Q&A: Revenge Wife Marks a Cosmic Rebirth in New Era of Music
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photo Credit: Chris Wills
REVENGE WIFE CHANNELS THE STARS — Revenge Wife is stepping fully into her power. With the release of her new single, “Poseidon,” Liz Nistico — best known for the past decade as the magnetic frontwoman of indie-pop staple HOLYCHILD — continues her fearless evolution into the rock world. Blending pop punk with indie sleaze, “Poseidon” feels like both a rebirth and a reminder that Revenge Wife does exactly what she wants, and she’s never sounded more confident doing it.
Sonically, “Poseidon” carries the punk-toned DNA of HOLYCHILD’s alt-anthem “Bathroom Bitch,” earning its place as a spiritual successor while pushing the energy into rougher, guitar-driven territory. The relaxed vocal delivery contrasts with the grit beneath it, creating a tension that mirrors the song’s emotional core. Revenge Wife’s songwriting has always been sharp and poignant, but here she bites deeper. In the verses, she lays bare her anxieties and she finds momentary solace by surrendering to Poseidon, the mythic king of the ocean, as a symbol of release.
“Poseidon” was born far from home. Revenge Wife wrote the track while living in Milan, Italy, during a period marked by transition, and it also marks her first full-production credit.
“In 2022, I spent too much money on an Airbnb in Milan, Italy,” Revenge Wife shares. “I went there to write music in churches because I read in a book that, if a song is written from a place of love it has healing properties for the listeners. I love old churches for their abandoned opulence and I needed to be inspired. That’s where I wrote ‘Poseidon.’ It has turned into everything I love. Thematically, it’s a push-pull between accepting that things are not right and being in denial.”
“Poseidon” appears on Revenge Wife’s upcoming debut album Alien Witch, out later this year. The album is a conceptual body of work where each track corresponds to a sign of the zodiac, with “Poseidon” representing Taurus.
But Alien Witch reaches far beyond astrology alone. Dark, magnetic, emotional and deeply spiritual, the record is rooted in feminine energy and cosmic curiosity. Revenge Wife found herself drawn to the Pleiades, the star cluster within the Taurus constellation, and began exploring the idea that our bodies and cells hold ancient connections to stardust and the universe itself.
“Alien Witch is a connection between the sky and a longer time frame, much longer than I can perceive and ourselves, and it being innate in us and accessing that again,” Revenge Wife tells Luna. “When it comes to the zodiac, it’s fun to play with archetypes, and that’s what I think is so beautiful about the zodiac — and we all have all of those archetypes in us.”
With “Poseidon,” Revenge Wife offers the first true portal into this new realm of Alien Witch where punk grit meets spiritual exploration, and her artistic autonomy becomes a source of power. Unconcerned with expectations or genre boundaries, Revenge Wife is following her own current.
Photo Credit: Chris Wills
LUNA: Welcome back and thank you for talking to Luna again. It's super exciting to have you back since the last time we talked around SXSW 2025 and the Luna Spring Issue. Your newest single “Poseidon” is a sneak peek into your upcoming debut record. What inspired the initial idea for “Poseidon” and what themes or emotions did you set out to explore?
REVENGE WIFE: I wrote “Poseidon” when I was in Italy a few years ago. I had gone there because I was reading this really beautiful book called Healing Yourself with Light, and it's all about angel energy and healing frequencies that come with colors, and the book has nothing to do with music. There was this line in the book that said that if you make a song with the intention to heal, then people will be able to feel that when they are connected with the song. I thought that was really beautiful. I wanted to go to Italy and write music in churches, because I just love the beauty of those churches. I love being alone in them, and I love the reverb. It feels really beautiful. I went to Italy and my intention was to make music with this healing frequency for people and then I wrote “Poseidon.” It's unmoored, like on one hand, anxiety, on the other hand, me being in denial about the anxiety. Then it gets to the bridge, and I'm reconnected with myself, so it is a big journey.
LUNA: This is your first full-production credit. What did producing your own song unlock for you creatively and emotionally?
REVENGE WIFE: I feel really empowered that I produced this by myself and I wrote it by myself. I had friends playing different parts, like drums and the bass, but I would sing the bass line, and then my friend would track the bass that I sang. It was a really empowering experience, especially doing music for so long and I think being a musician, there are so many times when people make you feel like you need them, especially as a female, they're like, ‘You need me to make this or you need me to put this out.’ Even when you're putting things out, people are like, ‘You need me to reach more people.’ There are so many parts that make you feel like you're not enough on your own, so I really wanted to just explore what was in my brain, and I feel really proud of it. I love the sound.
LUNA: You are releasing your debut album Alien Witch later this year. What does this era represent to you and what are you most excited for listeners to experience?
REVENGE WIFE: I was thinking about it earlier today because it's a very interesting, niche concept, like sonically, it's all over the place. I'm really inspired by rock. I grew up on pop punk, Taking Back Sunday, Third Eye Blind, Dave Matthews and Incubus. Sonically, it's a real combination of all these things that I've been into lately, but from a rock point of view, which is interesting, because the entire album is so spiritual and my writing practice is so spiritual. All of the songs are songs that I wrote on my own and they're these little gems, and I really feel like I'm following my dreams in terms of seeing them through and following that thread. That is a concept album, and each song is a different sign of the zodiac. That's the whole Alien Witch concept, which is this spirituality that is connected with an ancient connection to the stars, so that's even beyond just the zodiac. I thought astrology was a fun way to represent that.
