Revenge Wife
Interview conducted April 9, 2021
By Dan Locke
Initially adored as half of indie-pop duo HOLYCHILD, Elizabeth Nistico is widely known for creating pop music with an honest and heavy-hearted underbelly despite the brightly glowing qualities of her compositions. Making their own brand of music that the media tagged as ‘Brat Pop’ HOLYCHILD played off the culture of obsessions with fame, youth, and beauty. With over 50 million streams and countless features in the likes of Vogue, NME, and Paper under her belt, Nistico decided to venture even deeper on a soul-searching journey as a solo artist with a singular vision. As Revenge Wife she continues to create effervescent synth-pop songs.
What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?
My earlier songs were written for HOLYCHILD and yeah, we recorded them and you can hear them! My first songs were Best Friends (a pop banger by HOLYCHILD) and Watching Waiting (the first HOLYCHILD release, it’s on Vimeo I think). It thinks because I liked those songs so much it encouraged me to keep writing music.
I saw you perform on JBTV back in 2015. When did you start performing with Holychild?
Ah I love JBTV! HOLYCHILD started playing shows in 2012/2013 and those were my first performances as a lead singer. It happened really fast with HOLYCHILD, like those first songs I wrote were the ones we were playing and it all just kind of snowballed! I really feel like I’ve grown so much as a performer over my life. I was always dancing and making art and on stage, but now it’s a new thing and I’m SO excited to start doing shows with Revenge Wife. it’s going to be like, a culmination of my life on stage, I’m ready.
Holychild had over 50 million streams. Why did you decide to launch your solo music art project Revenge Wife?
There are a lot of reasons why I’m where I am now but. I think I just need to express myself fully right now and I felt with HOLYCHILD there were some walls being hit that made it hard to move forward. Being in a band is a relationship and it’s not only with your bandmate it’s the label and your people, and it needed to be fresh for me to feel like I had control of my life in some way. I just want to feel free and happy so it was a necessary step forward for me.
Could you describe the art part of Revenge Wife?
To me, art and creativity flow through life naturally. I believe we are all creative beings on earth and personally, all of my actions are thought-out decisions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Revenge Wife! I’m directing the music videos, I’m editing them, they are all sequential (flowing story one to the other), I do all the lyrics, I’m very deliberate about who I work with, what the sound is, what I wear. It’s all self-expression!
One of your first videos “Earthquake” took you 3 weeks to shoot and over a month to edit it. Was this video the video that you had directed and edited?
Yes! I direct and edit all of my videos, always!! I directed all of the HOLYCHILD music videos, and I’ve edited a lot of them. I direct music videos for other artists and I am directing a short film next month, and I am working on my own feature length horror. I’m a director! Hahaha, it’s kind of become my side gig, but it started with the HOLYCHILD music videos and now it’s just in everything!
Tell me the backstory behind Manifest?
I wrote Manifest on my piano in 2019 when I was depressed and broke. I follow a lot of self-help directives and I was feeling like, WHY am I not getting it?! Why don’t I have what I want? I think I’m a good person and I work hard so where’s the disconnect? My friend Petro AP and I worked on it and he produced it out, then Ryder added a lot of elements. It found its way to how it sounds now. But honestly, I was just sad and writing a song as I do. It was a crazy time in my life though because that was such a prolific time for me, songs-wise. I had written like 50 songs in a two-month period and Manifest was one of my favorites because I just love the lyrics so much. They feel so clear to me.
What is a future horror mermaid pop?
Future Horror Mermaid Pop is like, a series of words plucked from the ether to describe the sound of music I’m making. Somehow it just makes sense. Some songs have a lightness, like underwater or on an island and that’s the mermaid feel. Then it feels like nothing I’ve heard so that’s the future part. And it explores a lot of horror concepts and its pop! So. it’s just that!
Can you tell me your Horror Pop Debut EP?
Background Songs For Your Boring Life, Part I is the first part of my album. It’s like, future-retro pop songs, and my favorite songs off it aren’t even out yet! All of the music videos are going to flow together like a story (as Earthquake and Manifest already do) and I’m so excited to have it in the world! The lyrics are so meaningful to me, so I’m excited.
If “Video Killed the Radio Star” do you think that the Covid-19 virus has killed live music? Do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
I don’t think anything can kill live music. I do think yeah, things are going to be different, but the music industry is always evolving. Even in 2019, it was a very different landscape from 2015, when SoundCloud and the hype machine really reigned. Now it’s streaming services and things are different. But speaking on live music, of course, it’s changed. A lot of venues we know and love won’t be there or won’t be the same. But it’s ok. Art will prevail and I think music will prevail.
Do you have anything thing in closing for us?
I’m so excited for a year of Revenge Wife releases. This music is so special to me and I’m really excited to be releasing it into the world!
