Philadelphia went crazy for HOLYCHILD two Fridays ago, when they opened for Mø on her North American tour.
The LA-based duo, made up of Liz Nistico and Louie Diller, lit up Union Transfer’s stage with their dancing, catchy brat-pop tunes, and a much-loved cover of Destiny Child’s “Say My Name.”
After their set, I had the opportunity to sit down with Liz and Louie, to talk about what brat-pop is, their upcoming album release, and their many inspirations.
Liz Nisitico: Yeah, we played Philly at World Cafe Live! we love World Cafe and we love this venue. Those are the only ones we’ve played so far in Philly, but every time we’ve played Philadelphia it’s been so nice, and the people have been so nice. Tonight was crazy because so many people knew the words.
Jeff: Did you not expect people to?
Liz: Not at all, I was shocked.
Bella Jayme: I saw a lot of fans at the merch table freaking out about all of your shirts!
Liz: Ah, cool! It was so cool. I was so surprised. It was really unexpected to me.
Bella: And your New York show last night at Webster Hall, that was sold out, right? How was that?
Louie Diller: It was intense. It was great. I mean, Webster Hall and New York City, it’s just… it’s just so big. So umm, it was a lot. Like our whole label was basically there, our booking agents, our whole team was there, we had lots of family and friends that were there.
Liz: It was amazing, it was so cool.
Louie: It was kind of overwhelming but it was um... I mean it was overwhelming but it was… it was great, it was fun. The sound system there is huge.
Liz: Webster Hall is a venue that I’ve gone to a bunch, so I was really excited to play… I just couldn’t believe that we were playing there. I was like, this is crazy!
Bella: So your tour with MØ just started! What have you been looking forward to the most?
Liz: So much. The best part of tour is playing the show. Like there’s so much that happens in between that is a very high high or a very low low. You’re like, “ahh! I left WHATEVER at the venue the night before, and like shit, how can I get it back?!” and then you have stress going on about that. Or like something amazing happens, and it’s SO amazing and unexpected and beautiful. But, throughout all of it, definitely my favorite part is playing the show. It’s just like, it’s just so gratifying to connect with people. For instance, before this show, I was exhausted. I slept until half an hour before our set, I woke up and i was like, “how am I ever gonna play a show?” I’ve been sleeping, like my voice is not warm at all, my body’s not warm, I’m exhausted. And as soon as we went onstage, it was like YES! This makes so much sense, just connecting with people. It’s so amazing and electrifying.
Bella: Especially when people know the lyrics to your songs!
Liz: It’s crazy!
Bella: So you just released a new EP recently! What were your thoughts on it before you actually released it? Did you want your listeners to have a certain response? what were you hoping to get from it?
Louie: I mean, honestly that EP was supposed to be just demos. We started working on them as demos. And then they started sounding so good, that we were like, you know what, let’s get this professionally mastered. Once we got it mastered, it sounded good enough where we could release it, we were like, alright let’s release this. Like this is so much more representative of us. We had written a bunch-- we met at college in DC--- we wrote a bunch of songs there for the first time together, and they were kind of all over the place and then we moved to LA, we wrote a bunch more, which became the Mindspeak EP. And we felt that those songs were just better, they were stronger and more kind of representative of where we were at in our headspace. And um, again, they were supposed to be demos, so to me, it was kind of like a hail mary.
Bella: Like just go for it?
Louie: Yeah like, let’s just put this out. It feels great... And then we put it out, we played CMJ, pretty much a year ago today, and here we are. I still feel like we’re kind of far from where we wanna be, creatively and professionally. I really can’t wait until our album is out. I feel like that’s even another step up. but um, it’s definitely surpassed my expectations.
Liz: Yeah, but with that being said, our EP, like, I definitely spent a lot of time writing the lyrics, and really was trying to say something. And you never know how something’s going to be received. It’s like, are people gonna even get what I’m trying to say first of all? like am I clear enough? Second of all, like, do they care? Is this gonna matter to them at all? So it was really nice that people seemed to connect with it, especially women. Because the EP is kind of like a concept EP, all centering around the role of the female in our culture, and um, it was really nice that other women were like, “yo i feel you, this is so inspiring”.
