Nervo Interview

BBM’s Frankie Salt grabs a chat with Liv from Nervo, Australia’s favourite sibling duo for a chat about Nervo’s 2011 success, Tomorrowland Festival, underage clubbing, and touring with Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj and Afrojack.

Good morning Liv how are you today?

I’m very good Thank you Frankie, how are you? Are you calling from England too?

I’m actually calling you from Sydney; sadly I couldn’t get across the city from work to meet with you.

Ha-ha this is crazy; everyone I speak to at the moment seems to be British!

Yeah, we Brits do love a bit of Australia, especially Sydney it seems. So how long are you in Sydney for before you both jet off again?

Oh were only here for one day only before heading to LA. So it’s all a little quick quick.

So you had a majorly busy year last year too. What were your personal highlights?

Definitely Tomorrowland Festival was a personal highlight as we got a main stage slot. Also we co-produced the anthem for the festival, which was a big deal for us. We have got this Wynn residency, which is group of casinos in Las Vegas. Me and Mim have to pinch ourselves as we check into these amazing 5* hotels and just have the best time. The reception we get for the house and electro we play over there is incredible. Also the Ibiza closing with Pete Tong which was amazing. Ibiza is my spiritual homeland.

Yeah I do love Ibiza, its just such an experience. I just can’t imagine the feeling you must get when you play to a crowd over there. I’m heading over there in the summer to see my friends play so I’ll definitely look out for you playing again. Actually, I saw you smash it at The Ivy on Boxing Day; did you plan the set you played?

Yeah we always plan our sets and take it quite seriously. We like to showcase the stuff we are working on and test our new stuff on the crowd. We do also take a different direction depending on the crowd’s engagement with the music. Can you believe a girl broke her ankle during our set? Ha-ha that day was incredible.

Yeah I saw people climb up on the stage. Unreal. Usually Boxing Day is a day to chill after Christmas, but Sydney truly went off that day. How has it been for you both touring with massive names such as Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj on the Femme Fatale tour? And also spending time with Djs such as Kaskade and Afrojack?

Oh it was amazing I mean we have never been a part of something so huge. The production was just incredible. We met the girls too, who were really cool. Britney is so professional; she had her family there with her every day. So it’s really surreal to go. Of course opening up for the biggies like Afrojack and Kaskade is amazing.

So how old were you both when you started DJing? Was there that pinnacle moment which my friends always talk about when you think ‘that’s what I want to do’ or ‘yeah I could do that’?

Yeah I mean, when I was sneaking out to go to clubs when I was underage, it was the time when Van Helden was big with that tune ‘You don’t even know me’ and that gave me my first taste of club culture. Sadly we were a little bit too young to be part of the 90s rave scene which is what I always talk about when we go on tour with the 90s DJs such as Oakenfold. We talk about the mad raves in Thailand or underground dusty hippy Ibiza, but yeah I wish I had experienced that era. Not to say we haven’t been to some amazing raves. I suppose playing piano and guitar helped us to fall in love with electronic music as we learned how to play around and become more adventurous on the computer systems.

So when you both first sit down to make a song, do you work together in a set process or do you write the lyrics whilst Mim makes the riff or beat and vice versa?

This changes all the time. We are definitely more melody girls, riff driven. Mim and I always chop and change. Maybe I connect with this lyric or Mim will love a progression … we love collaborating and have learned a lot of tricks from great producers such as David Guetta and the Afrojacks. I feel very lucky to have this job, if I can call it that!

How does it feel working alongside your sister 24/7 creating tunes such as your single ‘We’re all no-one’? The reception you’ve had for this tune is brilliant. Do you always want to step up to the mic together?

It’s great working with your sister. We know its forever, there’s never going to be a split creativity, we have a good flow. I know when to shut up and give her space when she’s in the middle of producing something good. We have been doing it now for 8 years and we know how it all works.

So you’re very excited about the new single?

Mim and I love it. It’s very different to anything we have ever done before so it was a little bit of a sales job on our side when we wanted it to be released, as it was so important to us. It works really well in the clubs with the remix package, and the DJs we know have really supported it. The meaning of the song being that life means nothing unless you can share it with someone. And we are at the point in our lives we thought ‘how great’ that we can share this journey together.

If you could play alongside any DJ, who would you play with and where?

I would play Fatboyslim and Brazil Creamfields. And guess what? It’s going to happen in ten days. I’m so nervous. We have never played in Brazil before and so we are about to live a dream.

Just a couple of quick fire questions for you Liv:
Heavy rock or country? Country
Home or away? Home
Lyrics or instrumental? Oh I can’t choose
Sweet or sour? Sweet
New or Old classics? Jesus that’s a tough one: old classics reinvented.

Nice twist! 2012- bigger than last year?

Yeah 2012 has got such a good ring to it. We can only hope it goes as well as last year. We are both very excited and things are about to get very, very busy.

Cool well all the best Liv, thanks for your time….

Don’t forget to come say hello next time you’re at a gig of ours. Lots of love Frankie.