My Conflict As A Pop Star With A Social Conscience

HOLYCHILD’s Liz Nistico wonders if she’s an idealist, hypocrite, or both

By Liz Nistico

When I’m speaking to older or more conservative people, my voice becomes sweeter and my words are carefully chosen. When I’m pointing out to someone that they might be racist or judgmental, I try to do so without alarm. And when I’m urging the public to care more about social justice, I do it in a way that is easy to digest — in catchy songs.

This is my life: pop-music diplomat.

In 2010 I was in Kathmandu, Nepal studying Buddhism, the Nepali language, and international development. Toward the end of my time there, I lived with a guru for a month. We meditated every day.

The week before I left, I told him I was scared to return to America, where the value of nonattachment didn’t exist. My legs were burning from sitting cross-legged for an hour, and I was thinking about the rich kids at my university to whom I couldn’t relate. He laughed and told me to either think of everything in the world as mine or nothing as mine. “It’s the same,” he said.

Liz at a Nepali wedding in 2010

But as soon as I was back in the U.S., I got an anthropology grant to study Sugar Daddy relationships in New York. The subculture’s values were the opposite of nonattachment — obsessions with youth, beauty, money, and power — and I was absorbed in it everyday. The troubling dichotomy between my daily existence and my values — complicated by remnants of a ruptured childhood and unresolved years of traumatic experiences — pushed me to create art.

A mural in progress by Liz at her former Washington, D.C. apartment

First, I started painting. I used spray paint in bright, happy colors to make images of women on their knees or crawling, their bodies distorted and broken. It was a visual representation of what my band, HOLYCHILD, is now: accessible, yet striving to provoke with social commentary. A friend saw my paintings strewn about my apartment and started organizing art shows for me. But I couldn’t stomach explaining my art to people who really just wanted to drink wine and talk to an “artist.” It seemed vapid. I also didn’t think people were capable of being moved by visual art as much as they were by other mediums.

This experience motivated me to make music (coupled with meeting my partner in crime, Louie; but that’s another story). One of the first songs Louie and I wrote was about the demise of the American Dream. We called it “Socioeconomic Happy Sad” (it’s on our first album with a different title, “Diamonds on the Rebound”). We liked turning our music into pop songs because people could hear them everywhere — at CVS, on the radio, in movies. The idea was to slip social commentary into a medium that’s familiar and easy to listen to.

In 2013 we released our first batch of songs, which I would describe as “a concept EP that confronts the role of the female in our culture.” At the time, if you can believe it, feminism wasn’t cool. I remember saying in an interview that I wasn’t a feminist because the word still had a negative connotation and was frequently misconstrued by the media. Thankfully, a few years later, feminism is now back in society’s collective consciousness. A recent Saturday Night Live sketch parodying millennials even had Miley Cyrus and her friends casually discussing gender identity. Lorde, Alessia Cara, Charli XCX, Madonna, and other pop artists are also leading discussions that challenge popular ideals of gender, money, success, and age. From my point of view, the public consciousness is moving forward, at least among the people I interact with.

Liz performs in Tokyo

On good days, I’m optimistic I can change the oppressive mainstream culture from within it. (Sometimes, it even feels like my band and community already has.) And, amid all my self-doubt, I end up talking to someone who understands our music and needs it just as much as we do.

However, on other days, I realize I’m spending all my money on useless things, our society is still worshipping celebrities, public education is failing, police brutality and racism persists, and the media makes me feel worthless. On those days I’m convinced the world is ending — or if not the world at large, then at least the current U.S. “empire” as we know it. I become cynical.

When I realize the amount of change that is necessary I feel overwhelmed. Can my politically-charged pop songs make a difference? In order to bring about change, do I need to conform so my points can be heard?

I’m a human. I know there’s an ebb and flow to all of this. But at the end of it all I’m still trying to decide whether I should get Botox so I can smile next to my idols or fight the pressure and yell about it to anyone who will listen. I’m making music and art so I can attempt to understand how I might fit into all of it. I want to be a part of the pop world so I can prove to someone — maybe even myself — that you don’t have to be wrinkle-free to have success.

Liz Nistico is the lead singer of indie pop band HOLYCHILD. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.