Royel Otis Talks Moody, Viral Covers, Who's Your Boyfriend, and New Album 'Hickey'

Arguably one of the best Aussie exports since Tame Impala, along with artists like Amyl & the Sniffers and Spacey Jane, duo Royel Otis are breathing new life rock music. Having made waves back in 2022 with the Surf Curse-esque bop ‘Oysters in My Pocket,’ their covers of classics like ‘Linger’ by The Cranberries and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s early-Aughts disco devastator ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ sent them to the next level. 

Back with their second record hickey, written in a pressurized few months off from the endless tour of PRATTS & PAIN, with a raft of the top songwriters in the biz — Amy Allen, Omer Fedi, Josh Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto (from Jungle) to name a few. We talk about all this, the covers, the topsy-turvy world of being in a band on the up-and-up and what that means for their personal relationships. They also open up about the vulnerabilities that inspired ‘Jazz Burger,’ how Royel getting suspended seven times in a year was key to his musical development, and how it came to be that Lola Tung from The Summer I Turned Pretty wound up in their video for ‘who’s your boyfriend,’ plus so much more. 

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