Peaches. 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 24. Walter Studios, 747 W. Roosevelt St. Tickets are $41.24-$161.85.
