{"id":166142,"date":"2025-09-24T16:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166142\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:09:09","slug":"royel-otis-talk-belly-conrad-needle-drops-and-new-album-hickey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166142\/","title":{"rendered":"Royel Otis Talk Belly\/Conrad Needle Drops and New Album \u2018Hickey\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic, who make up the Australian indie pop band Royel Otis,<\/a> aren\u2019t sure how everything happened so quickly.<\/p>\n

What began in 2019 with demos on laptops and cheap microphones has, six years later, grown into several viral social media moments, a constant flow of international concerts, major spots on the U.S. festival circuit, and now, a hit sophomore album, hickey, which came out on August 25, only about a year after their first album Pratts & Pain.<\/p>\n

What they can say definitively is that everything leading up to this moment has been nonstop. \u201cWe spent four months in LA working on this. We\u2019re pretty shattered,\u201d Pavlovic tells Teen Vogue when we met up in Brooklyn in early August.<\/p>\n

That afternoon, they were fresh off their first Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon appearance and rightfully tired (as evidenced by Maddell\u2019s quick catnap before we started our interview) from traveling back and forth across Europe and the U.S. When they left the restaurant, they were heading back to Belgium for a string of shows that were ultimately postponed after Maddell appeared to faint on stage due to a virus, according to a statement from the band.<\/p>\n

This kind of whirlwind reads like an overnight success most bands dream of (minus the illness, of course), but from their perspective, it\u2019s actually a slow burn of constant work. \u201cIt feels like it’s happening kind of gradually,\u201d Pavlovic says. \u201cWe’ve been playing for five years, and [the attention] has just slowly gone up.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I go to respond, a waiter pushes a chair at the table next to us, and it makes a loud vibrating noise. Maddell stops himself before adding to the conversation, \u201cExcuse me,\u201d he says. Pavolic looks at him, then me. I get the joke and laugh, giving what feels like a sort of permission for them to let out some exhaustion-induced goofiness. A full three minutes later, we\u2019re back to the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other day, man, I was looking out at the crowd at Outside Lands Festival, and it was pretty crazy,\u201d says Maddell. \u201cIt was just surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skyli Alvarez<\/p>\n