Royel Otis Linger in the Glow of Stardom

Before releasing their debut album, Pratts & Pain, in February, Royel Otis had already made it onto millions of peoples’ radars—all thanks to Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her 2001 UK and Australian hit “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Triple J, much like a Paste Session or A.V. Undercover is here in the States, is a musical institution in Australia. So many life-changing covers have happened in that studio, whether it’s Denzel Curry performing Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” or Julia Jacklin covering the Strokes, or even the Wiggles singing Tame Impala’s “Elephant.” It’s the kind of still-going tradition that can put an artist’s name on the map. When Otis Pavlovic and Royel “Roy” Maddell were growing up together in Sydney, going on Like a Version was a coveted accolade for any down-under band. Around the same time they were plotting on what song to play for their forthcoming Triple J debut, “Murder on the Dancefloor” returned to the zeitgeist, on account of its generationally mystifying grooves playing while Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) dances naked through the halls of the Saltburn mansion in Emerald Fennell’s film of the same name.

Floppy member, lines of coke, maudlin-yet-sinister dollhouse and dimly lit extravagance on display for all to see, “Murder on the Dancefloor” and its rapturous excellence matched the sensationalism of Fennell’s milieu fabulously—and covering it made total sense for Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic, but it was an at-the-buzzer choice for the Aussie duo. “I had a huge relationship with the song while growing up,” Maddell says. “It’s such a banger, and we thought about doing it in July last year. We were throwing songs back and forth—Kylie Minogue songs, Jamiroquai songs, all those early 2000’s disco vibes. And our manager said ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ and then, in a last-minute-decision rehearsal [the day] before we actually did it at the Triple J studio, we did a bare-bones version of it.” The next day, naturally, Maddell and Pavlovic cranked up the volume—a choice that changed their lives forever.

And as it stands, Royel Otis’ cover of “Murder on the Dancefloor” sits at nearly 50 million streams on Spotify, but the cover first went big on TikTok, amassing over 13 million views and becoming an infectious audio snippet—and for good reason, it’s easily one of the best cover songs released in 2024. Ellis-Bextor was a fan of the cover, and tons of users flocked to the band’s original post to declare their newfound fandom on account of Pavlovic’s nonchalant, unimpeachable singing and Maddell’s tight guitar moves. The buzz grew quickly and rather organically online, happening during one of Royel Otis’ rare breaks from the road. “I was away with my girlfriend’s family,” Pavlovic says, “and every time I looked at Instagram, it would be like, ‘Oh, people are actually getting into this,’ which is weird and unexpected. It’s hard with those kinds of things—you just do them, but you don’t really know if it’s going to work out or not.” With Pratts & Pain’s release closeby, Maddell and Pavlovic couldn’t have bought publicity that good.

But how does Royel Otis feel about Saltburn? “I thought it was chill. I think, because that hot dude is in it, a lot of people who wouldn’t go see a film like that went to see it,” Maddell surmises, pointing to Jacob Elordi’s portrayal of Felix Catton. “They were shocked by it, but I’m into very shocking films and it wasn’t at all shocking.” Choosing “Murder on the Dancefloor” for their Like a Version session, however, was not a left-field pick for Royel Otis by any means. There are dance elements scattered throughout their catalog, and especially on Pratts & Pain with a song like “IHYSM” or “Daisy Chain,” which both climb out the band’s punk precedents and garage vestiges and into these synthy, glitzy and uptempo delights. The duo’s relationship to dance music falls back into their childhoods. “It’s in the back of our heads somewhere,” Pavlovic says, “because I used to listen to a lot of—I wouldn’t even call it dance music, but Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall.” “I find it so nostalgic,” Maddell chimes in, “and I’m such a huge fan of Kylie Minogue, especially Fever. It’s not an intentional influence or anything, but I think dance music is easier to enjoy when you’re out than something you might need to know the lyrics to sing along to. You don’t need to sing along to a dance track, you can just have a little boogie.”

