Gaslighting, Pettiness, And Relationships: Betty Taylor On Their Debut EP ‘Young Dumb Immature’

The Sunshine Coast’s indie-pop darlings, Betty Taylor, have dropped their debut EP, Young Dumb Immature, today (December 6). After a huge year of supporting The Buoys, The Grogans, and The Rubens on their respective tours, they’re now ready to make their own mark on the music scene. And what better way to do that than with their first ever EP?

To celebrate Young Dumb Immature’s release, Betty Taylor’s frontwoman, Sophie Patrick, is taking us through the EP, track by track.

Stallin’  

Stallin’ was our debut single, I wrote it back in 2021 in my dad’s garage. I was always a closeted singer/songwriter, I always wrote for myself and I never really dreamt that I could or would do music as a career. When I wrote this song, and first listened back to the demo it was such an “Ah ha!” moment. This track felt like it had so much potential and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to bring it to Aidan Hogg to produce, and it ended up being the beginning of something very special. 

It is still our most listened to track on Spotify Weekly, which makes me so happy, because when it was released as a single back in 2022, we were a brand new baby band, so it didn't get picked up for any radio play, or playlisted, but it has stood the test of time, and people who discover us through our more recent releases always seem to love this track! I’m so glad it gets a second chance at life with the release of our debut EP. 

Can’t Get Enough  

This was the first song I had ever co-wrote! Most of the songs we play live, and that are on the EP, were written prior to the band forming. I was very used to writing alone and having my thoughts and feelings kept close to my chest, so co-writing was a very new experience for me. I had the absolute pleasure of writing this with Aidan, it seemed to come together so effortlessly. Aidan wrote all the music for the track and I shyly sat curled up in the corner, mumbling lyrics and melodies until I had to track them basically. I’ve always been a very nervous and shy writer, and poor Aidan had no idea what was going on in my brain and was blindly trusting that the song he was building would come together with what I’d written. Luckily it all worked out. I’m really proud of what we created and It’s easily become one of my favourites. 

Glitter  

Ahhh Glitter… She was written back in 2019, at around 2am in the morning, inside my tent, at Splendour in The Grass. Things had just broken off with someone I was dating, and as an  overthinker who can never sleep, this one came together pretty quickly. Funnily enough Kayla [Smart, Betty Taylor’s guitarist] (who I barely knew at the time) was camping a few tents down, and we ended up spending a lot of time together that week. Kayla has her own solo project, Dorah Jacson, which I was a pretty big fan of, and after a few too many at the campsite I ended up showing her this song, which was brave of me because I wasn't a sharer and I was quite intimidated because she's an incredible artist. But hey! Look at us now! Talk about subtle foreshadowing.

Hollow  

We always tell this story at our live shows, about how this track was written while I was crying in the bathroom at band practice, which is kind of true... The chorus of this song I actually wrote a month or so prior. The lyrics, “Did you ever have a doubt, or did you always know?” were directed at the lovely ladies of this band, and my other close friends who are all very fortunately in beautiful loving relationships, and as someone who has struggled with my relationships, I was just at a point of being quite frustrated and wanting to know like, “How did you do it? Where do you find these people? How come it’s been so hard for me?” Just quarter life crisis things. 

Fast forward a month, our song Fuck You was being released, and I was still caught up in that tumultuous relationship that song is written about, and we were practising that song, and it was bringing up a lot of feelings, and I had a bit of a anxiety attack and went to the bathroom for a good old cry…. but yeah, came back, hugged it out with the girls and we started working on something new because I just wanted to get those thoughts out of my head. Put together the verses, and then that chorus popped into my head, so we slapped them together, and Hollow was born. 

Young Dumb Immature

I know you’re not supposed to pick a favourite child… but this one is mine. Young Dumb Immature was the first song I had written that I ever performed in front of an audience. We played it at a local open mic night. I was feeling a little bit petty that evening, so I invited the person out that I wrote this song about. I didn’t give them the heads up but they quickly put two and two together. 

The song has taken on a whole new life since then. I always knew it was special, but the song as a whole was just missing that certain something. It’s very easy, as a songwriter, to become attached to what you’ve written and the way you have written it, and I’ve found with other tracks I’ve held on very tightly. But for some reason with this one, I had so much fun jumping into the studio with Aidan and totally tearing it apart. What we ended up with felt so brand new, but also gave the song the energy it needed, to match what I was feeling when I wrote it. The second we finished it, I knew this would be the title track of the EP. It’s a song for me that started my journey as a performer, and as it changed and grew into something more, we as a band have also experienced so much growth and change, and it just felt right to let it represent us and our music. 

Gaslighter  

I love the guitar in this track. We were messing around in the studio one night, and I was showing the girls this song I had started writing and Kayla just started playing the dirtiest, sexiest guitar lick, and I was hooked. Something about it brought out that fire, and kind of pissed off, bad bitch vibe. We just started compiling a list of awful terrible things people had said to us, which was mildly triggering, but once we started turning them into lyrics, it became quite therapeutic. I feel like a banshee when I sing this song, wishing impending doom to all the awful gaslighting losers of the world.

Fuck You  

This song was only ever meant to exist for 24 hours on my Instagram story as a message for the person I wrote it about. Despite the aggressive title of this track, and upbeat nature of the instrumental, it is actually just pretty sad. I was feeling a lot of big feelings when I wrote this one. I was angry, and jealous, and upset, and in love, and deeply hurt. It’s a song that came together months apart. At first, when I started writing, I was quite bitter and wanted to take a jab, and I think like most people, you kind of want to hurt the person who hurt you, and that was the intention of the song originally I guess. I found the song months later in my camera roll. I had a bad habit of starting songs and never finishing them, so I set myself the challenge of finishing this one. When it came to writing this time around, I was in a really different head space and had a lot of time to process why I was hurting and why I was so angry and understand that heartbreak. I love this track because it doesn’t just give one side of the story, or one emotion, or have one point of view. It’s complex and contradicting and doesn’t quite make sense, just like love and relationships.

Betty Taylor’s debut EP, ‘Young Dumb Immature’, is out on all streaming platforms now. In support of its release, the band are going on tour. Find full details here.