Biography
In 2002 the Australian alt-rock outfit Little Birdy assembled in Perth. Katy Steele, the band's singer and guitarist as well as sister to the Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele, launched the project after leaving her earlier band the Plastik Scene and invited her brother's longtime associate Simon Leach to handle drums. Bassist Scott O'Donoghue's arrival prompted Leach to switch to guitar, after which drummer Matt Chequer completed the quartet. The name Little Birdy was taken from a Ween album track. Their first demo received local airplay and secured a management contract with Phil Stevens. Opening slots for Placebo, Morcheeba, and the Superjesus led the influential Aussie station Triple J to add "Relapse" to its rotation, triggering a bidding war that ended with the group signing to Virgin/EMI. The self-titled debut EP appeared in late 2003, followed by This Is a Love Song EP in March 2004. By the close of that year the band issued its long-awaited first album BigBigLove, which delivered the Triple J hit "Beautiful to Me." In 2005 Little Birdy supported R.E.M. on the latter's Australian dates. The sophomore LP Hollywood arrived in mid-2006 and yielded the Top 20 single "Come on, Come On."