Peaches plays a homecoming show this Thursday, and on Sunday, Kathleen Hanna stops in Berlin with her band The Julie Ruin. In anticipation, we arranged a conversation between the two

Nov. 22, 2016 – Since the early 90s, with her bands Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and now, The Julie Ruin, Kathleen Hanna has influenced countless grrrls to pick up guitars and smash sexism, paving the way for Peaches to smear her queerness on the pop music landscape. With their upcoming Berlin shows in mind, SIEGESSÄULE editor Joey Hansom coordinated a transcontinental chat with the two visionary artists. Shortly before the US election (and before the Scorpios' respective 48th and 50th birthdays), Peaches and Kathleen talked about feminism and tomatoes, Brexiting and Doritos, Bruce Springsteen and boycotts, and the power of humor – plus, their ideal candidates for the 2020 election

Lots of people are dissatisfied with the US political system. The two-party dilemma, the electoral college and so on. Kathleen, as Americans, what can we be doing if we can't directly change the system?

Kathleen Hanna: What people like me and Peaches are doing is trying to change things from the ground up. We are making culture for people who don't often have culture made for them. Hopefully that's an experience that inspires others. Going out there and doing things that aren't based on gender binaries, things that are feminist, pro-sex – all these things that we are not supposed to be – that changes the bed of culture. We are not politicians, but we are important too. New laws don't mean shit if the culture hasn't changed enough.

Peaches: What Kathleen and I are doing, working in feminism, is not even on par in culture – still, in 2016. People still ask me questions like, “What is it like to be a woman in the music industry?” I was reading an article about farmers, and one said, “I make organic tomatoes. Why do I have to label my articles as organic? I don't see other farmers label every ingredient, every GMO and calling them “chemical tomatoes”. And so why do we have to label ourselves as something “other”?

Given the current system as it is, who would you want to see run in 2020?

P: I would love to see Michelle Obama run – wouldn't that be incredible?

KH: Of course! And Ben Affleck as Vice President. 

Do you two think you'll live to see –

P: WE ARE GONNA LIVE FOREVER.

– the first trans* President?

KH: I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so I don't know. 

P: It's amazing, though, that the first two trans* politicians were in really right-wing scenarios. The first was in Australia, and the other in Poland. So anything can happen.

KH: Like Brexit!

P: How amazing is it? Isn't it great? 

KH: It's so good. You wanna come to Brexit with me? 

P: I wanna go shopping there.

KH: I'm so excited to Brexit!

P: What's also amazing is that our fees there went down. They used to be in pounds, but now they're in Brexit. 

KH: They're going to pay us in Doritos. 

P: They're gonna be like, “Oh, we found someone's old pension – here, have it.”

Can't you just boycott them? Say, “I'm not going to pound town!”

KH: The only way to make money as working musicians is through licensing – to TV shows, movies – or through playing concerts. We don't make money off records and CDs. Our tours are planned six months in advance, and it's very expensive to cancel. And we have tons of fans in England who have started all of these feminist groups, and they really want to see us. I'm not going to deprive them just because their government is totally wacked out right now.
We also played in North Carolina during the transgender bathroom issue. We thought about canceling, but we called the promoter, and they were like “Look, we are small club. We don't agree with the law. We have bathrooms for everyone. By you guys canceling, we lose money, and there is one less space where people can feel safe and be themselves in public.” Also, across the street was a Democratic headquarters, and we welcomed fans come over and register to vote.
Now, if we were playing an arena, I could have made a statement by canceling. Like Bruce Springsteen.

P: I agree. You can take the Morrissey approach – and he also has a lot of money – and say, “I won't play in Canada because they are clubbing seals,” and “I won't play here because they are serving meat,” but my approach is: play there. Go to Russia. Meet the LGBTQ community. They fucking need you. They need to feel like someone is with them. I don't think boycotting in our situation really makes sense.
I really respect what Bruce Springsteen did. He's not typically dealing with gender issues. So, for him to take a stand and cancel his North Carolina show – that made people think. That is effective – in the same way that Kathleen and I going there to play is effective. 

Just for the record, I wasn't really encouraging you to boycott the UK. I mostly just wanted to make the pun, “pound town”. Both of you also include humor in your work, music and otherwise. 

P: It's very important for fun to be involved. We want inclusivity. Even though we're fucking angry about this shit, we're not being violent. We are saying, “Join us, join our fun energy, join the celebration!” 

KH: For me, comedy is a way for me to deal with tragedies of my life. I've always thought that being funny means that, I am not the fucking joke – I am the one telling the joke. Especially if you're able to joke about serious stuff like rape and harassment. Me and my friends who've been raped tell some pretty fucking great rape jokes that put ourselves in the position of power. We need to be able to take back the power to joke about it, and not let anyone tell us it's inappropriate. It happened to me. I need to make a joke out of it. So many people are stressed out and humiliated by it, so to laugh about it for a second is such a relief.

Interview: Joey Hansom

Peaches
Nov. 24, 20:00 at Columbiahalle
w/ Romano, Lotic, Cakes Da Killa, Simonne Jones

The Julie Ruin
Nov. 27, 19:00 at Columbia Theater
w/ Rattle