Back to the Future with Alaska Thunderfuck and the DJs Ivan and Peter

In a world riddled with a pandemics, a decimating economy, racism, and overall impending doom, it’s really difficult to stay positive. Few things aide us in disassociating from the reality of our season of the Real Housewives of Planet Earth; among them is music. It’s a powerful tool. As Madonna put it, “Music makes the people come together, music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel.” Ivan and Peter are time-traveling DJs who have taken these words to heart and are on a mission to “spread ze love, defeat ze evil, and save ze universe.” Originally from Berlin, the duo has collaborated with Alaska Thunderfuck, the glamazon from GlamtrOn herself. With “Pool Party,” Ivan and Peter take Alaska on a trip to Ancient Rome to fight evil and accidentally end up having a party in the Roman baths. Oops. The time-traveling ménage à trois of dance music time-warped between Hollywood and somewhere in outer space for an absurd conversation about the evolution of the tongue pop, the process of making dance music to save the world, and the power of the word anus. 

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ALASKA: I want to start out by saying pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, just because I think it looks nice in print. Here’s the thing. I know you both very well, but for the rest of the people in the year 2020, can you just tell me who you are? What exactly are you doing here?

PETER: As you know, we’ve done quite a few missions together and it’s quite simple. Basically, Ivan and I were living in Berlin in 1942 and times were really crazy and difficult and hard and sad and we were on a mission to make the good vibes and save the world. So basically, we went into a rainbow vortex and we pop out into the Garden of Eden. Ivan, do you want to tell them about that? I sound like a crazy person as I say it out loud right here.

IVAN: It was amazing. The sun was shining a golden gold as you’ve never seen before. Then the craziest thing happens: god comes down from the skies, down from the heavens and is like “Ivan and Peter, your powers of spreading love are so strong. You must go back into your present time, spread love, defeat evil, and save the universe.” It was overwhelming.

PETER: It was really wild. And god, she was just one of the most powerful, gorgeous, beautiful creatures we have ever seen on this planet. And Alaska, we’ve been traveling through times of 1,003 years now. It’s been quite a journey.

IVAN: Alaska, you’ve done the time traveling with us. You went to Ancient Rome with us to defeat evil. This is part of the inspiration for “Pool Party.” What was it like doing the time-traveling for the first time? Would you go on a journey like this with us again?

ALASKA: I did find it really enjoyable and it’s much better than commercial airline travel. Anytime that you’d like to invite me along, I would be happy to go. 

IVAN: You are also on your mission to spread love and defeat evil. How do you make these live performances so incredible? What’s your process?

ALASKA: Well, first of all, thank you, that’s a very lovely compliment. As far as my process goes, it’s not much of a process at all. It comes from instinct and from just what I sort of gravitate towards naturally. I gravitate toward making noises into a microphone. I love it. I’ve always loved it. I find it fascinating. Anytime I can get on a stage in front of people and they put a thing in my hand that I can make noises into, I just love that.

PETER: What kind of noises are we talking about? Could you give some examples just for the people? 

ALASKA: Sometimes when the microphone is really, really cool, you can just kind of [whispering] whisper into it. 

PETER: Wow, this is butt-sex hot! This is beautiful.

ALASKA: And then also one of my favorite noises is a tongue pop. [Tongue pops] This is drag. In order to do drag, you have to learn how to do this. I’ll do it for you now. [Tongue pops] And that’s different from a tongue click, which is a different mechanism, and the differentiation is very important.

IVAN: So this is called tongue click versus tongue pop?

ALASKA: Yes. There actually are some sexual moves related to this, from when we were in Ancient Mesopotamia. They were also really into the difference between clicks and pops, but it meant completely different things and was more sexually related. So it’s fascinating how these things evolved over thousands of years. 

IVAN: Yes, definitely. It’s very important in the sexual realm to know the difference between a click and a pop as well.

PETER: Ivan, you’re the king of popping, but clicking, you’re still betting on it, right?

IVAN: I’ve been working on my clicking ever since we went to Ancient Mesopotamia. The pop always came naturally to me.I’m the big popper, but the click never felt so natural for me. So Alaska, I’m always open for lessons on the clicking and the popping. 

