This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance.(December 2025) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Peaches began her musical career in the 1990s as part of the folk trio, Mermaid Cafe. Peaches' first solo album Fancypants Hoodlum was released in 1995 under her birth name, Merrill Nisker. In 1995, she established the short lived rock band, The Shit.[3]
Nisker's second album, and first under the Peaches persona, The Teaches of Peaches (2000) was recorded in Toronto. Peaches moved to Berlin later that year, with the album being released on the Kitty-Yo label. The album's modest success led her to go on stage as the opening act for bands like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age. Peaches' third album Fatherfucker followed in 2003.[4]
In an interview in URB magazine she talked about how she experienced antisemitism growing up; on her walks home from school, students from a nearby Catholic school would throw stones at her and call her a "dirty Jew".[10]
As a teenager, Nisker appeared in two plays alongside future Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page, including a musical, My Brother's Keeper. She shared this story with Damian Abraham on his Turned Out a Punk podcast.[11]
Before becoming a full-time musician, Nisker worked as a teacher.[12]
Career
1990–1999: Mermaid Cafe, Fancypants Hoodlum, The Shit
During the early 1990s, Nisker was part of folk trio Mermaid Cafe. The name was taken from the Joni Mitchell song "Carey". She later released her first solo album, Fancypants Hoodlum, under the name Merrill Nisker in 1995 and subsequently developed the style and persona known as Peaches. In 1995, Peaches was in The Shit - a four-piece combo with Chilly Gonzales (a.k.a. Jason Beck), bassist Sticky Henderson (later of Weeping Tile and Music Maul), and Dominique Salole (a.k.a. Mocky). Their sexual rock music was a harbinger for what Nisker would become, and it was during this time that she adopted the Peaches name. The Peaches moniker was taken from the Nina Simone song "Four Women" in which Simone screams at the end, "My name is Peaches!"[13] In Toronto, before rising to fame, she lived above the sex shop Come as You Are with fellow recording artist Feist.[14][15] Feist worked backstage at Peaches' shows, using a sock puppet and using the stage name "Bitch Lap Lap".[16] The two toured together in England from 2000 to 2001, staying with Justine Frischmann of Elastica and M.I.A.[17] M.I.A. went on to video-document Peaches' 2000 US tour and made clothes for the musician, while Peaches inspired M.I.A. to use the Roland MC-505 in her own compositions.[18][19]
2000–2002: The Teaches of Peaches
After creating a six track EP, Lovertits, Peaches moved to Berlin, Germany, where she was signed by the Kitty-Yo label. The label offered her the chance to record a new album, The Teaches of Peaches, back home in Toronto and the already-completed Lovertits EP was released in the summer of 2000. The full-length album The Teaches of Peaches was released that fall.[20] The album contains her signature song "Fuck the Pain Away".[21]
Peaches appeared on the British TV show Top of the Pops, but her performance was deemed too racy to be aired.[22]
Nisker signed a European contract with Sony following the release of The Teaches of Peaches. She later made a music video for the song "Set It Off" in which she sat in a locker room as her pubic and armpit hair grew to Rapunzel length. Sony subsequently dropped her.
In 2001, Nisker's bust was one of the first female busts cast by famous 1960s groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster, who was better known for making molds of male rockers' genitalia.[23][24]
In 2002, Peaches appeared in "Hideous Man", a short film directed by John Malkovich. The short film was created as a showcase for clothing designed by Bella Freud and featured poetry from Gary Sinise.[25]
2003–2005: Fatherfucker
In 2003, Peaches released her second album Fatherfucker on XL/Kitty-Yo after years of touring and opening for artists like Marilyn Manson and Queens of the Stone Age. She wrote and programmed all of the album's music herself. The single "Kick It", which features Iggy Pop, was described by Peaches to Rolling Stone as "more about rock 'n' roll than sex."[26]
For her album Fatherfucker, Peaches was nominated in the "Outstanding Music Artist" category for the 15th GLAAD Media Awards.[27]
Peaches' song "Boys Wanna Be Her" is featured in an online teaser for the live-action feature film Bad Kids Go to Hell (2012). It also serves as the theme music for the late-night television series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.[29][30] It was featured as well in an episode of Orphan Black.
