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By Brad Walsh

This interview, though conducted last month, was simply too priceless not to print. The Review apologizes for the delay, and hopes that you enjoy the insanity that follows.

I knew the ’Sco was going to feel the sonic wrath of Peaches in an incredible way when, during sound check several hours before the doors opened for the show on October 16, several people poked their heads in and asked if there was any way the “decibels could be lowered.”

Aside from delivering part of her set from atop the bar and pole-dancing in the golden cage, Peaches managed to rile the Oberlin crowd up enough that they began crowd-surfing, jumping up and down and onstage, and singing along on the microphone to her electroclash hit “Fuck the Pain Away.” But there was nothing during the show as weird or as rock and roll as the “interview” I had with Peaches before the doors opened. She decided, after ordering pad thai from Tooo Chinoise, that our conversation would involve the following: I would be “Herr Doktor” and she would be “The Patient.” What follows are the printable sections of the outcome:

Brad: Do you go by Peaches at home, with friends?

Peaches: Well Doktor, when I started this I wanted to use “Peaches” so that I could have a new identity, so I could be cool for once. And now Peaches is out of control. Now everybody wants to call me Merril. And as soon as everyone calls me Merril, Doktor, everyone will want to call me Peaches again. It’s getting very confusing.

Brad: Is it true that you were once a school teacher?

Peaches: Well Doktor, I don’t have a teaching degree. I did what I wished was done to me as a small child, and that is to have completely creative learning instead of structured, linear learning.

Brad: Where did you teach?

Peaches: In Canada. Toronto, Doktor. Really, I just want to be a kid. I have a question.

Brad: Oh?

Peaches: Yes, Doktor. Do you think I’m more popular than flu shots? Is that possible? Can you help me?

Brad: I think it all goes back to your mother.

Peaches: My mother?

Brad: Yes, or my mother.

Peaches: Your mother. It all goes back to your mother. Did you date your mother? Is that what you said?

Brad: No, but I blame everything on my mother.

Peaches: Are you a daddy’s boy?

Brad: Maybe I would be, if I knew daddy.

Peaches: Oh. If you knew daddy. But you don’t know daddy, so you blame it all on mom.

Brad: Sure.

Peaches: Maybe you should be lying down on this couch now.

Brad: So, Christina Aguilera--

Peaches: My name is Peaches or Merril, please. Stop calling me Christina, Doktor.

Brad: Apologies. Peaches, did you know that Christina Aguilera says all kinds of good things about you?

Peaches: She does?

Brad: In the issue of Rolling Stone where she’s naked on the cover. What do you think about that sort of thing? Is it a good thing?

Peaches: She’s a “Dirrty” little slut. She don’t know who she is. It’s a good thing she’s dirrty, but she don’t know who she is. Britney don’t know who she is. Those girls came from the Mickey Mouse Club. They don’t know what to do with themselves, what are they gonna do?

Brad: Wear booty shorts?

Peaches: And Madonna’s writing kids’ books now. And it seems like she’s very confused on this new album.

Brad: You don’t like it?

Peaches: I think it’s a quite horrendous album. I think lyrically it’s her worst work. It sounds like a fourteen year old girl just left home. Kind of sad. But I have a message for those girls. [Holds up a full-length mirror] Stop it!

Brad: Now, here’s the typical musical influences question.

Peaches: Ah. Well, when I was growing up I listened to, like, Donna Summer and Run DMC, then I went home and listened to my brother’s Ramones and Who and Kinks. So I wasn’t like “disco sucks and punk is good,” I was like “it’s all good.”

Brad: And you were singing N.E.R.D. earlier.

Peaches: Yeah, and I really like The Gossip. Do you know them? That’s my hot tip for the day.

Brad: What do you think you would you major in if you came to Oberlin?

Peaches: I don’t want to go back to school! I still have nightmares about not doing my French homework. [motioning toward other person in the room] You like that patient more than me, don’t you?

Brad: Speaking of patients, we have a good psychology department.

Peaches: Psychology, that’s good. When I was ten my mother studied parent effectiveness training.

Brad: Is that real?

Peaches: Oh yes. PET. It was the 70s. New ways of how to bring up your kids and let them make their own decisions. She just held it all in and said things like “KCUF backwards!” I went to college but I still lived at home. My friends used to come over and want to hang out with my mom. Doktor, do you think that’s funny?

Brad: A little.