ALASKA: It’s a process. It took me several months to learn, but I’d be happy to give you a point at any time. I have a question because my recollection of the events is hazy. I don’t fully remember the origin of “sweat, sex, splash.” Can you elicit the date at all?

IVAN: We have spent much time with spiritual guides throughout our trips, and being able to harness the full sex energy and being able to give it to the people, this is key to spreading the love. I don’t remember who it was, but they said that if there’s no splash, it doesn’t go. You haven’t hit the set state of nirvana. So that’s how it all kind of came together.

PETER: Ivan, do you remember who said that? I have a little bit of a different recollection here, but is it alright if I give you my opinion on how I think it happened.

IVAN: It gets so confusing after so many of the time-traveling. 

ALASKA: Well, it was god. It’s as simple as that. It truly is a song of hope. It’s a song of peace and it’s the song of every man. But while we’re talking about music, what is your process? I told you a little bit about my process. What’s next for Ivan and Peter?

PETER: To be quite honest, I would actually say, Alaska, it’s kind of like what you said there—it’s about intuition. We will get into the studio and honestly just try to follow that. So perhaps that day, Ivan just had a really rough night with his girlfriend, Cleopatra.

IVAN: I ask you not to tell people about this, Peter. Let’s keep the personal things the personal things here. Let’s not bring Cleo into this.

PETER: I would say it’s the process of fast creation, sexy time, and then really honing the relationship with the music over a longer period of time. But most importantly, it has to be truthful and it has to be at its core powerful so that this music can truly defeat evil.

ALASKA: Absolutely, I love that. Some of my best songs have come from like not my own things, but I actually feel them. For instance, “Your Makeup is Terrible” is one of my biggest songs. It was a world-changing hit, and it was just something I said. I said it on RuPaul’s Drag Race and I didn’t think anything of it. But then people started tweeting it at me over and over again and it became a thing that we were saying to each other. I found a generic beat online while I was at the airport and I just sat there. I envisioned that I was at a show and what I would be saying to the audience. I wrote it in 10 minutes. 

PETER: So, actually, in some ways, our creative processes are similar. There you are waiting until the moment of inspiration. The inspiration comes, you run with the idea, try not to get in its way, and just let it happen in real-time.  “Anus” and “Vagina” are some of my absolute favorite songs if I were to tell. Beautiful pieces of work. 

ALASKA: Thank you. They’re very strong words, I think.  I liked them. “Anus” was just a thing that I would use to punctuate the end of a sentence. I was once at a party, and it wasn’t going well, and I said, “I’m bored, let’s go anus.”

IVAN: When was the first time you realized the true power of this word? Because I know for me, as soon as I heard you say this word, it changed my life.

ALASKA: Well, I love words. I love syntax, I love spelling. I’m really, really good at spelling. I love spelling errors wherever they happen, they tickle me to no end. But as someone who just loves words and language so much, and it just is so hilarious to me, the word anus is clinical, it has four letters,  and it can kind of be dirty. I don’t think of it as like, “Oh, I’m thinking of someone’s actual anus.” I think the word itself snaps you out of whatever is going on or whatever you’re talking or thinking about; it snaps you into the present moment. 

IVAN: The secret to a magical word is that they have the four letters. Like anus.

ALASKA: That’s why I named my first album Anus. There was no other word that could compare. Do you have any advice for the people of 2020? Since you’ve been to so many time periods, what have you learned that you can pass along as wisdom?

IVAN: I think that they haven’t had that much time to study everything that’s happening in the 2020s. We’ve heard of this coronavirus, and it seems like some people wear masks, and some don’t. I think the masks can be cool, the masks can be sexy, the masks can be part of your identity, and they can help spread the love. You can have sparkles on your mask. There’s cool ways to do it, and it helps other people. 

ALASKA: I really enjoy wearing a mask. I feel like a superhero or a Mortal Kombat character when I am wearing one. So I actually have found that I really enjoy it.

PETER: I would have one specific message for the people of 2020. Not to get on a serious note, but we need good people and we need love right now. So people of 2020, if you can hear us and you are reading this right now, lean into love, lean into the power of love, into the power of being a good person. If somebody needs your help, help him, if you can do something to be good for the environment or equal rights or just for other people, lean into that love. It’s quite simple because all of the greatest things that have happened throughout the history of time, and we have fucking seen them all, they have come because of love. We believe in you people of 2020.