We were pretty stoked when we heard Australian DJ duo, NERVO were teaming up with disco's cream of the crop, Scissor Sister's Jake Shears, Chic's Nile Rodgers and the one and only Kylie Minogue on their new single, The Other Boys. You can probably imagine our excitement, then, when we got to travel to the set of the music video in London's Brick Lane and chat with the stars (sadly minus Nile).
A track with all the hallmarks of a disco classic, the beat is strong with a top layer of infectious synth and Kylie's silky soprano vocals are the perfect match to Shear's heavier tone. If you needed a track to make the impending Winter's darker nights more sparkly, this is up to the job.
Here, we talk to the stars about life in the music industry, what's coming up next for them and whether that musical will ever happen for Ms Minogue…
THE TRACK FEATURES A LOT OF YOU, HOW DID YOU MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY HAD A CREATIVE SAY?
Miriam Nervo: These guys [Kylie Minogue and Jake Shears] are such strong artists that they put their creative stamp on everything so I think it was a real creative thing, very natural, that just worked really well.
Olivia Nervo: It definitely grew and evolved.
Jake Shears: I put my vocals down first.
Kylie Minogue: And then Jake called me… and then Niall [Rodgers] came last.
Miriam Nervo: I love Niall's guitar bit! It's amazing, it just brought it to a whole new level, it was the icing on the cake.
WHAT WAS THE ONE THING YOU ALL LEARNT FROM THE KING OF DISCO, CHIC'S NIALL ROGERS?
Miriam: He's such a humble, beautiful, positive energy. We were at crunch time with the record when he came on board.
Kylie: Yes, how did it actually come about?
Miriam: We did a record for him called Sober and then we were having dinner with him and we were like "Oh we've got this disco thing we're featuring Kylie on", we sent it to him and the next day he got back to us saying, "Girls, I love it" and the next week, he sent the guitars. It was very positive and very refreshing.
Olivia: And very direct as well. When you deal with him, you're dealing with a one-man band, not with like a million people, which is great.
JAKE AND KYLIE, YOU'RE LONGSTANDING FRIENDS, WHAT WAS IT LIKE COMING BACK TO WORK TOGETHER ON THIS TRACK?
Jake: It's just nice, we've done so much together over the years but we've never actually featured on a record together. We've performed together and we've written a lot together but we've never both been on a song together.
Kylie: I feel like we have done!
JAKE, CAN WE EXPECT ANY NEW MUSIC FROM THE SCISSOR SISTERS SOON AND DID YOU CONSIDER BRINGING THEM ON BOARD FOR THIS PROJECT?
Kylie: It would've been a packed video [laughs]!
Jake: There's no plans to do more Scissors stuff but I've been writing a lot with Babydaddy from the band but with no specific agenda. We've got some great stuff. Looking ahead, I've got no idea and there's no plan yet but we've definitely been making music.
SO, NERVO, YOU'VE BEEN NAMED THE HIGHEST RANKING FEMALE DJ DUO IN THE WORLD - WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM WHEN YOU'RE MAKING MUSIC?
Miriam: Everywhere! This record was produced around the same time that Daft Punk were making music so we weren't really sure where it would fit although I think that was definitely an influence on this album.
Olivia: We get inspiration from everything sonically, track-wise, what we're hearing in the clubs and what's working on the crowd. Then obviously, when it's time to get in the studio it's like "Oh, remember that, that drop works".
Miriam: The thing with an album is that you don't really have to worry about a club-banger and that's what was really special about this record; the way that it is now, it's friendly, but it's not what we'd play in a festival set. We'd play a remix of it.
THE DJ INDUSTRY IS TYPICALLY MALE-DOMINATED. DO YOU EVER FEEL DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BECAUSE OF YOUR GENDER?
Olivia: We've never been men so it's really hard to try and understand what it's like for the boys because we just try and carry on. We love DJs like Annie Mac, she's such a fierce girl, a total pacemaker in the scene and we look up to the women coming up.
Kylie: There must be so many young women that look up to you two though.
Miriam: Yeah, we have some amazing fans. But we've never experienced gender discrimination. We've always stood behind the music, we've come from the music, we used to write for other DJs full time so the men have always been really supportive of us.
KYLIE, CAN WE EXPECT ANY ICONIC CLOTHING LIKE THE GOLD HOT PANTS OR THE SPLIT TROUSERS IN THE OTHER BOYS VIDEO?
Kylie: It's actually fifty shades of black and a dash of white for this video. I think there might be one shot where you see a little bum-shot though [but] we don't have Spinning Around...
IF YOU COULD ALL TAKE ONE DISCO TRACK TO A DESERT ISLAND, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Olivia: Staying Alive by the BeeGees.
Kylie: Oooh, nice one. I'm gonna say Love to Love you Baby [by Donna Summer].
Jake: I was gonna say Lucky by Donna Summer. It's off of Bad Girls and I've been bugging Kylie to cover it. [Turns to Kylie] I'm obsessed with that song and I want to hear you sing it so bad!
Miriam: For nostalgic reasons, if were stuck on a desert island, I would want to take The Other Boys.
Kylie: To remember this lovely moment!
KYLIE, YOU'VE HAD SUCH AN INCREDIBLE CAREER DOING FILM, TV AND MUSIC. WHAT ABOUT "KYLIE: THE MUSICAL"?
Kylie: I am considering it! It's been a few years now that I've been "in talks" let's say. [When you're working on something like this] one of the first things you learn is that it takes years and years and then you lose some momentum but now the momentum's coming back. I absolutely know that it's going to happen, not necessarily about my life but a catalogue of the sounds, the music. And in all my tours we always reinterpret the songs, sometimes in different ways. We know that Lucky can be broken down to just be a really touching chord song, or you know, something else can be disco-fied or whatever. So it's definitely part of the bigger plan to do.
The Other Boys is available now as part of NERVO's debut album Collateral. 'The Other Boys' music video is coming you way SOON! :)
by ALICE HOWARTH (Glamour Magazine UK)