When I sit down to speak with Royel Otis, they’re enjoying a few off-days in-between tour legs. With some England dates in the immediate rearview and a deluge of festival appearances nearing quickly, it’s clear that the duo are a bit exhausted—which is no surprise, really, as they’ve been going non-stop across the globe since New Year’s Day, playing over 70 gigs by July’s end with no real break in the action forthcoming (at the time of writing this, they are in the thick of a US tour with Friko). Pratts & Pain came out in February, and the guys have been getting as much out of it as possible—playing nightly, putting out a deluxe-edition, doing cover songs on radio programs. Considering that they’ve become one of the most inventive young bands working, I’d say it’s all worked out so far.

Royel Otis formed in 2019 and released their first-ever single, “Only One,” two years later. But it was a song called “Wait,” which appeared on their debut EP Campus, that galvanized the duo. And it came together on their first day of practice. From then on, devoting themselves to music full-time wasn’t just an opportunity, it was a destiny. “That was the one that felt like we were heading in the direction of our sound, or what we thought would represent us,” Maddell says. For Pavlovic, it was “the chillness” of “Wait” that he liked. “Roy did a guitar part on top of the melody and verse, and it felt cool. I thought it could work well.” “I think it came out organically,” Maddell replies. “It felt quite easy to do. It wasn’t easy to record properly, but the demo was easy to do.”

Pavlovic is the face of Royel Otis while Maddell is the fingers, on account of the latter’s decision to never show his face in public—masking himself with bangs that hang down to his mouth. On a YouTube video of one of the band’s performances, a comment reads: “The search for Royal’s face continues.” It’s a mystery that carries into stage antics and band promo, but the anonymity that Maddell maintains isn’t a stroke of privacy or anything of the sort—because he “never thought that we would have any sort of success.” “I’m a bit insecure,” Maddell admits. “I played a show once, on Halloween, and I dressed up and felt way more able to express myself—open, confident. It’s a way of putting on a character and being more confident.”

When Maddell and Pavlovic got the idea to start Royel Otis, the decision to keep his real identity locked away was a part of that decision. “I was like, ‘I think I’ll be more comfortable if I just have this character that, whenever I want, can quit and replace me,” Maddell adds. But what does he mean by that? “I’m not even the original [Roy]!” he exclaims. “There’s been about three of us that have all broken down. You just chuck a wig on someone and put it in front of their face, and then they do the performance. There were two before me, and they failed, so I’ve taken over. But, there’ll probably be another one in about two months.”

Royel Otis have, in the past, compared their songwriting process together to the mechanics of a tennis match: aces and faults take turns; Maddell and Pavlovic are in a doubles match together. Their opponent? A brick wall—and it’s one of the best damn brick walls you’ve ever come across. But their partnership has grown insurmountably over the last five years, and the songs they were making during the Campus days were elemental, yes, but have since become figments of a still-green Royel Otis. “We got better at just serving and hitting the ball back to each other,” Pavlovic laughs. “We grew more confident in what we thought should happen, rather than what the producer, or whoever we were working with, [thought should happen],” Maddell adds. “We gained more trust in ourselves and our own ideas, rather than those of someone who might have more experience—which is fantastic, but I don’t think anyone knows us better than ourselves.”

It’s hard to decipher which song on Pratts & Pain best emphasizes the band’s “level up,” because Maddell and Pavlovic recorded it “a year and a bit ago,” but it’s a project that refuses to linger for too long in any one niche. Gang vocals swarm the melody in “Velvet”; “Sonic Blue” sounds like digitized punk rock lit from within by serrated garage noise; “Adored” is a maelstrom of jettisoned guitar scratches, damp bass licks and masturbation-inspired poetics; “Molly” is languid and brooding, while “Foam” is a psychedelic, romping ode to early 2010s poptronica. But, Maddell and Pavlovic suggest that “Heading For the Door” and “Glory to Glory” are the best examples of where Royel Otis is heading: synth-pop.

