It’s now been over two decades since pioneering electroclash artist Peaches burst onto the scene to tell us all to simply “fuck the pain away”. The singer’s genre-defining first album, aptly titled The Teaches of Peaches, mesmerised listeners in 2002 with its (at the time) shocking lyrical themes of queer sexuality, gender-bending romance and staunch feminism.

Peaches went on to enjoy more mainstream success following placements in numerous iconic film scenes, most notably her sinister sex jam “Operate” serving as the soundtrack to Regina George savagely making out with Aaron Samuels to the horror of Lindsay Lohan’s Cady in Mean Girls.

Over the years, this radical artist has continued to push the boundaries of gender and sexuality through her art, whilst traversing between her status as both an underground legend and a collaborator to huge Top 40 pop darlings like P!nk and Christina Aguilera.

The trailblazing artist is currently completing a victory lap world tour in celebration of The Teaches of Peaches’ 20th anniversary. Ahead of one of her final European performances, we sat down with Peaches under the moonlight on the breathtaking hills of the Basque Country where she played to a raucous crowd at the 15th edition of Bilbao BBK Live festival, to hear the stories behind six of the most beloved and pivotal tracks in her career.

“FUCK THE PAIN AWAY”

“I remember being on a plane thinking about the Pat Benatar song ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’. She sings ‘You’re real tough cookie with a long history of breaking little hearts like you wanted me.’ And somehow that lead me to ‘Sucking on my titties like you wanted me’. The first time I really put it together, I was playing a small gig opening for a friend back in Toronto for probably 15 people. Afterwards the sound woman said, ‘Oh, I recorded your set on a cassette. If you give me $5 you can have it.’ So I’m like, ‘Yeah, here.’ When I played it back, I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds cool.’ And that’s the song – I never changed it. I put it on a demo because I was thinking maybe I’ll get someone to help me produce it ‘cos I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? But when I’d ask musicians or producers, nobody ever mentioned the production quality or the levels, they just said it sounds fucking cool. So, I was like, ‘Done!’

“I’m totally not mad at it becoming my signature song. Certain songs represent a coming-of-age for people. I’ve mine with The Cramps, The Runaways or The Violent Femmes – songs from when I first felt like I was free to be me. For so many people that song is one. How can you be mad at that? It’s a fucking beautiful feeling. And it’s still happening, every couple of years it has a new lease of life because it's one of those coming-of-age songs.”

“OPERATE”

“‘Operate’ was technically the first Peaches song written. Before Peaches, I was part of a band called The Shit, which was four musicians and we were very dissatisfied with our current musical projects. We got together and jammed. It was the first time I played keyboards and used synthesisers – before that I thought synthesisers sucked. Sticky, from The Shit, and I made a 4-track demo for ‘Operate’ and brought it to the band.

“The track was different then, it was raw and sloppy in a great way. Later when I was making music with the Roland 505 I made the version of ‘Operate’ for the Fatherfucker album.

“I wanted my first album to be songs that I was writing fresh so I ended up putting it on my second album, and then later it was used in Mean Girls. I’m a huge Tina Fey fan so that was such a big deal for me to be recognised by her comedy and intelligence, and what she was doing at the time. And Amy Poehler too. To me, comedy is a huge force in changing minds and hearts and making statements. Comedy is not fluff for me and art is not fluff for me.”

“I was working with Greg Kurstin for my third album and I was obsessed with all these rock songs from my past about that guy who’s coming to town and all the women want to fuck him and all the men want to be him. There’s a million of those songs but the one that I was obsessed with is TNT by AC/DC. AC/DC with Bon Scott to me is a great fucking band – nobody wore jeans tighter than him. That song is so simple but I like its style and I wanted to make a version of it. These songs never had a woman focus – everybody just wanted to fuck the woman. I’m speaking in very binary sense, of course, we’re talking about 15 years ago. I wanted to switch it around so in mine the boys want to be her and the girls want to be her.

“I just kept listening to TNT hoping something would come to me. One day I came to Greg and was like, ‘I have the riff. I have the drumbeat. The chorus is ‘the boys want to be her’. Then it just wrote itself in front of us. All the rhymes just worked, and I was so excited that I got in references to Stonewall, bar brawls… ‘The way you rock, non-stop’, and ‘She Bop’ which is a Cyndi Lauper song about masturbation. It’s used in TV and film even more than ‘Fuck The Pain Away’. When you need that female-identifying empowerment moment, that’s the song.”

“AA XXX”

“I love this song, I wrote it in the bathtub. I was thinking, again, about all those 70s songs about younger women, like underage women. I was like, ‘OK, that’s not cool’ but what they mean is an innocent type – they don’t have to be underage, just someone where you feel you have a little more experience and maybe you can help them along. I was thinking about pornography, again very binary pornography, and, you know, large breasts. AA is like the smallest bra size so it just went together as a good symbol with XXX. It’s such a simple song, it’s all base driven. When I perform it at Bilbao BBK tonight, we’ll begin with just the 505, the machine that I started with, then it turns into more of a band, we add the dancers and then it just gets crazier and crazier.

“KICK IT” (FT. IGGY POP)

“I met Iggy Pop at the Shortlist Music Prize, the US version of the Mercury Prize. It was 2002, Pharrell Williams was there and The Hives. I spotted Iggy and ran over. He’d just come off stage, he’s such an incredible performer. We looked at each other, held hands and just start crying. We didn’t know each other but somehow we got emotional. His girlfriend Nina was like, ‘Iggy, do you know this is Peaches? We’re going to go see her in Miami.’ And he’s like, ‘Oh.’

“It was my first time playing in Florida, the venue asked if I had a guest list, I was like, ‘Yeah, Iggy Pop’. They laughed and said ‘Oh, you want Bowie to come too?’ But he showed up and after the show he asked for my number. He phoned me and left an answering machine message – who leaves answering machine messages? It said: ‘Hey, I love your song ‘Rock Show’. I’d like to cover it for my next album.’ I told him I was making a new album and asked if I could write a duet for us where we’re kind of making fun of each other but using our own lyrics and stuff? He said ‘Sure. Write it, come to Miami and record it. If I get it, I get it, if I don’t, I don’t.’ And then he got it. It was a crazy but beautiful experience.”

“MY GIRLS” (CHRISTINA AGUILERA FT. PEACHES)

“Christina was a fan of mine and she came to my shows in LA around the Boys Want To Be Her era. Years later when she was doing her Las Vegas residency she included ‘Boys Want To Be Her’ in the show every night, mixed into ‘Can’t Hold Us Down’, which was cool. But yeah, so she just asked me to be a part of this song in 2010. We didn’t really get to work together on it though, I went to a studio, the song was there and I did my verse. She wasn’t there that day but we hung out after my show and she was cool. I think ‘Fuck The Pain Away’ and my music was very coming of age for her.”

The quotes in this interview have been edited and condensed.

Peaches spoke to us ahead of her performance at Bilbao BBK Live 2022. Learn more about ‘The Teaches of Peaches Tour’ on her official website.