Peaches Plays F/M/K With the YBAs

Welcome to the GARAGE Questionnaire— a set of questions for our times, with inquiries that range from delicate to unhinged—all the better to peer into the multifaceted minds of our creative heroes.

Listening to “Fuck the Pain Away” in 2020 feels as urgent as it did 20 years ago when the song was first released. There’s the subterranean, metallic grind of the drum machines, the low-end bass, and of course, Peaches’s vocals. Not quite a rap, not quite a sprechgesang, she teases listeners with appellations about her tits and come-hiterhisms about having sex specifically because you feel like shit. It is a song that is transgressive, unavoidable, and synced in everything from Lost in Translation to The Handmaid’s Tale. In the years that have followed, Peaches has continued to be a provocateur deeply ingrained both in the continuum of blunt artistry about female sexuality and in queer culture. She’s gone on to release two more decades worth of great, brutal music that you can’t really look away from, including a great, new song called “Flip This.” Fortunately for us, she’s taken some time to answer our very own GARAGE questionnaire.

What is something you’ve discovered about yourself while in quarantine?
I have a lot of anxiety and I can’t run away from it.

What is the best thing you’ve cooked while in quarantine? 
I have perfected my puttanesca sauce.

What’s your quarantine uniform? 
Various onesies.

What’s the best thing you’ve read or watched while in quarantine? 
The movie “The Platform” seemed to catch the moment for me. Also just saw the new film by Ai Weiwei called “Coronation.” Very powerful reality on corona in China.

Andy Warhol is coming for dinner. Who else do you invite? 
My mother—so I have someone to talk to.

Favorite problematic person, living or dead (or cancelled)? 
Too problematic to answer.

What is your favorite piece of furniture that you own or wish to own
Layout modular couches that you can “layout” any which way. Hours of enjoyment.

Favorite iconic red carpet moment (could be your own)? 
Cher’s 1986 Oscar outfit.

What is a book you wish you’d written? (Or artwork you wish you made, or collection you wish you designed, or song you wish you’d written, etc.)
I wish I wrote “Did it On’em” by Nicki Minaj. So smart, raw, and always makes me wanna sing along.

When and where were you happiest? 
On stage which hasn’t happened in eight months!!!!

What is your idea of misery?  
Brain stuck in a loop.

What is the most overrated virtue? 
Temperance. It’s just hard to get the balance right.

What is your favorite journey? 
Literally wandering in the woods on mushrooms.

Final meal: who, what, where… and when? 
Me alone. Mac and cheese. Yes, the shitty powder cheese kind. I don’t care where.

Bread with olive oil or bread with butter? (Assume all components are “the good kind.”) 
Give me it all. I love them both.

What are you wearing to your own funeral? 
Issey Miyake, for sure.

What is the last time you were moved by a work of art (any kind of art) and what was it? 
Anna Uddenberg’s “Savage #4 (quilt queen),” 2017. Next-level Chapman Brothers creepy deconstruction of human condition.

When was the last time you fell in love? 
Every time I see a Pomeranian. I can’t help it.

If you could only text with one person for the rest of your life, who would it be? 
Cardi B or AOC. Either one would always set me straight! No bullshit.

Do you think the ocean is haunted? 
It’s haunted by human fishing ghost nets that get abandoned and lost in the ocean and threaten ocean life.

What was the first movie you ever loved?
Tommy, the ’70s musical movie.

If your style were cooked, what would it taste like? 
Tuna melt.

What is your favorite scent? 
Honeysuckle.

Fuck, kill, or marry: Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly. 
Not my scene—let’s try YBA scene… Fuck Fiona Banner, marry Sarah Lucas, kill Tracy Emin.

Would you give up all other swear words to keep “fuck”? 
Fuck yeah.

Describe your worst outfit (and where and when it happened). 
I was ten. It’s a polyester pant suit. Stretchy pants and a snap-up tight jacket. The pattern is blue big swirls with golden brown leaves spaced and moving through the fabric. Itchy as fuck, too.

Are memes art?
Very contemporary conceptual art of the time!

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? 
Fresh water clear lake with mountains around. Take me please.

What would you do with a stolen day?
Make it a stolen year.

What was your mother right all along about? 
Clean room, clean mind.

What’s the last thing you Googled? 
“Meme art.”

What’s your most used emoji? 
Peach.

What's the most useful thing you own?
My mind.

What’s the least useful thing you own? 
A mini canopied swing chair set that holds condiments.

When was the last time you lied to someone's face? 
It was me looking in the mirror lying to myself and it was last week.

What were the circumstances for the last time you held someone's hand?
I hold hands with my partner daily.

Hold old are you at heart?
My heart is 26. Young love. Fresh.

A deli is going to name a sandwich after you. What’s in it? 
Hard stinky cheese, mustard, pickles, and avocado.

Would you rather maintain a young mind or a young body? 
Young mind.

Pen or pencil? 
High quality pen.

What’s your pet pleasure? Something that annoys everyone else, that you secretly love? 
Singing along with every yacht rock song and giving random trivia about each one.

What would God say if you arrived in heaven? 
“Chill out and enjoy the ride.”

What would the devil say if you arrived in hell? 
“Meh not so bad.”

What is something you would absolutely never wear? 
Never say never.

What do you wear when you want to feel powerful? 
Absolutely nothing.

What superpower would you like to have?
Mind reader.

What is a place in time you’d like to visit?
I’d like to visit Paleolithic era. Become a hunter. See how I really do. Put myself to the test.

“Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice.” Which do you think?
Spontaneous combustion. No warning.

What do you consider to be the best invention of our times?
Robot vacuum.

Once and for all, are we living in the Matrix? 
Fuck yeah, we are.