Bella: Was that intentional, the theme?
Liz: It was not intentional. iIt was something that I was really dealing with at the time, and I was really uncertain about and pretty obsessed about. And, um, we write the songs and then we go in and write the lyrics, so I wrote all of the lyrics, and it wasn’t until a month after the EP was done that I was like, oh my gosh, all of these songs are pretty much about the same thing. That’s crazy. That’s like, where my head was at that point in time.
Bella: That’s awesome that it comes together like that.
Jeff: So you do the instrumentation first and then lyrics? Do you do that all the time?
Liz: So, um, our writing process is different all the time, but um… like usually when we jam, or whatever happens, there are always scratch lyrics that I’ll come up with. So like, no matter what, I don’t know, there will be a base few words that maybe I’ll repeat a bunch of times when we’re jamming. And then we’ll have those scratch lyrics, and then we do all the instrumentation, and then I go back and write the lyrics again. but I try to keep some part of the scratch lyrics, at least what I was intending to say with those subconscious scratch lyrics.
Louie: It’s kind of like freestyling.
Liz: Yeah, we just voice memo record it and then go back to it.
Louie: Yeah, and fill in blanks.
Liz: Lyrics don’t get done, pretty much until the whole song is done. Like once the whole song is done... literally every part of it. So i’ll go in… like i will have a very strict syllable restriction, if that makes sense.
Jeff: So you’ll set that for a line?
Liz: Yeah, so the initial lyrics might be um, “ba da da da da da da da da da da da” and then I’ll be like, okay, so those are the syllables, now I have to write words that fit within those syllables. Are you guys into iambic pentameter?
Bella: Yes, definitely learned about that.
Liz: You know how Shakespeare does it? He pretty much has a similar restriction when he writes everything. And it’s funny, because I used to be like, how did he ever do that? That makes no sense to me! And that’s pretty much what I do now. We have the scratch lyrics that pretty much have like---
Louie: ---the structure.
Liz: Yeah, a structure to the syllables already. And then we go in and kind of write the lyrics that way. But I don’t usually tweak the syllables that much. I have to like, pick and choose words that go with it perfectly, which is kind of cool because it’s like, it definitely has an interesting limitation that I have to work within, while I’m writing lyrics in addition to trying to convey a message. and I think limitations are helpful. I like writing, I like making art within limitations, it definitely forces you to be more creative. So it’s pretty fun to write like that.
Bella: What’s your favorite song to perform?
Liz: Ooooh. Lately i’ve been into Happy With Me, since people seem to know that, that’s crazy.
Louie: Yeah, Happy With Me is really fun. Ummm, I’m really liking a new one, uhh, Money All Around.
Bella: Yeah you played two new songs tonight! They were both awesome. I loved the first one.
Louie: Thanks! Running Behind. That one’s fun too. That one’s hard though, that one’s like, I have to focus a little bit. Like Money All Around I can kind of let loose and turn off my brain, but running behind I’m kind of doing three things at once... I haven’t fully settled yet into it, but when I listen back… we record every set, so I listen back… and it sounds fine. But Money All Around is kind of chill.
Liz: Money All Around is so fun.
Louie: It’s kind of like a party jam. It’s so much fun. I can’t wait for the album to be out!
Bella: The crowd really reacted to those two new songs too! It was sweet.
Liz: Isn’t that so cool?!
Bella: Yeah, it was like everyone knew the songs already!
Louie: I feel like our writing’s just… it’s--
Liz: --it’s definitely gotten a lot better.
Bella: Musically and lyrically?
Liz: Yeah, all around. It’s just like, sharpened. I think it was... basically recorded a bunch of songs in DC when we lived there in 2012, and they were all over the place. Like one song was a jazz song, one was boombata, that we played tonight, which is kind of a tribal song... it was just all over the place. And then we moved to LA, and then we wrote the EP, and it was like, okay this is more concise now, and now when we’re writing, we definitely know... we really wanna make bratpop. that’s like this genre of music that we’re trying to make.
Bella: What exactly is bratpop?
Jeff: Yeah, I like that name!
Liz: So it’s essentially pop music that rebels within pop form. So we’re using... it’s kind of like the way we do our lyrics.
