Do you ever imagine that you'll run out of sex material?
I don’t know. What do you mean? Like, I’m on the Nine Inch Nails tour. What are his big songs? “I wanna fuck you like an animal”? “Hurt”? You know, like, whatever. Take it any way you want. Not every one of my songs is about sex. Look at “Boys Wanna Be Her.” That’s gonna be a single in America, and what's that about? That’s about a female Anti-Christ.
Actually there was, um, “You Love It When I’m Mad.”
People already think its “You Love It When I’m Bad,” and it’s talking about being the bad girl. No! You love it when I’m mad! I’m talking about, like, why do you people like it when you’re —
It’s about giving an image that people can buy into.
Yeah — when shit goes really wrong on stage, people go, “Ahh, that was such a good show, you were so angry!” It’s like, are you with me? Or do you just wanna see me, you know? Why is it exciting to see somebody angry?
Well, I hope for some of them its like watching someone model good behavior. You are explaining how shit should be and you’re modeling it on stage for a whole crew of folks. I noticed that in the recent press people are saying your real name, Merrill Lisker. Did that happen before, or is that something new that’s happening? And I kind of am curious about it, because of the creation of a character and —
I don’t really feel like it’s a character, I feel like its sort of an amplified part of myself, and if it was a “character” it would just fall flat.
Right, or that you would be Peaches when you’re working and Merrill when you're not working.
Yeah, I don’t think I’m not Peaches. And I really don’t feel like — they’re like, “Are you like this all the time?” No! When I’m not on stage, I’m like a questioning, real, person trying to put balance back into this pop-culture, fucked-up world
It struck me as strange because it felt like people were using it as if they were insiders and they knew the inside information on this person. And its like, well, of course she’s got a different name. It’s like, I do drag [as a masculine character named Heywood Wakefield], and I’m Heywood a good portion of the time —
You know what's funny? What I hear about drag, especially female to male drag? People are like, “Isn’t that so ’80s?” Like — um, I’m riding around on my bike, and my skirt’s flying up and people are staring at my skirt flying up.
Wait, in Milwaukee?
Yeah, at the Summer Grounds festival.
Wow.
So, yeah, people say, “Oh my god, you’re so ’80s! I love your retro ’80s thing!” And you know why? ’Cause in the ’80s, gay ruled. People could actually fucking do what they wanted. Look at pop culture in the ’80s — it’s pretty fucking amazing.
But, like, drag kings and people doing masculine drag in the ’80s? Not so much.
But they think anything gay, any queer positive thing. Look at how men were in the ’80s — it was almost like that was the standard, you had to have the Flock of Seagulls hair-do. And so now everything’s gay. “That’s so gay.” The way we use the word, its crazy.
