Client Liaison

2014 was quite the year for Client Liaison. Bringing some unmissable 80s vibes to the modern era and self described as “international in flavour, cosmopolitan in style”, if 2014 was anything to go by, 2015 is set to be a big year of success for the duo. Consisting of Harvey Miller and Monte Morgan, the pair have released dance track after dance track; making very clear just why they have been taking over your airwaves. I was fortunate enough to catch up with Monte prior to the band’s run at this year’s Sydney Festival.

I have to say, 2014 was a very, very successful year for you guys – it doesn’t take a genius to see that. Starting out, did you know that you were going to be making as big waves as you are? 

I guess you don’t really make music to make waves…It’s just one step at a time, try to grow your audience, improve your product and get it out there.

And how are you taking to the success that you’ve had this year? 

Yeah, I mean it’s like…I’m sure if I could get myself in the mindset of a year ago, we’d have some more contextualised appreciation of it, but I’m just awake in the moment. So it’s just kind of…us striving to do a venue for our next tour is kind of the equivalent of us striving to do a venue a year ago with probably a smaller venue, do you know what I mean? It’s still the same mindset that you’re in.

I can think back to when we weren’t really performing and hadn’t released music, and that was a frustrating time. You don’t have your outlets creatively, it’s all just bottled up. It’s amazing to get stuff out there and get people to appreciate it, and to get people to come to shows – it’s incredible.

How long has Client Liaison been together as a group and how did you come together as a group?

Hm, well, we released our first song in 2012…and we had stuff for a couple of years. We were kind of just making music, no express plan to release it or know what it even was.

We actually knew each other from high school. I was friends with Harvey’s brother, Jordie, who’s been playing guitar live with us which has been great. And yeah…I started singing on Harvey’s beats, and it kind of took a long time to mature our sound and work on it. It would take months before I would hear something back from Harvey or I would have another lyric.

So everyone’s working in collaboration with one another? It’s a very even slate?

Yeah, for sure. The most natural thing to do is to work with the people around you. I’ve never liked the idea of building a group and going ‘Okay, we’re going to get this guy from there’ and ‘We’re gonna record it here’ and ‘Let’s release it through this.’ For me, that’s not… I mean, you need to have fun. The best people to create with are your friends. It’s always extremely energising being on stage. And we still give it our all, even though we might have doubts about certain shows. And there’s other things to look forward to, like travelling to new places, playing to new crowds and stuff. It’s tiring, but if I could choose any work, that would be it.

Starting out in an industry that is constantly evolving and blossoming, did the band get into all of this with a plan and direction, or were you more in the mentality of taking it all as it comes?

Yeah, there’s always a plan. I mean, there are plans for next year that we’re going to talk through…but you don’t know what sort of opportunities are going to come your way. Like being asked to do a remix for Kimbra – that was a really great opportunity; kind of stopped what we were doing. There are always these tangents that are left unfinished. Like, we’ve finished our EP and we’ve finished our touring, but now we’re looking at all of these other songs that we haven’t finished. It was always like, we always wanted to do a EP this year. That was a big step for us, because we’d taken so long to get to that. I don’t think that we expected to do so many videos – we did like 10 videos, or eight videos or something. Next year, I guess, we’re in album mode.

And what’s that album looking like thus far?

We’ve got songs that are finished…we’ve got songs at all levels, really. So kind of in that state where songs are finished but haven’t quite found a place; some might make it, some might not. Then there are things that are half finished, and little ideas and visions, I guess.

You already touched on it before, but looking at 2015, is it looking like 2014 but on a bigger sphere? 

Yeah, for sure. We made some good contacts [while we were overseas], and lined up shows for their Summer for The States and Europe, so that’s on the cards. But we want to finish our album before we do that. Towards the middle of the year, we’ll be doing videos and touring, so that’s the general plan.

Speaking of playing live, you’re playing Sydney Festival – a great multi-faceted festival of culture. How did you guys become a part of that?

I didn’t know about it…We heard about it from our booking agent, and that it was really good, and yeah, it sounded really good and we wanted to get amongst it. We just thought it sounded great!

Client Liaison will take to the stage at Sydney Festival, performing at The Famous Spiegeltent on Friday January 16. Sydney Festival is currently taking place until January 26. Be sure to get amongst all of the festivities! For any further information, head to the official website.