Royel Otis

Photography by Georges Antoni and Alex Wall. Interview by Heather Hawke.

Childhood friends Otis Pavlovic and Royel Maddell formed the band known as Royel Otis in 2019, slowly drip-feeding music into the world during the pandemic. Following the release of the band’s debut EP (2021’s Campus), the Australian duo started experimenting with their sound and reposition it into new shapes moving more towards guitars and away from synths for the following two EPs (2022’s Bar & Grill and Sofa Kings). With this shift in sound came the realization that trusting in the spontaneous energy of their demo recordings was the way forward. 

Royel Otis’ vivacious debut album PRATTS & PAIN (out now) encompasses the duo’s mutual trust in the raw, unconstrained energy which has become the essence of the band. For the album, Otis and Royel often finished lyrics and made sonic directions over a pint at the South London pub (Pratts & Payne) that sits around the corner from Grammy Award-winning producer Dan Carey’s famed home studio. The duo’s writing style is akin to a tennis match, where they support each other in a way that even when someone gets a win and the other takes a loss, they’re on the same side, playing against a sturdy wall. On the album there’s a fusion of harmonious, pop-infused indie tracks alongside hazy psychedelic tunes, all the while managing to evade being compartmentalized into a singular musical genre.

P.S. Check out their cover of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ for triple j’s ‘Like A Version’ session (embedded below).

Royel Otis’ web/socials: Website – Soundcloud – Facebook – Instagram – Twitter

Hi! So, these past few years have been pretty intense due to various (worldwide) reasons. Before we began, how are you doing with everything? How have the last few years been for you and how are you feeling? How have you been coping with everything?  

Otis Pavlovic: I’m doing pretty good thank you.

Since the pandemic lockdowns, I feel like the music industry has experienced a vast shift with what “works” for bands to succeed (whether it’s because the costs of living/touring, the instantaneously of music trends on social media mixed with the lifespan of newly released music itself, or something else), how has all of this felt to you, as an artist in the middle of everything? Has it been freeing? Is it scary trying to question how to approach music making and then how to or if you want to creatively release it to the public?

Royel Maddell: As an artist at the time of the pandemic it gave us time to work on music rather than working in hospitality or laboring because it wasn’t legal to do so. It’s definitely freeing due to it being a literal lockdown and now not. Approaching the music making hasn’t changed for us. We aren’t great with any of the aspects that has now apparently become part of being in a band like social media. We just want to release our music and don’t have any strategies on how to creatively do so. We aren’t exactly industry savvy.

Going back to the beginning. I know you’re originally from Sydney. What was your childhood like growing up there? Did creativity/music/art play a big part of your upbringing?

Otis Pavlovic: I grew up really close to the beach, so I spent most of my time before school and after school down there, skating and surfing. That was most of my childhood, especially from the age of like 6-15. And then I was always kind of playing music here and there. Just playing guitar and writing some songs with my close mates etc but it was more of a hobby thing, just something to do when we were hanging out.

Talking some more about your formative years… What music did you grow up listening to?  When was the first time you felt super inspired by music? What was the very first concert you attended?

Royel Maddell: Growing up I heard a lot of tapes in my dad’s car like “Murder Ballads” by Nick Cave (I remember taking full advantage of being able to swear during “Stagger Lee”), Sinead O’Connor, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Also, my mum loving The Cruel Sea and whatever was on my brother’s bodyboarding and skating VHS tapes. From memory I think I first felt inspired hearing “Why Can’t We Be Friends” by War on one of those VHS tapes. Maybe the bodyboarding video No Friends. First concert was the Homebake Festival as a school excursion where I broke my hand watching The Vines.

When you were old enough to start seeking out music for yourself, where did you regularly find yourself (a certain record store / internet site / getting recommendations from a certain friend)? Who were some of the first artists/bands you found who then became ones you were constantly keeping up with/ on the lookout for?

Otis Pavlovic: It probably came from music I was hearing around the house, what I was listening to on long car trips, what my parents were listening to or when I started to appreciate what they were listening to. Bands like the pixies, pavement, and then from there started to dive into a mix of bands and artists.

Describe your path to becoming involved with music. When did you first become aware that music was going to be a part of your life? What was your formal / not formal music education like growing up?

Royel Maddell: I would get in a lot of trouble constantly at school and because I was attending a public school it was near impossible to be expelled so my parents and teachers tried multiple tactics to prevent placing me on suspension every month. That was essentially just a holiday for me and if it was in school suspension, I would cause even more trouble. Eventually the school assigned me to a councilor who also happened to be a music teacher. Whenever I would muck up, I got sent to the music rooms where I occupied my mind with instruments and noise. That’s about as formal as my musical education got.

Is this the first music project for all of you? Would you say it was an organic union, or were you all actively looking to create music / start a band?

Otis Pavlovic: It’s the first proper music project for me, I did have little bands and stuff with friends growing up, but we maybe played one or two gigs at most. When Roy and I met I don’t think either of us were actively trying to start something with each other, we were more just sharing demos and music and talking about what kind of bands we liked and realized we shared a lot in common around music. It wasn’t until we started making some demos together that we both were like “oh yeah this could be something.”

