Royel Otis have a new album on the way.
Announced today, hickey will arrive on August 22nd via OURNESS / Capitol Records. It’s the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the indie-pop duo’s hit debut album, PRATTS & PAIN (2024).
Explaining that lascivious title, Royel Otis share: “…because love bites harder than any other emotion in the world.”
The band’s album announcement follows the release of the record’s first single, “moody”, which was initially teased at a sold-out show in Los Angeles in May.
When revealing the meaning about “moody”, the Sydney pair of Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic got straight to the point: “It’s a song about a girl.” The single was co-written with Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Allen and produced by Blake Slatkin (Gracie Abrams, Omar Apollo, Charli XCX).
Royel Otis have several European shows coming up, including an appearance at the iconic Glastonbury Festival on June 29th. They’ll embark on their ‘meet me in the car’ headline tour of North America following their European sojourn. The pair have previously sold out major cities such as Austin and New York City.
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In a Rolling Stone AU/NZ interview at the turn of the year, Pavlovic teased their new music, confirming they’d be creating new songs “pretty soon.”
“We’ll start working on some stuff in early January. We’ve got a little bit of time away to just work on some music,” he said at the time.
I don’t know how anyone has an actual schedule or a routine of how they write songs. We just work together, bounce ideas off each other. We like showing each other ideas, demos that we’ve recorded at home or something like that. And then we work from there.” The process, “it’s always different. It’s like building a cake,” Maddell added.
Last year was a massive year for Royel Otis: a top 10 album, a Billboard Hot 100 debut, ARIA wins (including Best Group), international tours, a sold-out homecoming at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, and even a DJ set at Beyond the Valley.
Royel Otis’ hickey is out August 22nd via OURNESS / Capitol Records (pre-order here).
