The "Most Terrifying Thing" Peaches Has Ever Done

When Peaches arrived in Australia early in 2002, it wasn't just the start of a lifelong love-affair between locals and the Berlin-based, Canadian-born electroclash icon. Sure, it was her first tour here, but it was also her first international tour, with her Big Day Out shows her first-ever festival appearances. In the years since, Peaches — 47-year-old Merrill Nisker — has toured Australia eight times, "seen a lot of places, experienced a lot of communities, and made a lot of friends all around the world".

"A mother complained that I was masturbating on the stage."

Peaches makes for quite the cultural export: her songs full of salacious lyrics and genderqueer themes, selling progressive sexuality and body positivity. Which means that when she takes her show on the road - into Eastern Europe or Asia - she can be seen as a transgressive pop-cultural presence. "Those are the more exciting shows, because people can't believe that I'm doing what I'm doing," says Nisker. "I never felt afraid, maybe naively. I played a festival in Belarus where the whole backstage was lined with police guards just in case something went wrong. But, luckily, [the police] didn't understand the English lyrics. I've played in China, at festivals and in clubs. I've played a couple of shows in Singapore. One was in a private club, because everyone was worried; the laws in Singapore state that there can be no scantily clad clothing, no physical interaction with the audience, and no revolutionary comments about the government. That show was great, it was like every transgressive person in the country filed into one room, and they locked the doors and had a party. I also played in Jakarta and there were girls in burqas there to see me play which was tremendously surprising and really exciting; it made me re-examine my own ideas of what girls in burqas want to listen to.

"I played in Moscow soon after the Pussy Riot jailing, and the other members of Pussy Riot were there, hidden in my backstage. That show had a line of security guards at the front of stage intimidating people so they [didn't] go crazy. They didn't stop the show or anything. The only time I've ever been asked to leave was when I played my first-ever show in New York. It was at Coney Island. The rides and the kids were on one side, and then on the other side they were having a festival. I was one of the first people on, so it was, like, three in the afternoon, and then a mother complained that I was masturbating on the stage. At that point I wasn't masturbating, I was just singing. But the festival kicked me off."

"I figured I would've had a heart attack by the time I was 30."

In her latest trip to Australia, Peaches will be performing her one-woman show, Peaches Christ Superstar, at Mofo at MONA. It finds her performing the musical - once considered sacrilegious, now nostalgic - entirely on her own. "It's the most terrifying thing I've ever done," Nisker says. "Firstly, it's not my lyrics, so I can't screw 'em up. If it's my own track, I can do what the fuck I want; fuck it up, stop it in the middle, change it up. But, with this, I really want to honour it, I want to do it properly, really tell the story. Some people find that really kitschy, some people take it really seriously. I'm doing it earnestly. I loved the album when I was young; I used to sing it in my bedroom when I was 15... I wanted to embrace the challenge of honouring it as an album, as music, in the power of its words, not as a production."

As well as performing Peaches Christ Superstar, in 2012 Peaches turned her career into the "electro rock-opera" Peaches Does Herself, fashioning a jukebox musical from her back catalogue, then directing a film version. While it seems like Nisker growing in ambition, there's also a sense of coming full circle. When she went to Toronto's York University to study theatre, "it was with the intention of making musicals cool," Nisker offers. "Which wasn't a very popular directorial choice. Especially when you're first in university, and everyone is so serious. It was a three-year program, but I dropped out after a year and a half. I figured I would've had a heart attack by the time I was 30, having to work with actors, having to deal with all the bureaucracies. Pretty soon thereafter, I found music and realised I could be my own director and actor, create any universe I wanted to."

"When I was making Peaches Does Herself, I didn't think about theatre school at all when I was doing it. It was only after it was done that I thought: 'Oh my god, I had just achieved exactly what I'd set out to do, 18 years prior.' It's amazing how things can turn out."