Early singles like “Without U” and “Only One” were good, shiny indie-pop offerings, but Royel Otis didn’t find a global audience until 2022, when “Oysters in My Pocket” came out and scored a Gold certification from the ARIA (thanks, no doubt, to its more than 100 million streams). And, for my money, it’s the best pop-rock song of the 2020s so far—a nonsensical, flummoxing, chanty good time blasted across two mirrored guitar parts, a good pun (“Oysters in my pocket we’re saving for lunch / Not that we are shellfish, we just haven’t learnt much”) colliding with earnestness (“They say that you waste away, but we’re having more fun”) and bursting, atmospheric synths. For Maddell and Pavlovic, the single changed everything for them. “I felt like we had pressure around us,” Pavlovic laughs. “But I think, from that, we were like, ‘Fuck it, let’s just have fun with this.’ We were just drinking beers and laughing and doing a lot of cooking. I think we always go back to that, if we’re struggling.”

“Oysters in My Pocket” wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment creation or the first song Royel Otis ever tracked gang vocals for—the “let’s just see how it goes” attitude the duo pulled from its creation spilled into the writing process behind Pratts & Pain. The album was named after the Pratt & Payne, a London pub that—though it’s closed now—sat near producer Dan Carey’s house, and it was under the barlight’s glow where Maddell and Pavlovic would often find inspiration for the record, penned in-between rounds of Trivial Pursuit. Matching the easy-going, pint-fueled foundation of their writing process that spanned from Streatham all the way to Hackney and Soho, they never overthink arranging—the sessions often look like “three dudes in a room being guys.” “I don’t like to do solos or anything,” Maddell admits. “It’s anti-solo, really simple stuff.”

When the time came to start working on LP1, Maddell and Pavlovic were shopping for producers until a mutual friend mentioned that he had a direct line to Carey, one of the duo’s heroes. “He messaged him personally and said, ‘You have to work with these guys,’” Maddell explains. “We hooked up for a meeting with him, to just go into the studio with him for a day, have a couple of beers or lunch and see how it goes. That’s how Harry met Sally.” Carey has amassed a pretty unbelievably good resume over the last five years, doing production and mixing on records like Fontaines D.C.’s Skinty Fia, Squid’s Bright Green Field, Wet Leg, black midi’s Schlagenheim and Caroline Polachek’s PANG—a discography that, in many ways, mirrors the flux of sonics Royel Otis conjure on Pratts & Pain. “The first time we met him, we did a day session before we actually came back and recorded the album,” Pavlovic says. “It was funny—I don’t know if you’ve ever met him or seen a photo of him, but he’s got a very distinct personality.” “He’s an intimidating guy,” Maddell responds. “We loved all the work he has done. We were like, ‘We’re not worthy.’ But, we became really close, really good friends. I had sushi with him and his family the other night. He’s a loving guy, but he has a very intense…” Maddell pauses. “You’ll say something and he’ll think on it for a while,” Pavlovic answers.

When Carey was in the room, Maddell says that his and Pavlovic’s composing style turned “chaotic.” “He’s got an entire wall of buttons and flashing lights that we’ve got no idea what was going on there,” Maddell laughs. Sharing a space with Carey, while it matched the intensive, streamlined focus they often covet in the studio, spawned some fish-out-of-water moments for the duo, as he introduced the band to an MPC synthesizer that would let Pratts & Pain have its own identity. (Using the guiding hand of the MPC led to “Adored”’s breakdown sequence sounding as heavy and crushing as it does.) Carey’s 11-year-old nephew, Archie, plays live drums on “Velvet” and “Big Ciggie,” too—a contrast with Royel Otis’ normal approach, which usually involves Maddell playing all the percussion parts himself. “Do you fancy yourself a drummer, Roy?” I ask. “No, no, no,” he replies. “Part of the reason why we got Archie in there was because we like the amateur-sounding bashing about. Sometimes session musicians play too perfectly and it’s got no personality. It sounds great, but so does, like, a Shania Twain album.”

Even though Pratts & Pain has been out for almost nine months now, Royel Otis still feel like they’re in the honeymoon phase with the songs—at least compared to their relationship with tunes like “Oysters in My Pocket” and “Sofa King.” But that isn’t to say that those tracks have grown stale. “If it’s making the crowd excited, then you don’t get too tired,” Pavlovic says. “Heading For the Door” is a tune that, on a nightly basis, surprised the duo—largely because it doesn’t have a chorus and just “chugs along”—but, an album release and more than 70 shows later, Pavlovic and Maddell still aren’t used to spending an hour on stage every night. “Do you still get nervous?” I ask them. “God, yeah,” Maddell responds. “Sometimes even more so,” Pavlovic adds. “When you play so many shows, you get tired and you’re like, ‘Will we even be able to get through it?’” “I’ve been told I’ve got to work out how to turn my nerves into excitement and try to use it in a positive way, rather than just throwing up on the side of the stage, or whatever,” Maddell concludes.