Photo Credit: Chris Wills
LUNA: You’ve talked about believing that songs written from love can have healing properties. Do you feel like Alien Witch carries that energy for you now as a listener, not just the writer?
REVENGE WIFE: These are songs that I've had that have comforted me over the past few years. Half of the songs are older than four years old, so they've been little piano gems that have been there for me, and when I'm going through something, the words are there for me. Beyond that, I'm doing all sorts of witchy things in the production. Now that I'm in there, I'm really intentional with numerology. I'm like that's going to be 88 beats per minute. Then it's going to switch into all of the numbers lining up to be secret little healing properties that nobody would be able to tell. I am really putting a lot of love into it.
LUNA: Were there any specific frequencies you were drawn to while creating Alien Witch?
REVENGE WIFE: When I was reading that book Healing Yourself With Light, there's a practice in finding your soul's tone and your soul's frequency. The book guides you through a meditation. The healing frequencies that I've really been working with lately are naturally occurring in the voice and what can I do with my voice that opens it up, so it's not necessarily tuning to a certain frequency, whereas it’s more of me feeling it within my body. I think that we should all be doing that. To me, my album is so feminine. Of course, it's for everybody, but I'm really stepping into that feminine space. I think that we should all be doing that as women and humans, trying to open our throat chakra and make sounds and exploring ugliness and beauty. Those are things that I've been exploring in terms of healing frequencies in my work lately.
LUNA: Alien Witch being structured around the zodiac is such a cool conceptual move. What inspired you to build the album this way?
REVENGE WIFE: I became obsessed with Pleiades. Pleiades is a star cluster that is located in the constellation of Taurus. It's seven stars. It is in pop culture. So Pleiades is a really interesting star cluster that I've been very connected with. I've been reading a lot about the concept of star seeds, or aliens walking amongst us. I read this really amazing book called Earth, A living Library and it talks about the fact that we are made of stardust, and because of that, our cells have an ancient connection to the rest of the universe. I was doing a lot of meditations to connect with ancient ancestors from Pleiades. This is what started Alien Witch. To me, Alien Witch is a connection between the sky and a longer time frame, much longer than I can perceive and ourselves, and it being innate in us and accessing that again. When it comes to the zodiac, it's fun to play with archetypes, and that's what I think is so beautiful about the zodiac and we all have all of those archetypes in us.
It's about playing with those archetypes. I love Carl Jung. I think the zodiac is a beautiful accompaniment to the work of Carl Jung, so I was playing with that. Each song is its own little entity and its little baby. A lot of it was figuring out what are the elements that this song is saying, and what does that connect it to? Which zodiac sign does it connect to? It's been a puzzle because I'm playing with it and I'm having fun with it.
LUNA: “Poseidon” representing Taurus feels fitting. How did you decide which song belonged to each sign? Do you see the zodiac theme as more symbolic, spiritual or narrative-driven — or a mix of all three?
REVENGE WIFE: “Poseidon” was tricky because it seems like it should be Pisces since it's Poseidon and the fish, but I wanted to really get deeper with it and what is it really saying? I think it's pairing the songs with the zodiac. It has been a combination of who I'm writing about and what their sign is, and then what elements of that person are in the song. Pretty much every song on my album is about one person specifically that I will never tell them, and not all of them align with their exact zodiac. It's more elemental.
LUNA: You’ve said “Poseidon” is a reminder that you do what you want. What does that kind of artistic autonomy mean to you at this stage of your career?
REVENGE WIFE: It's really interesting to be doing things on your own and just taking action. I think that it feels scary and it feels like you're on a balancing beam, where on one hand you can look at the things that you make and you do and see it, but on the other hand, it feels like you're in a bubble and nothing changes. It's a really weird liminal space to be in when you're trying to create for yourself. I recently had the realization that I think yearning and the desire is the fun of the journey, so I'm just going to lean into that and play with the desire and what I'm desiring and how, and stop trying to focus on the end goals, because that's so American, and I just don't think it helps me.
LUNA: How do you hope listeners — especially your femme audience — can connect with or find power in this new era of music from you? What emotions or messages do you want to leave with them?
REVENGE WIFE: I hope that listeners can have a really emotional experience while they're listening to the music. A lot of it is harder rock and it's very emotional. I like that darkness. I like playing with the darkness. I think that's another aspect of Alien Witch, how it all occurs during the night. I think that people can explore that side of them a bit and have fun with it, and I hope that it just reminds them to connect with themselves.
LUNA: What is fueling your fire right now that’s pushing you into this next chapter in your career?
REVENGE WIFE: That's such a great question. I'm really fueled by a disgust with phone addiction. I realized that I have an issue with phone addiction. If it's there, I want to use it, especially social media, I have to break that and I use an app to block social media for the majority of my day, going off of phone addiction and reframing my own focus. I'm then really obsessed with action and how I can be making more things. I have this really strong desire to make a lot right now, and it's probably fueled by anxiety and feeling like I'm not enough, but it is definitely putting me into motion to really finish everything that I do, see it through to the best of my ability, make sure that I'm totally focused, get everything out of it.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
REVENGE WIFE: I feel excited that “Poseidon” is out. It feels crazy, especially politically right now. I really do not feel good about the state of our culture. How can you? It is so divided. It's hard to know what reality is, because AI is coming in, it doesn't feel stable. I feel strange as an artist, and I do feel excited to put out my music and share it with people, and I do hope that people connect with themselves. It's all about connection with self. I think that compassion for self is number one, so that's what I'm working on. It's a very weird time right now, and it's unprecedented. I think people think that it's always like that. No, it's not always like that.
