Biography

BETTY & OSWALD began when Claudia Schmidt and Pete Sotiropoulos were living in a small apartment by the ocean in the south of Sydney. Sleeping on a mattress they found on the side of the road, and spending their days writing music, the idea for Betty & Oswald began to slowly form. Fast forward a couple of years and the band has changed vastly from its seaside beginnings, the addition of bass and drums with Sammy Sudhakar and Harry Cramer heralding a new era for the band. Yet there is still something from that formative time that remains. There is a romanticism that lingers, an idealisation of youth and art, and also a pervading bittersweetness–a sense that everything, including that dream-like time spent living by the ocean, will fade eventually. Working with producer Burke Reid (The Strokes, Courtney Barnett) the band spent the first half of 2017 working on their next EP, entitled ‘To Be Hungry.’ Taken from a line in the title track ‘To be hungry / Is to be young,’ it is a reflection which encapsulates the mood of the EP–one which traces experiences of living on the peripherals of ordinary life, the undulations of relationships and a desire to encapsulate something profound. The sound traverses a dream-like landscape with a distinct spaciousness and malleability. A mixture of dream pop and psych-rock, the whole thing is weaved together by the unmistakable interplay between the two lead vocals, reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac. The first single ‘Figure It Out’ will be released on October 10th 2017, and the band will be touring Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in November, and appearing at the sold out Festival Of The Sun in December. ‘To Be Hungry’ will be out in early 2018.