The Royel Otis sound is unpredictable and often flies by the seat of its pants. Even their virality is the product of last-minute decision-making. That’s how you get an album that begins with kinetic, technicolor whiplash of “Adored” and finishes with the metallic, gnarly, raucous and unkempt “Big Ciggie.” When the band was scheduled to perform on SiriusXM in April, they chose the Cranberries’ “Linger” in a panic because they weren’t prepared. “There wasn’t as much thought put into it as it probably sounds,” Pavlovic admits. “But “Linger” is a song that he and Maddell have both “loved for their whole lives,” and matching Dolores O’Riordan’s uncanny, moon-moving serenade proved to be challenging for Pavolvic in particular. “When we did it and left, I wasn’t feeling great,” he says. “Obviously, we’ve played it live and I’ve gotten better at singing it and more used to it, but doing it that day, I was definitely struggling. It was early morning, after a big night.” Somehow, someway, Royel Otis’ “Linger” cover has outpaced their “Murder on the Dancefloor” success, racking up 18 million views on YouTube and 72 million streams. I can’t remember the last time a musical artist was responsible for releasing two colossaly viral songs within six months of each other. Then again, Royel Otis have been anomalous since “Oysters in My Pocket” came out.

With that in mind, Pratts & Pain is a debut that arrived in February like a third or fourth record, and maybe that has to do with some of the songs—like “Sofa King”—having existed for years already. But there’s something to be said for how good Royel Otis sound so early on in their career, how two Sydney kids funneled their mashed-up ideas through a gear gonzo’s extensive collection of synths and sequencers—and all without sacrificing the noisy, rock-driven baseline that frames so much of their material. Some bands go into album mode with a mission statement in mind, while others prefer to let the work take them wherever it demands they go. There was no all-encompassing, vibe-driven aim for Royel Otis with Pratts & Pain; Maddell and Pavlovic wanted each song to have a goal. “Each song had a turn,” Pavlovic says. “Adored” was started from scratch off his demo, while he and Maddell wrote and recorded “Glory to Glory” in one day.

And the way the record is multi-directional, collaging textures of post-punk, synth-pop and psychedelia into a project full of juxtaposing, contradictory, bombastic and gentle forces, offers the Royel Otis formula enough space to change from song to song. Pavlovic builds his ideas up from stripped-down, acoustic melodies, while Maddell begins by playing guitar lines over a drum beat. In real time, you can hear Pavlovic getting better at stepping out of his comfort zone while singing, and Maddell’s guitar-playing, which he learned from listening to records front to back and deciphering the tabs, is helping him become a multi-instrumental composer with an eye for loving, climactic arrangements. “I like to think that we do have a continuity in our sound,” Maddell says, “but we don’t necessarily limit ourselves to a genre.”

Even though we are on our fourth iteration of Roy Maddell, who Royel Otis are can be felt uber-deftly in one of their newer songs from the Pratts & Pain deluxe release, “Til the Morning.” It’s a dreamy, woozy ballad that flirts with serious anthem territory—a proper metaphor for a band like this, who are on the precipice of a level of fame you can’t reverse. As Pavlovic cries out the “time has seen you change, still I want you to stay with me ‘til the morning, to when it all falls down” chorus, it’s not hard to imagine a couple hundred lighters in the sky behind him. Maddell’s guitar tone remains bright throughout, as a backdrop of synths bleeds into a full rhythm section that nurtures Pavlovic’s world-building at the microphone. Here, Royel Otis are resound, their style enduring as undeniable and immediate. It’s a remarkable thing to witness and, in due time, “Linger” and “Murder on the Dancefloor” will be mere footnotes.

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Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.