Peach PRC on stardom, synaesthesia and sexuality: ‘There was so much joy and fun in stripping’ | Music

Having lived a lot of her grownup life on-line, Shaylee Curnow – higher referred to as Peach PRC (or simply Peach) – is now in her back-to-nature period. Seeking inspiration whereas dwelling out of Airbnbs round Sydney, the musician took to wandering native neighbourhoods, interested by “what sort of trees the council was planting.” Eventually settling into a spot of her personal, full with a modest courtyard and backyard now acquainted to her 2.2 million TikTok followers, she started volunteering at an area bush reserve alongside “all the little retired locals”.

“I felt really drawn to nature and the beauty I could find there,” Peach says. “And then that’s inspired a whole world of music.”

This reconnection with the pure world is deeply felt on her debut album, Porcelain, whose cowl options the now-brunette star mendacity in a fetal pose on a mattress of foliage – a departure from the pink-haired, candy-coloured aesthetic that has outlined her profession and picture to date.

After breaking out in 2021 with dangerous ex-boyfriend anthem Josh, Peach got here out as a lesbian on social media the next 12 months, joking that “the closet was made of glass”. This helped set the stage for her shiny and unapologetically queer membership anthems comparable to Like A Girl Does and her snarky-but-sweet 2023 EP, Manic Dream Pixie.

While Peach’s sharp songwriting and melodious vocal tone thrive on this bubblegum pop bundle, Porcelain takes them additional and balances fizzy enjoyable with a stunning quantity of softly-sung sincerity.

We meet on Zoom, chatting between stops on Peach’s present Wandering Spirit tour. Mostly recovered from a flu that compelled her to push two reveals to July, she is relaxed on a sofa in her residence – pink, after all – and with gems dotted throughout her face. “I’ve never really done anything in a conventional way,” she says of touring earlier than the album is out.

Her present present is structured in numerous “portals”, with a brand new plant-inspired costume for every metropolis – an Australian violet for Melbourne, a foxglove for Sydney – in addition to a efficiency alongside a snake plant hooked as much as electrodes. “On the [new] songs that are a bit slower and very diaristic, people are so quiet and really listening,” she says. “Usually by the third chorus, I can hear a few voices singing along to the words.”

Porcelain was recorded “all over the place” in locations like Sweden, Los Angeles and Byron Bay with a crack crew of pop producers. “Halfway through, it sort of flipped into this other project,” she says, as she explored bolder manufacturing and singing in her personal accent after years of masking it. “I thought if it sounded a bit more American, it’d be easier to understand.”

She additionally drew on her synaesthesia to form songs like Piper, asking, “What instrument would a rose play? What would a wet rock sound like?”

After 2022’s acid-dipped God Is A Freak (Peach PRC’s most-streamed track) took purpose at Christian “purity culture”, Porcelain’s single Eucalyptus finds her unexpectedly connecting with a deeper energy. “A lot of my inspiration for songwriting in the past has come from quite dark places and trying to heal,” she says. “So going outside and looking for new inspiration, and it’s actually positive, beautiful and enlightening, is really nice.”

While closeted queer longing underpins album spotlight Out Loud, Porcelain displays a interval of consolation and safety along with her sexuality. “I think I did all of the inner work of figuring it all out, and I felt like I shared what I needed to share, and now I’m at a lot of peace with it,” she says.

But for all its earthiness, the album is continuously humorous. I inform Peach that I laughed out loud on the shock swerve that opens Oasis: “I’ve never read the Bible / But I’ve smoked a page or two.”

“I try to balance some heavy topics sometimes, and it can come off quite pretentious or self-gratifying if you don’t humanise it a little,” she says. “I have this very profound thought that I want to share in this song, but also, like, I’m just a regular idiot.”

That mixture of self-effacing humour and earnestness makes her a pure on TikTok. “I just make stuff that I would want to see or talk in a way that I would talk to my friends,” she says, earlier than mimicking the cynical artist promotion she avoids: “It’s like, ‘Hey, idiots in my phone, here’s a little thing – you like that, don’t you?’”

The album’s lead single, Miss Erotica, is a high-energy ode to the 4 years she spent stripping in her hometown of Adelaide from the age of 19, the place she first coined the stage title Peach Porcelain, later shortened to PRC. “I’ve got other songs around how sad it was for me, but there was so much joy and fun in it, and a sisterhood that I never had before,” she says.

After a current present in Adelaide, she visited her former membership Crazy Horse: “So many girls I used to work with were still there, and they were so sweet.”

On social media, Peach has been remarkably candid about her atypical life, together with a chaotic childhood, psychological well being struggles and alcoholism. Committed to a dream of pop stardom from a younger age, music was her lifeline – finally resulting in Republic Records signing her after discovering her on TikTok. “I remember doing Zoom calls with them [with a] mattress on the floor, bags of rubbish and my stripper heels in the background,” she says.

Having fought her technique to a happier, extra centred place, I ask how she hopes folks will obtain her new album. “I kind of want to leave it up to them,” she says. “But I also really hope that there’s at least one song on there that makes them feel appreciative to be alive; like, happy to be here on earth. Maybe there is some beauty out there to look for. It’s not all doom and gloom.”

Peach PRC’s songs to stay by

Each month we ask our headline act to share the songs which have accompanied them via love, life, lust and demise.

What’s the track you would like you wrote?

I really like this query as a result of it acknowledges the reality that artwork is an ethereal pressure and we’re simply the vessel. Songs float round us on a regular basis; you simply should be tuned in sufficient to catch them. And once we do catch one, every artist leaves their distinctive fingerprint on it earlier than sending it again out as a present. One track that I want had chosen me just lately is Elevator by Absolutely. I’m more than happy it landed along with her although.

What’s one track you would like you didn’t write?

I’ve by no means and would by no means remorse writing a track as a result of they’re sacred items to me (even the foolish ones). But there are songs I want I saved near my chest for slightly longer earlier than sending again out to the world. I might’ve preferred to spend extra time on the lyrics of Like a Girl Does. But I’ve made peace with the truth that she’s excellent precisely how she is.

What is your go-to karaoke track?

Alone by Heart

What underrated track deserves basic standing?

Escape by Enrique Igelsias. I’m working onerous on the PR, don’t fear.

What basic track needs to be stripped of its title?

Happy by Pharrell Williams. It’s company pop and I can’t stand it.It feels fairly empty and soulless to me.

What is a track you liked as an adolescent?

I had an emo section in my teenagers so in all probability If I’m James Dean then You’re Audrey Hepburn by Sleeping with Sirens.

What is the primary track/album to procure?

Probably a So Fresh CD however the first album I ever owned was Metamorphosis by Hilary Duff.

What track would you like performed at your funeral?

I don’t care, I received’t be there. I believe they need to all write me one and sing it, really.

What is one of the best track to have intercourse to?

I Want by Mk.gee