2009–2012: I Feel Cream and other work
Peaches' fourth album I Feel Cream was released on the 4th of May 2009 in Europe and the 5th of May in North America.[31] The first single from the album is a double A-side of "Talk to Me" and "More".[32] Peaches enlisted some of her contemporaries to co-produce a number of tracks including Simian Mobile Disco, Soulwax, Digitalism and Shapemod. Long time collaborator Chilly Gonzales co-wrote some of the songs on I Feel Cream and Shunda K (the voice of Yo Majesty) featured on the track "Billionaire".[citation needed]
In 2010, Peaches and backing band Sweet Machine toured Australia performing at the sold out Big Day Out (BDO) festivals and at a series of sideshows. Peaches was supported on this tour by Shunda K who performed her collaboration "Billionaire" at BDO festivals and at the sideshows.[citation needed]
On 14 March 2010, Peaches won the 'Electronic Artist of the Year' award at the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards held in Toronto, Canada.[33][34]
Peaches performing in 2009
In March 2010, Peaches performed a one-woman version of Jesus Christ Superstar at Berlin's HAU1.[35] Gonzales accompanied Peaches on piano during the shows.[36]Travis Jeppesen stated in his review for Artforum, "Not only did Peaches set it off, she managed to surprise us all by showing off an expansive vocal range, a musician's natural sensitivity to the dynamics of Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, and an emotive prowess that is rarely if ever displayed in her own, less holy, music."[37]
Peaches appeared in a film called Ivory Tower directed by Adam Traynor and produced by Nicolas Kazarnia. Ivory Tower was given a limited theatrical release in August 2010.[38]
In May 2010, Christina Aguilera announced that Peaches was among the collaborators on her fourth studio album Bionic. Peaches is featured on a track called "My Girls".[39][40] The song was co-written and produced by Le Tigre.
Peaches also appeared as a guest musician on R.E.M.'s 2011 release Collapse into Now, contributing vocals to the song "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter".[43]
2015–2021: What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches and Rub
Peaches performing in 2016
Photographer Holger Talinski collaborated with Peaches on a book of photographs, What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches, released on 2 June 2015. The book, published by Akashic Books, also includes text written by Peaches, R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, artist and singer Yoko Ono, and actor Elliot Page.
Peaches' sixth studio album, Rub, was released 25 September 2015. It was produced by Vice Cooler with Peaches in her Los Angeles garage. In June 2015 it was announced to contain guest vocal appearances by Kim Gordon, Feist, and Simonne Jones.[44]
An unused track from the Rub sessions titled "Bodyline" was released by Adult Swim on 20 July 2015. The Vice Cooler-produced track features Nick Zinner on guitar and was described as "a heavy, chugging guitar line over which Peaches half raps, half sings a high-octane space jam."[45] In May 2016, Peaches appeared in a fourth-season episode of the Canadian TV series Orphan Black as herself, performing "Bodyline" in a club. She performed "Boys Wanna Be Her" at the Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 29 April 2017. In February 2019, Peaches made her debut with the Staatstheater Stuttgart, co-directing and performing as Anna I in Kurt Weill's/Bertolt Brecht's Die sieben Todsünden.[46]
2022: Documentaries and upcoming seventh studio album
The 2022 tour was profiled in the documentary film Teaches of Peaches, which premiered at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.[48] In the same year, she was the subject of Marie Losier's documentary Peaches Goes Bananas.[49] Peaches described the two films as very different from each other, stating that "one is more of a documentary of a certain album at a certain place in time, [whereas] Marie’s film – well, I don’t even consider it documentary. It’s more of a painting, a portrait. Marie gets excited about an artist and then goes her own way."[50]
2025: Featured Artist, In the Garden
In March 2025, it was announced that Peaches is featured on In the Garden, a concept album and musical by the artist Boyfriend.
Peaches opened her first institutional solo art exhibition "Whose Jizz Is This?" at the Kunstverein in Hamburg[de] on 10 August 2019 (through 20 October 2019).[54]
Themes
Gender identity is one theme of Peaches' music, often playing with traditional notions of gender roles representation. Her lyrics and live shows consciously blur the distinction between male and female; for example, she appears on the cover of her album Fatherfucker with a full beard. When asked if she had chosen the title for shock value, she commented:
Motherfucker's so over. You call everybody a motherfucker – you call your mother a motherfucker. It's a pretty extreme and intense word. Instead of shying away from that, I thought I'd bring the fact that we're using the word motherfucker in a really mainstream way to the fore.[55]
She disputes accusations of "penis envy", preferring the term "hermaphrodite envy",[56] since "there is so much male and female in us all."[57]
Age has been another theme of Peaches' music in recent years. The lyrics from several songs from her 2009 album I Feel Cream tackle the issue of age, including "Trick or Treat" ("you lick my crow's feet"), "Show Stopper" ("Never mind my age, it's like we're breaking out of a cage") and "Mommy Complex". Peaches has criticized ageism directed against her,[58] telling the New York Daily News that "I'm going to make aging cool."[59]
Nisker has criticized the "censorship" of pro-Palestinian progressive Jews in Germany. She believes that many Germans "can't separate Israeli politics from Jewish feelings" and that diverse Jewish opinions on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are not "honored" in Germany, telling The New York Times that "for any progressive Jewish person who is thinking about what is going on, and understanding the history of what is going on, to be called antisemitic — by Germans — is ridiculous. Never did I think in 2024 that I would be thinking about that."[60]
↑Kitty Empire (17 August 2003). "Ripe for stardom". The Observer. London: The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
↑"She tells interviewers she has hermaphrodite envy, not penis envy." Jessica Suarez, ReviewArchived 19 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine : "Peaches – Impeach My Bush (XL)", Rhino Review.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
