Gorgeous Australian twin sensation Miriam (Mim) and Olivia (Liv), otherwise collectively known as NERVO, rocked up to our shores recently for a gig at Fuze Club in Kuala Lumpur.
Known for being both talented and dynamic, the girls were here as part of their schedule, which allows them to globetrot and unite dance music fans under one roof with their high energy music. Their passion for their work is undeniable as they truly embody “if you love what you do, you’ll work a day in your life” – and it shows!
We caught up them the day after their Fuze Club KL gig and here’s what went down 😉
Welcome back to Kuala Lumpur, Liv and Mim! The last time you were here, you played at a festival. What was your best memory of Malaysia?
Well actually..our gig at Fuze Club KL, again, was a good reminder of the people here. The people here are just lovely! We had proper fans last night, complete with fan signs and all. We had a girl who flew in from Taiwan. We’re surprised with how many fans we have here and some of them were requesting records of ours that we released 3 years ago. There must be a scene here! Dance music must be very alive.
You’ve both been DJing officially for about 6 years now. How has the journey been for you and what has surprised you most about the EDM community?
How much it has changed in the last 6 years! And how many sub genres have been created. EDM is a creative genre in that way that it’s like..somebody will do something different and then they’ll create a whole new sub genre for that sound i.e. future bass. It’s very exciting for the business because it doesn’t have to be same all the time. And it makes us keep evolving, which is fun. We don’t have to keep making the same records. Our DJ sets also change like how fashion changes.
Do you think that being such formidable female icons in the dance music industry makes you a little intimidating to the average guy?
We don’t think so. We’re not intimidating, are we? (laughs) We’re approachable! We work hard, we love our jobs, and a small part of our job happens to be in the limelight. But a lot of it is us working in the studio like, 10 hours a day.
What’s the biggest job hazard for NERVO, being siblings..twins even, and having to work together as a DJ/producer duo?
Lack of sleep. We never have enough time to fit everything in and sleep. And also because we’re so international like, time-wise. Our team at the moment is in the US and in England, and we’re in Asia. So we really have to communicate with people at really random hours of the day. And every day, we speak to our team. A lot of it is communicated via WhatsApp, Skype, etc.
A lot of DJs in the world just DJ and not produce, unlike NERVO, because you guys work on records for some of the world’s top pop names. How do you never run of out creative juice?
We would love to be in the studio more. We used to be in the studio 7 days a week! We love the studio. But we’ve got so much work. It’s really nice to gig but the key is creative balance. If we could, the ideal scenario for us would be..work in the studio 4 days a week but 4 proper days like 10am till 7pm. With energy. But when we deal with jetlag..sometimes we get back on a Sunday night completely exhausted and Monday is a little bit of a washing day like just doing our laundry. We also love the routine that we have in the studio. When we’re on tour, there’s no routine – we sleep at weird hours and when we can, we eat at weird hours. But the studio is more..normal sleeping pattern and normal eating pattern.
And on that note, are there any artistes that you haven’t had the chance to work with yet that you want to someday do something with?
So many! Imogen Heap is one. Lauryn Hill. Eminem! will.i.am. Any artistes, actually. They don’t need to be famous yet, they just have to have something to say.
Which artiste or DJ/producer still leaves you absolutely gobsmacked until today? For example, someone that you’re a hardcore fan girl of.
You know, Mim has only been starstruck once in her life. And that’s by a producer. We’ve met so many pop stars and we’ve never been starstruck. The only person who has left Mim starstruck is Max Martin – the Swedish producer who has worked on every single big pop record. Mim froze! For Liv, deadmau5. He’s incredible. He just doesn’t give a f*ck in the best way possible because he’s so musically-driven. In the same way that Eric Prydz doesn’t because they’re just so dedicated to their craft.
Has there been any crazy fan moments throughout your entire career so far? What has been some of the craziest?
Oh we always have crazy fan moments. But good crazy fan moments. We just had a crazy fan come up to us at the shopping mall earlier and he started crying – but good cry, and good tears, we think. We thought that was cute. We also got followed back to the hotel room before..which wasn’t cool. Mim once had a guy hanging outside her hotel room. He was waiting outside Mim’s room for 3 hours. He didn’t actually say anything but it was weird. We had to call security.
2016 is coming to an end! Looking back, what has been some of the greatest moment for you this year?
Ooh. So many good moments. It has been a very, very big year for us. We feel like we’ve built NERVO Nation a lot. We used to do about 4/5 gigs a year for NERVO Nation but now we’re playing about 9, and that’s all around the world. So that’s a lot of work. We also launched our record label so that’s a lot of work as well. It has been really interesting and we’ve learnt a lot from that.
And what can we expect from NERVO for the coming year?
Well, we’ve released an album and now we’re not sure if we should do another album or do singles, and then think about packaging them into an album for later on. People put too much stress on the whole album thing when the reality is, nobody listens to the whole album. We’ll see 😉
Special thanks to our friends from Fuze Club Kuala Lumpur for making this interview happen 🙂
We’ll leave you now with their latest release, “Alone” featuring Askery and Brielle Von Hugel. Enjoy:
For more information, hit up NERVO’s website or Facebook page. The girls are also on Twitter and Instagram so stalk them!
