Peaches can be a tricky concept to grasp. Although punk rockers, pseudo-lesbians, electrobots and hip hoppers may all have a fair idea of what she’s about; for the most part, the true notion of Peaches remains untouched (while other areas are pleasantly violated).

However, on the flipside, there really is nothing too mysterious and sacred about this Canadian born, Berlin based artist. Anyone who has banged their head to Peaches’ groovebox beats or paid homage to her Kiss-esque live shows will know that nothing is concealed from the fans. It’s full frontal musical voyeurism at its finest. An amalgamation of sex, minimal crisp beats and latex, this ex-school teacher has just recently released her second album “Fatherfucker” after much anticipation from avid fans around the globe. And unlike polished counterparts in the music industry, Peaches comes as a breath of fresh air with her ‘I don’t give a’ attitude and unique approach to music production. Yes she programs her own beats, yes she sings her own songs and yes, she diddles her own skittle.

But at the end of the day, while Anna Wintour greedily scoffs down her caviar with Britney proclaiming her virginity, all Peaches wants to do is fuck people up the ass with her music. Let’s not deny her that.

Hey Peaches, what are you up to?

I’m in Sweden at the moment, and I’m on the way to Norway finishing up a tour with Marilyn Manson.

Are you looking forward to coming to Australia?

Yeah I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be summer time and every place I’m going there’s going to be a beach which is very exciting!

What was it like last time you were here?

I was a fill in then for Aphex twin and that’s kind of different, I don’t think we’re very alike although I hear this year; we’re both going to be there?

Yeah, you’re both playing this time around.

Who else is playing?

The Strokes, Luke Vibert, Afrika Bambatta …

Oh is Afrika headlining? That’s good.

What was it like working on Fatherfucker?

It was really great to be able to make another album. And to be honest I was really happy that it was as good as the last one. Overall it was quite exciting for me. And you know, a lot of the songs were road tested this time. The songs that were more rock and roll in a sense were songs that I never meant to record. For instance ‘Shake yer dix’ was just kind of a chance. ‘Rock n Roll’ was also just another chance. You see I have another instrumental band called Feedom which is basically me, Taylor Savvy and Gonzales playing live, and I was just singing over a backing track from that band and that’s how ‘Rock n Roll’ came about. Also the song, ‘I don’t give A’ was also just part of some of the loops I would use when doing live shows to pump up the performance. But these all turned into songs and then of course really, just by accident I got to do a duet with Iggy Pop too. So in a way, it turned out to be a little more rock and roll.

And how did you and Iggy Pop come to do a duet together? What was it like working with him?

It was fantastic. I mean he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do you know. He called me on the phone and told me he heard my song ‘Rock Show’ and he sang over it and asked if he could get permission to put it on his new album. At the same time, I was making Fatherfucker so I said ‘Hey do you want to do a duet’ and he was like ‘yeah sure’. And so I had to write it. But for him, one of my all time idols, to tell me ‘go ahead and write a song for us to sing, I trust you, I like your music and lyrics’ that was pretty much it for me. The only way I could cope was like dealing with the images of me being the little puppy dog to this rock star. We also made a video for it which was lots of fun.

Do you think your music has evolved much since the Teaches of Peaches?

I think there’s definitely a lot more of a live element that’s come into the recordings now. I quite like that.

You used to be a school teacher. What was the transition like from teaching to producing music full time?

Well I mean I was always teaching kids, but I mean it was on my own terms. It was my own business and my own everything you know. I was the only one doing this business, I was the only one developing these programs and doing those programs would help fund my musical projects. So it wasn’t really a big transition in the way that I was a teacher and then I made music. I was always making music. I’m actually just more focused now.

Sex seems to be recurring theme in your music. Why is it such a relevant issue to you?

I think its sex is a very relevant issue. It’s prominent in everybody’s music. I don’t think I’m any different really.

But do you think you deliberately go for shock value in your lyrics?

I don’t think so. In fact I think my lyrics are totally mainstream. I think it’s like a totally mainstream thing. I think its shocking how people are so shocked me saying, ‘I like girls’ and ‘I like boys’. Aren’t we ready for that kind of thing? I mean I sing along to ‘squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg’, I sing along to ‘baby got back’ and ‘back that ass up’ and ‘shake that ass, show me what you’re working’. Aren’t people ready for the same thing? Actually now that I think about it, I’m not so different at all.

I think we’re ready.

(laughs)

And how do you feel when people classify your music under such guises such as Electroclash?

Well you see in Europe Electroclash never really caught on, especially in Germany because there’s always been a scene of electro music anyway so we didn’t have this title. It was just what people were doing. And the way that people decided to use this new electro stuff is really interesting. I think in New York, they developed this term as a hype and in America you need that because it’s such a huge country so if you want to get any attention, you have to attach a hype to it. And in the end, I don’t know if it really was good for them. And I don’t really attach myself to that scene at all.

What’s the electro scene in Berlin like these days?

There are so many fractions of it, you know. At the moment there’s a lot of ex punk rockers now that are switching over to electronic music but keeping the punk attitude which is pretty cool. You’ll get people like Angie Reed and the Boys from Brazil. Then there’s always Taylor Savvy and Gonzales who approach electronics in a totally different way. Taylor Savvy is more like the soul singer electro guy and then there’s Cobra Killer who couldn’t give a shit about the title. They just use a lot of rare 60s sample with hysterical screaming. Lots of kids just going for it which is cool.

You obviously produce your own music from programming the beats to writing the verses. What was the process like in the studio this time around for Fatherfucker?

I guess you could say the beats have their own life and the lyrics have their own life and then sometimes the lyrics find a life in like five different songs and then I have to decide who gets which part of what. A lot of times, they just get mixed up, the beats are more on their own and the lyrics are pieced together in different parts so it’s not completely calculated really. It’s more about whatever sounds best together in the studio.

And what was it like working with Pink?

It was real easy. She had the song ready and I had my rap part and we went in, we met, she flew overnight for six hours from LA just to meet me and we recorded the song. Then we did a bit of improvising and then we went shopping at the Flea markets which took around an hour.

I heard you often avoid collaborations with artists when you feel your work could be censored? How much truth is there to this?

I’m not afraid!

Well what about turning down Britney?

Well I just didn’t understand how anything I write for Britney Spears could actually work for her a) on her album and b) without getting censored so I didn’t really see the point of writing for someone else in those circumstances. You see when Pink invites me as a guest to be myself then I can be myself and take her lyrics and what she’s done and it becomes a mutual collaboration. I don’t think I could write for Britney so that she could pretend to be a dirty Mickey mouse instead of the clean Mickey mouse she really is. I mean, just look at the failure with her song with Madonna. That’s a bad song. It’s horrible.

It surely is. Now when you come to Australia this time around what can we expect?

A huge KISS concert but with just me on stage.

In earlier interview you said you wanted to ‘Fuck people up the ass with my music’. Do you think this album has achieved this?

Yes I definitely think this album does that. And I hope everybody’s enjoying that nice feeling. And I mean that in a totally positive way.