Louie: The lyrics, exactly.
Liz: It’s like, we’re gonna use pop, but we’re gonna make people think with it. So we like to make people think with the lyrics, and they’re often sarcastic, with an interesting and unexpected chord progression, or I mean, louie is an amazing percussionist, so we play around with percussion--
Louie: --rhythm.
Liz: Yeah, rhythm a lot. Um, and sometimes form, but generally we’ve been staying in pop form. So it’s just like, trying to make people think in every aspect.
Bella: So that being said, who are your biggest influences?
Louie: Spice Girls.
Liz: I love the Spice Girls.
Louie: I don’t know, the 90s in general. We’re like 90s babies, so there’s so much from the 90s that we’re into that I feel like we subconsciously channel, but in terms of stuff nowadays... I can speak for music stuff. Our playlist... I love our playlist... We put on our playlist before and after a show-- there’s Dirty Projectors, there’s St. Vincent, there’s OutKast, there is Yacht, there’s Yelle, there’s--
Liz: ---Andrew Bird. Oh, Sufjan Stevens!
Louie: M.I.A. is on there.
Liz: We try to play it before every show.
Louie: Missy Elliot.
Liz: We’re inspired by so much, in addition to music. We’re inspired by everything we hear. In addition to that, I’m really inspired by a lot of authors such as… everyone from Joan Didion to F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Hemingway, Kafka, I love Camus.
Bella: Albert Camus?
Liz: Yeah, he’s amazing. I’ve read the plague like seven times... and the stranger is amazing. Um, so many people. A bunch of directors and photographers have really informed us, such as Wes Anderson and this director Luca Guadagnino. Another Italian director, Federico Fellini. And umm, who else? Juergen Teller is an amazing photographer, and this guy Ted Emmons, I REALLY nerd out to. But I really feel that the bulk of our inspiration comes from our interactions with other humans, at least for me. It’s like, how did this person treat me? how did it make me feel? why did i feel that way? why did they treat me that way?
Bella: So that comes out a lot in your lyrics and music.
Liz: Yeah. I’m so sensitive and it’s just... all of my interactions... I feel like in a day, it’s just so up and down and all over the place, it’s crazy. And louie definitely makes fun of me for it.
Louie: Ha, yeah, like one day... it’s of kind of like, sometimes it’s kind of like a little kid. You know how little kids, like one day can feel like a lifetime to them? They’ll be like, “remember earlier today when we went out and got that coffee? that feels like last week!” Sometimes i can be similar, depending on how much sleep I’ve gotten, how I’m feeling, whatever is going on. But Liz is very passionate, she a passionate person. So everything’s kind of like, very emotional.
Bella: You guys met a George Washington University. how did HOLYCHILD start? How did you two meet?
Louie: Yeah... so let’s see... so there was the dance class, the modern dance class taught by Amanda Withers. I was the musical accompanist... I would be playing piano and drums at the same time. So liz approached me one day, um, to collaborate on a project that never materialized, but we ended up writing a bunch of songs when we were hanging out at GW, and those songs turned into HOLYCHILD and that’s where we’re at now... we haven’t even fleshed out that other idea…
Liz: I’m not really into it…
Louie: Really? It’s gonna happen... I’m into it. That’s what made me like, attracted to you in the first place. I was like, okay cool, that sounds great! It was this project where Liz was gonna take a blank canvas and put it out in the middle of the street in DC and just like, basically be nude and paint the canvas with her body while I go to town on percussion and---
Liz: It was kind of about shock factor. I was pissed off about being in DC. It’s such a square place. I mean, I love DC but at the time I was like, ahhh I’m so frustrated. so I was like, I’m just gonna fuck with all of you and get naked and paint and have a percussionist. I wanted to do it in the financial district or like, the political district. Like watch this, you guys! It’s suit-land.
Louie: Yeah. So I still wanna do it... I wanna have that moment when we bring out a blank canvas and Liz nude, or whatever she is, gets body paint all over her and just throws her body on the canvas and goes to town.
Interview by: Jeff Albertini and Bella Jayme
Photos by: Jeff Albertini
Special thanks to Liz and Louie!