NERVO Step Into the Spotlight on 'We're All No One' With Afrojack and Steve Aoki

Sisters Olivia and Miriam NERVO operate like something of a hive mind, finishing each other's sentences enthusiastically and often. The Australian DJs and songwriters, who prefer to go by Mim and Liv, stopped by Spinner's New York office to chat about their latest single with Afrojack and Steve Aoki, 'We're All No One,' touring with Britney Spears and how they settle arguments in the DJ booth.

You guys were accepted into an opera academy. How did you jump into DJing from there?

Liv NERVO: We always studied music. Music was something that always came to us, not easily, but you know what it's like. Kids like what they like, and it was music for us. All the way through high school, we did all the exams for piano and we also did ...

Mim NERVO: ... singing.

Liv: So we were accepted but we never ever performed, never went to one rehearsal. Simultaneously, we were kind of working on pop music ...

Mim: ... in the studio. Some of our songs got a little bit of interest, we got a UK manager wanting us to go to the UK and then we got a publishing deal.

Listen to NERVO's 'We're All No One' EP for Free

You've dabbled in plenty of musical pursuits: Songwriting, opera, pop, dance and DJing. Is there one that you hold closest to your heart?

Mim: They all keep it fresh. Just when you get bored of the studio, you're off flying somewhere to do a gig.

Liv: Just when you've finished working with a pop artist, you want something a little bit harder so you work on something a bit more underground.

Mim: We've always come from songwriting. DJing did come after the production work and the songwriting. We've done the DJing things a little bit backwards because I think most people DJ for 10 years to empty clubs and do their hard yards there, but we did the hard yards at the studio.

Liv: We went from our bedrooms to literally Ibiza. It was the scariest thing ever.

Mim: I can't tell you the nerves we used to have. We still get nerves but this was ...

Liv: .. horrible, psycho quick. There were serious people there. David Guetta really supported us, bless him. We had a lot of community in the dance world support us, because we'd been working with them for years and suddenly they were like "Yeah, open up for me" We suddenly got the number one and number two DJs in the world saying "open up for my party in Ibiza at Pacha to a full club" and we were like "OK!" We didn't really think about it -- we just did it.
What are you guys focusing on now?

Liv: Our next single. We're singing, so for us it's a new step. When EMI offered us a record deal we really wanted to create something that was different to Ke$ha, different to David Guetta, to Kylie Minogue. We found that difference sort of came through a lot in our vocals.

Did you always hope that you would step into the spotlight and sing the songs yourself? Was that kind of scary?

Liv: It was scary. When we were like 17 and 18, I think every girl has a dream of becoming a pop star, but we got over that because we enjoyed the whole culture of music, we enjoyed the studio. So when we got this opportunity for the record deal, it was a real time to refocus and reshape the way we thought of ourselves because we were just happy being studio rats who liked to DJ on the weekends.

Mim: I think when you're an artist you open yourself up to a good bit of criticism. If someone else is singing your songs ...

Liv: ... it's less pressure. It's "Oh, they sound s---" or "It flopped because they're crap."

Mim: There's more pressure when you're the artist because you double-guess the lyric. It's like, "If I sing something like that, will people think differently?"

Liv: You overthink it. It's good having two of us actually because if ever Mim's like "Is that too pop, or is that not cool enough, or is that too underground?" then its good to have each other to bounce off. Two heads are better than one.

Mim: When we're writing, if both of us love it, then we know we're onto something good. Hopefully we're having a day where we like it. Some days you wake up and everything you do is meh.
You guys are finishing each other's sentences right now, but do you ever have creative differences?

Liv: Yeah, everyday. All the time. We fight all the time in the studio.

Mim: We fight when we play records over which record to play.

Liv: It's really funny. We played with another duo DJ team. We were talking about fighting behind the booth, because we have the rule "don't fight in front of the kids" and these guys have the same rule [laughs]! I'll be playing something, and I've got an idea of where I want the set to go and Mim's like "No! Something more like this!" It goes right up to the last second.

How do you guys settle the arguments? Rock, paper, scissors?

Liv: It's just whoever's more bossy that day.

Mim: Thank god there are no mics behind the booth.

Liv: We always have an amazing time when we DJ and I think part of that is because we've only been DJing professionally for two years now, so we're not over it.

How was going on tour with Nicki Minaj and Britney Spears?

Mim: It was awesome. We've never done anything like that before. It was a really big stadium tour. The production is insane, there are 23 trucks and like 27 tour buses. And everything is done to a military degree. Everything is organized. Sound check has to be on time. If you miss sound check, you don't get sound check.

Liv: The catering was incredible. Basically it was like 24-hour catering at every venue. We had a friend of ours who was on the Katy Perry tour who came to see us in Chicago. He came and checked out our catering and said it was so much better than the Katy Perry tour [laughs].

Watch NERVO's 'We're All No One' Lyric Video

Mim: It's just so different to club gigs. When you play in a club you're playing for two hours, three hours. With the Britney gig it's 25 minutes.

Liv: We play house music, so we played poppier versions of everything we could find. As commercial as we could go, that's where we went. The kids aren't really there to hear house music. We tried to educate them. We love playing dirty clubs where people really get it. They're probably our favorite gigs. And festivals we love as well.

Mim: There were a few gay fans at the Britney concert and when we played our remix of the Kylie song that we did, they all went [they both scream].

Liv: The song's called 'Put Your Hands Up' and all their hands just went [both shoot their hands into the air].
Did you ever get to hang out with Britney?

Mim: She's very protected. Her family is on tour the whole time.

Liv: She comes to catering and we all line up at the buffet and do our thing, but she has a security guard two meters behind her the whole time, even at catering. But then she sits down at the table right next to us with her little boys and her sister, her mom and dad are there.

Mim: She's very sweet, always smiles.

Liv: She's very polite but we didn't get to know her. Same thing with Nicki. They have different changing rooms. A lot of the time we shared our changing rooms with Nicki's dancers and the band, but we didn't ever share with Nicki or Britney.

Mim: They're the big superstars.

Liv: They get their own tour bus. We had to share with six other people.

Mim: But that makes it fun

Liv: It really does. It's like school camp.

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