Bizou have quite an impressive musical résumé – Light FM, Wax Idols, The Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and Glaare – but what’s much more interesting is what happens when all that experience comes together in one band. The Los Angeles quartet return with their new EP Widow, where shoegaze meets darkwave, synthwave, and experimental pop, while the usual genre boundaries seem to be taking a vacation. We spoke with Marisa Prietto about how it all began, why musical chemistry matters more than big names, where the phrase “industrial Enya” came from, and where Bizou are headed next.
Photo by Ben Thomas
We are glad to meet you, Bizou, and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Your band has existed for almost ten years, and during that time all of the members have had quite eventful histories: recordings, concerts, side projects, and, apparently, several lives within one. Let’s start from the very beginning. How did you actually meet, and at what point did you realize that this lineup could become Bizou?
Marisa: We met in 2017. I had just left my previous touring band and I was working on some solo stuff. At the time, I didn’t have any expectation of joining another project. One of my friends hit me up and said he had a friend who was forming a band and they needed a singer. Josiah sent me some instrumental demos and they were so cool and maximal that I didn’t even know how to approach them vocally at first. It was a challenge. A couple weeks later we all met and rehearsed together and formed Bizou very quickly after that.
In your press release, you specifically emphasize that musical chemistry is much more important to you than supergroup credentials. How difficult was it to “get used to each other” when everyone already had solid experience behind them and well-established creative habits?
Marisa: The first time we played together the chemistry was already apparent. I attribute a lot of that to Josiah, Nicki and Nicole having already played together for many years prior. I was definitely the new guy and a little nervous at first but the first time we played together felt really natural and relaxed. Everyone was responsive to each other’s ideas and feedback. It felt lived-in from the start.
From the very beginning, your music has been somewhere between post-punk, shoegaze, synthwave, and more experimental electronics. Today, it can be described using several genre terms at once, and each of them would be accurate. But the more labels there are, the harder it is to choose just one for a conversation. How would you describe Bizou to someone who has never heard you before?
Marisa: I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think at this point I consider us an alternative rock band in the “traditional” sense of producing and releasing music outside of the mainstream & incorporating a lot of different subgenres into our work. I’m not sure if Josiah agrees but this is where I’ve landed.
In 2021, “Tragic Lover” was released, after which the members of the band spent several years working on different projects. Often, breaks like that help you understand what you actually miss. When you came together again, did it feel like coming home, or more like meeting old friends who first needed some time to get used to each other again?
Marisa: Both, I think. It’s like no time has passed and I’m so excited to play with everyone again. I also really missed fronting a band.
Let’s talk about the new EP. Work on “Widow” began in the summer of 2025 at Cave Studio. You were working toward this release for several years. During that period of letting the material develop, what managed to “fall away,” and which ideas, on the contrary, took on their ideal form?
Marisa: Live drums in most cases were the first casualty of this EP! We only used them on Widow. We also had a handful of heavier sounding demos that we removed from the group when we were finalizing the mixes. But we might revisit to those, eventually.
You describe “Widow” as a “fractured prism,” through which the music breaks apart into different shades. It’s quite an interesting and accurate image for an EP where the music constantly changes shape. What was behind this desire to experiment?
Marisa: I think we’ve always had a tendency to experiment with different elements and textures, but after Tragic Lover was done I felt that impulse intensify even further. I was happy with that record and felt it was cohesive, so I wanted to push what we were capable of in different directions and Josiah was super open to that.
I really liked the phrase you use to describe the EP – “industrial Enya.” It sounds like the ready-made name of a separate genre. Who said those words first, and how accurately does it convey the essence of your music?
Marisa: Full disclosure I took that from one of my friends who I sent the title track to listen to. He was like “whoa, this is industrial Enya” and now this lives rent-free in my head.
You included a cover of Wire’s “Ahead” on the release, which has long been part of your live set. What was it about this song that caught your attention, and how difficult was it to rewrite it for Bizou’s signature sound?
Marisa: I think the main thing is we took the live drums out to make it flow better with the rest of the record, which mostly has programmed drums.
I really want to ask about the track “Losing My Memory” from your new release. Its story seems fascinating to me. It all started with sheet music drawn on a figure from Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. The internet really can sometimes take a person to very unexpected places. What was it about this discovery that caught your attention so strongly that a song came out of it?
Marisa: Yeah so that’s where the intro passage comes from – Josiah got down a Youtube rabbit hole and when he sent the demo back to me it had this ornate medieval intro which is such a complete contrast to the rest of the song, and I think adds a lot of dimension.
And finally – a little bit about the future, but without the need to look into a crystal ball. If you imagine the next chapter of Bizou, what would you like to try for the first time – something you haven’t allowed yourselves to do yet, either in your music or in the format of the band?
Marisa: I’m looking forward to more opportunities to play together. I think we’ll also be dredging up the demo graveyard and reworking those into something new.
