Words by Ellie Robinson
“I actually feel delusional,” says . “It’s the weirdest thing to try and explain… Nothing feels real right now.”
The Australian pop artist speaks to NME from her bedroom floor on Gadigal land (Sydney), sitting cross-legged in an oversized sweater with messy hair draped over her shoulders. It’s a far cry from the ethereal, glittery fairy princess she embodies in sold-out theatres and festivals around Australia – and soon the world – where thousands of pastel-clad pop girlies, gays and theys drown her out with their passionate singalongs.
We’ve asked Peach to explain how she went from a kid in Adelaide/Kaurna land belting Britney songs to one of Australia’s most exciting pop stars today. She’s one of only three Australian artists to top the country’s album charts in 2023 – and with an EP to boot. Her six-track debut, ‘Manic Dream Pixie’, was released to the coveted Number One spot in May, two years after she dropped her first official single. Her position at home cemented, Peach is now going worldwide – she’s just staged her first headlining shows in Los Angeles and New York, and this Sunday will support Blackpink at BST Hyde Park, which will be the K-pop titans’ first-ever UK festival.
One thing Peach does know is that she’s wanted this forever. “I was in high school and was like, ‘I want to be a pop star – that’s my career goal.’” Her well-meaning mother was a little concerned: “I remember my mum once said to me, ‘I think maybe we should have some more realistic dreams’.”
Was there a backup plan? “I never actually had one,” Peach laughs. “I ended up stripping, but that wasn’t really planned. I was staunch about it, I was like, ‘No, I’m going to be a pop star. I don’t know how, but I’m going to make it happen!’ And still to this day, I don’t know how the hell I pulled it off. I’ve gotten further than I ever thought I would – and I’m not really that far along – so I’m really stoked with everything that’s happened. I know it sounds cliché, but it really is a dream come true.”
For many Peach fans, her journey to fame – and into their hearts – came through TikTok. She rose to fame on the platform with her quippy and scatterbrained vlogs about (truly unhinged) day-to-day antics. Beyond hilarious, viral moments – like the iconic “naur” Australian accent meme – Peach has also used TikTok to candidly share her experiences with mental illness, addiction and rehab, her past as a stripper and the trials and tribulations she’s currently facing in an ever-evolving music industry.
By the time Peach put out her debut single – the buoyant and biting ‘Josh’ in February 2021 – she was already a buzzy name on TikTok. This has been a little frustrating for the 26-year-old who’s been devoted to music since early childhood. “When I see articles that say, ‘TikToker and pop singer Peach PRC…’ I guess they’re not wrong, but that’s not really who I imagined myself becoming,” she says.
“I got a comment the other day where somebody said, ‘I usually hate it when TikTokers make music, but I really love this song.’ And I was like, ‘But I was making music way before TikTok!’ TikTok is just a fun little outlet for me. I love TikTok, and I’ll keep making videos for it for as long as they’ll let me – but if I’m being completely honest, that can be a little disheartening.”
“I really miss that really silly, fun pop that didn’t take itself so seriously”
Peach’s musical journey began in the golden age of bubblegum pop: the early-to-mid-2000s, when Britney asked us all if we knew we were ‘Toxic’, Nelly was getting ‘Hot In Herre’, and Avril had to go and make things so ‘Complicated’. That moment in the pop-culture zeitgeist – shamelessly gaudy and schlocky as it was – was formative for Peach, who now channels the same saccharine pomp into her own sound and style, exemplified on the colourful and infectious ‘Manic Dream Pixie’.
“I loved that whole era of pop, it just feels so happy-nostalgic for me,” she says. “Even that early 2010s pop era – when I think of songs like ‘Good Time’ by Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City, that whole vibe, I just… Ahhhh! It just gives me butterflies, you know?
“And I don’t hear much of that kind of music anymore. I think we’re entering a new age of pop where it’s very artistic and it’s very dark, and it’s like Billie Eilish and Ethel Cain – and I love them both, they’re both amazing in their own rights – but I really miss that really silly, fun pop that didn’t take itself so seriously. It was just fun to jump around to.”
