Katy Steele was always in danger of being overshadowed by the creative output of older brother, Luke – after all, it's hard getting your time in the spotlight when your brother wears more make-up than you. But over the course of their six-year career, Steele and her band, Little Birdy, have carved out a reputation as one of Australia's most dependable acts, both live and on record. From the time Little Birdy's first two singles, ‘Relapse’ and ‘Baby Blue’, started gaining radio airplay, listeners around the country were entranced by Steele's unique voice: the attitude and swagger of Oz rock ...
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Full Biography
Katy Steele was always in danger of being overshadowed by the creative output of older brother, Luke – after all, it's hard getting your time in the spotlight when your brother wears more make-up than you. But over the course of their six-year career, Steele and her band, Little Birdy, have carved out a reputation as one of Australia's most dependable acts, both live and on record.
From the time Little Birdy's first two singles, ‘Relapse’ and ‘Baby Blue’, started gaining radio airplay, listeners around the country were entranced by Steele's unique voice: the attitude and swagger of Oz rock goddess, Chrissie Amphlett, but with a lilting country tinge capable of conveying new depths of longing. Backed by Simon Leach on guitar, Scott O' Donoghue on bass, Matt Chequer on drums and Fergus Deasy on synthesisers, both singles charted in the top 30 of 2003's Triple J Hottest 100 Countdown. After another EP, home to the PJ Harvey-esque, ‘This Is A Love Song’, anticipation for the band's debut album was at fever pitch.
‘BigBigLove’ arrived in October 2004 and crashed into the charts at number five, proving that fans were indeed hungry for more Birdy. The album delivered on the earlier promise of their EPs: the gorgeous single, ‘Beautiful To Me’, was virtually inescapable over the summer of 2004/05, popping up in countless TV shows and on ads, in addition to being one of the most-played songs on radio.
Buoyed by the success of their debut, Little Birdy decamped to Los Angeles and delivered their sophomore, the appropriately titled, ‘Hollywood’. Songs like the stomping single, ‘Bodies’, flirted coyly with electropop, but ultimately ‘Hollywood’ lived up to its name: big, shiny, but slightly hollow. Rather than building on the success of their debut, it merely kept their heads above water.
It would be three years until Little Birdy would release another album, with nothing but the occasional morsel – like their brilliant cover of Split Enz's ‘Six Months in a Leaky Boat’ – to satiate fans' appetites.
Their latest effort, ‘Confetti’, is very much an album of its time (in that it is an album of the 1960s, filled with the sort of swooning, Motown-esque soul currently in vogue thanks to the likes of Amy Winehouse and Duffy). Steele has never sounded more at home, even making peace with the attention heaped upon her showier sibling on the raw, stripped back, ‘Brother’.
The band solidified their reputation as a flawless live act in 2009 by hauling themselves out of the grungy bars and pubs frequented by most Aussie rock bands and launching a full-scale tour in grand, sit-down theatres. Little Birdy have come of age, and are only going to get bigger.
By Nick Bond