Let’s talk about Pratts and Pain. What was your songwriting/creative process like for it? Was there an event or a specific timeframe where a large chunk of the lyricism came out? 

Royel Maddell: We don’t really have a procedure when it comes to writing songs. Sometimes it’s a melody recorded on our phones, sometimes it’s a drum loop made from an already released song but most of the time we would sit down at a pub and throw lyrics out at each other. This happened every day at the pub next door to the studio called Pratts and “Payne’. Hence the inspiration for the album title albeit slightly changed to fit.

Did you have any parts of the tracks off of Pratts and Pain (whether it be lyrics, instruments, harmonies) around the time of your 2022 EP’s Bar & Grill and Sofa Kings or before? How much did you, and the LP, evolve in that time?

Otis Pavlovic: “Always Always” was a song we had from ages ago… before Campus time. We were thinking about putting it on Campus actually, but that version had a different verse. And I know Roy had “Sonic Blue” for quite a while before Pratts & Pain. But most of the other tunes were written closer to the time of recording the album.

I hear that you write lyrics together and describe the process as like a tennis match. Has the writing process changed since you both begun writing/making music together? What’s your fav lyric the other one has written?

Royel Maddell: That’s still essentially how most of the lyrics are written. My personal favorite that Otis has written is in “Glory to Glory.” He came up with the idea to say, “If this line was better, I’d reel you up a tune.” Nothing better than a self-deprecating fishing pun I tell ya.

I know when writing the album, you were physically in London and often found writing lyrics in the South London pub (Pratts & Payne) that sits around the corner from the studio you recorded at. Where were you at mentally when you wrote the lyrics for your album? Did you find it helpful to be intentional when it comes to writing? Like “I’m going to sit down and work on a song.” Or was it more ephemeral, like you’ve been kicking something around in your head for days, weeks, months, and then suddenly it came spilling out? Or was it a mixture of both?

Otis Pavlovic: Well, most of the songs were 70-80% finished so a lot of them we had an idea of what they were going to be about or where they were going to go before getting in the studio, except for “Adored.” We decided to write about that subject when we were sitting in the pub having a beer. But yeah, we finished most of the unwritten lyrics in the pub, I think almost all of them.

Does traveling influence you as an artist? Are you inspired by the places you go, or do you think your work would sound about the same no matter where you created it?

Royel Maddell: I definitely feel like you can hear the difference in the places we record. What we recorded in South London definitely sounds less summer-y from the stuff we recorded in Byron. That might just be the memories we have from the places so might be biased. Travelling is inspiring on many levels, and I think playing so many shows has influenced what and how we want to record. we think more about how the audience would respond when live than we did before.

As this was your debut full length, what mindset did you have going into the creating / recording process of it? Did you feel any sort of limitations when writing or recording? Which songs were the easiest / most difficult to create?

Royel Maddell: We approached this record far more uninhibited and open to sounds than we have before. We tried to have no limitations and even used instruments invented by Dan Carey. The easiest songs were the ones we just sort of jammed on and wrote spontaneously like “Velvet,” “Big Ciggie” and “Glory to Glory.” Most difficult or the longest to get down was probably “Always Always.” Can’t tell you why I think we just couldn’t make up our mind on it.

What was your favorite part about the writing / album creation process? What song(s) are you most proud of on this record? Why? 

Otis Pavlovic: Proud of a lot of them, I think “Daisy Chain,” “Glory to Glory” and “Always Always” have a soft spot in my heart but “Velvet” and “Big Ciggie” were the most fun to record because Dan’s nephew Archie Carey played drums on them and we recorded all of it live.

How hands on are you with the making of / direction of the visuals (music videos, press images, artwork) that accompanies the music? Do you feel like the art that accompanies one’s music is more / less important than it used to be? How do you feel like social media / the internet impacts the intention behind all of this?

Royel Maddell: We are lucky to have a team with us that give us an unbelievable amount of creative control which is rare. There are limitations on things we can do visually but we just accept that. I’m a big horror fan so would love to make a shocking music video but the time just isn’t right yet. The art and imagery that accompanies the sound I feel is incredibly important although in saying that I’m not sure if it gets as much attention as it did before social media. There’s a lot less mystery maybe but I can’t comment too much on what was happening before because I wasn’t a part of it. Social media makes it a lot more accessible to get to know the artist. Some artists like that. I’m not sure if that’s exactly us given we are both quite private guys. Our intentions are just to keep making music for as long as we can and hope to make a living out of it. The internet gives a lot more people chances to reach places they could never have before.

Last question, what’s the music scene like currently where you’re living? What’s your favorite thing about it and what’s one thing you hope to see it improve at?

Otis Pavlovic: The music scene is pretty, pretty good, Australia as a whole has a few good up and coming bands. It could maybe improve by putting more of those bands on the frontline and showing them a bit more love.