So it comes as no surprise that Peach has cultivated a fanbase that’s as sweet as her music, one that gravitates towards her soul-baring honesty on TikTok and her beautifully wholesome live shows. “Whenever I do a show, the people working at the venue are always like, ‘Your fans are the sweetest, most polite people, they’re so respectful…’ And I love getting that feedback – because they are!” she says. “They’re all so lovely and respectful of the space around them, and they all look out for each other. It makes me feel like that’s maybe a reflection of me and what I try to put out there… I hope it is.”
And even as her star rises, Peach is unwilling to compromise on her authenticity. “When I went to rehab,” she says, “they had me lay out all my core values and sort through them, and two of those were authenticity and accountability. I always want to be true to myself and to others – I don’t want anyone to be seeing a façade or a fake version of me, whether that’s positive or negative.”
Peach feels comfortable sharing the rawest sides of herself to a flourishing fandom (some 2.1million followers on TikTok alone) because “we’re kind of finished with the age of celebrity”. She cites Doja Cat as an example. “You don’t see her in tabloids,” Peach argues, “you see her on TikTok being stupid and messing around. I love it. It’s breaking that wall between the artist and the fan, where we all see each other as equals and we all have our own strengths and talents.”
It’s a give-and-take relationship, Peach notes, as her fans’ encouragement regularly encourages her to take risks, both in her career and personal life. Last January, for example, she came out as a lesbian – a moment she says “felt like I’d come home from a 26-year-long workday, sat on the couch, taken a deep breath and gone, ‘OK, I can relax now.’”
Coming out was “the best thing I’ve done”, Peach says. “Like, after all I’ve been through – all the men I dated, all the stripping, all the trauma that I endured… Even just the sadness of feeling like, ‘Why don’t I get it? Why don’t I like men the way all my friends do?’ I just couldn’t understand it. It was stressful. But I feel like I’ve finally worked it out now. And being open about it, I feel so free and so liberated… I’m very honoured to be who I am.”
Peach has since performed at the inaugural WorldPride festival in Sydney, alongside the likes of Kylie Minogue and MUNA, and hopes to use her platform to celebrate queerness and encourage her fans to embrace their true selves. “It’s a privilege to be out and proud,” she says, “and to be loudly queer, and make openly queer music, and have people listen to it.”
“I always want to be true to myself and to others – I don’t want anyone to see a façade”
Peach also wants to embrace fans who, like her, are navigating the fallout of childhood trauma. Closing out ‘Manic Dream Pixie’ is the intimate and heartrending ballad ‘Dear Inner Child’, where Peach sings sweetly to her younger self: “If you wanna wear pink, I’ll wear it for you / And if you wanna dance, then I’ll strap up my shoes / And if you wanna sing, then consider it sung / I’m sorry that you had to grow up this young.”
Peach, who’s been working through her complex post-traumatic stress disorder, wrote the song as a book-shutting exercise – but she asserts that her “inner child” will always be “a huge part of who I am”. She says: “There were so many times, growing up, that I didn’t get to be a little kid – so now that I’m an adult and I can do whatever I want, if I want to be a little princess fairy, I’m going to be a little fairy princess!”
To Peach, songwriting is the most powerful form of therapy. “It’s probably the only healthy coping mechanism I have,” she says. “It’s so cathartic, and I do get a rush of dopamine and euphoria when I finish a song and I feel really good about it. It’s how I feel like I’m able to really express myself, and I can be proud of how I worked through whatever I was feeling in a song. I don’t know how I would cope without music…
“…Well, that’s not true – I’d just do a lot of drugs. But you know…”
Peach PRC’s ‘Manic Dream Pixie’ is out now via Island Records Australia/Republic Records. She supports BLACKPINK at BST Hyde Park on July 2, plays her own headline show at Heaven in London on July 3, and will play Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay, Australia on July 22
Words: Ellie Robinson
Photography: Danny Draxx
Styling, Hair & Make-Up: Peach PRC
Label: Island Records Australia, Republic Records
Mgmt: Paul Paoliello, Haiku Entertainment