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Photo: Alex Wall

Born from drunken courage to overcome self-doubt and bare all for a hungry world, Sydney’s Royel Otis is bringing encapsulated sunshine to the indie realm, quickly becoming a staple in everyone’s comfort playlist.

Since garnering attention from their 2022 breakout hit “Oysters in My Pocket,” Royel Otis’ Otis Pavlovic and Leroy Bressington have brought a particular kind of warmth that feeds the soul first. Their music is light on its feet, transporting you to simpler times when steps weren’t tracked and exhaling was easy.

Fusing synths and addictive chants, there are many textures that come alive to create their signature bliss. Their music is an extension of their natural chemistry—two friends who are good at being friends. There’s something very genuine and present about them: they’re drinking in life and music just so happens to fall out during the process.

On the heels of their third EP Sofa Kings, we caught up with the duo in London to talk friendship, nostalgia, and of course, Spirited Away.

Ones To Watch: What stands out the most about your music is its ability to evoke feeling. How would you describe your music without using any genre terminology?

Leroy: The colors yellow and green. Or actually, blue. Is that what yellow and green make? I think we should know that.

Otis: I would say green.

What you encapsulate the most beautifully is a sense of nostalgia. Do you take any musings from artists you heard growing up?

Otis: When we started working together, every song we bonded over had a nostalgic sense to it. If you put strings in any song, it’s going to become nostalgic.

Leroy: Yeah, I think it feels like really old soundtracks to movies as well. It’s nothing intentional, I just think we’re just naturally drawn to whatever that is and we accidentally fall into it. It feels warm.

I love that you mentioned soundtracks because your music does suit a coming-of-age film. If you guys could have made the score of any movie, which would it be?

Otis: Stand By Me. I love that film.

Leroy: That’s my girlfriend’s favorite film as well. But I think for me it would be Spirited Away. I’d love for our music to be in an anime and Spirited Away is flawless as is but yeah. That would be amazing. Or Akira. That would be sick.

Those movies make so much sense because there’s a lot of curiosity and child-like wonder in your music. If you looked at yourself through the lens of little you, how excited would they be about your lives?

Otis: Even just four years ago, if I knew I’d be in London recording and doing international shows, I wouldn’t believe it.

Leroy: I’d definitely try to speed up the process and be like “Okay, let’s get it going. Let’s hit that red button. Whatever it took to do it.”

What did it take to do it, because I understand you guys had to overcome some anxieties and limiting beliefs in order to pursue music right?

Otis: There’s still challenges every day, there’s still stuff that comes up that’s like “Oh my God.” It’s a confronting thing to put yourself on the line, to completely open yourself up to everyone.

Leroy: We’re trying to enjoy it, and have trust in that if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. That’s what Sheryl Crow said. If this makes me happy, have trust that there’s people that will feel the same way, and if there’s people that hate it, so what? As long as you’re having fun, have the party. Even if there’s five people at your party, they’ll be stoked.

What does your friendship look like outside of work? What do you guys do when you aren’t performing or recording?

Leroy: Well right now we’re playing trivial pursuit and drinking pints.

Otis: If you can even call it work, it’s what we’re doing 95% of the time so we’re together a lot.

Leroy: It’s surprising that we haven’t had any fights. Just a little passive aggressive here and there but that’s it. If I had spent as much time as I have with anyone else I think I’d be losing it. It all comes back to trust and just being forward.

You’re definitely going to be spending even more time together, because you guys have a busy schedule ahead of you, how do you feel about bringing new music on the road?

Otis: We just got told this morning that a few of our shows in Australia got sold out so we’re super excited. We’ve got heaps of festivals coming up.

Leroy: Yeah we’re hitting the ground running once we get back to Australia. And then we might be coming to the States!

Ah, how exciting! How do you survive festival season, are there constantly protein bars handy?

Leroy: Vitamin C and D. And B. And K.

Otis: The sun. And just going with it, if you’re having fun and not taking everything so seriously you’ll just laugh through it.

Leroy: If we feel horrendous and like we’ve drank too much, we just take a shot of something that’s really easy to shot and then we’ll be alright. The same shot once every hour for 24 hours.

Leroy, with you being hidden, what’s the craziest measure that you’ve done to hide your face?

Leroy: I had to wear a fencing mask the other day that was way too small for my gigantic head and was pinching my temples and making me feel like I was in a chokehold. There was no blood going to my scalp.

That’s gnarly. And lastly, who are your Australian Ones To Watch?

Otis: There’s a band called Lazy Wax you guys should check out.

Leroy: I think you guys are already onto Genesis Owusu? He’s incredible and has such a strong idea of what he wants to do.

Otis: Also The Lazy Eyes.

Royel Otis' Sofa Kings is available now.