Can Aussie singer Tones And I break Ed Sheeran’s ARIA record?
She is close to breaking an Australian music record — Ed Sheeran’s 14-week ARIA run with his hit Shape Of You — but Tones And I says she was never happier than when she was busking in Byron.
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Toni Watson has her sights set firmly on knocking Ed Sheeran off his pedestal as the longest running No.1 artist ever in Australia.
Notching up her 11th straight week at the top of the ARIA chart with her single Dance Monkey today, the singer known as Tones And I has to stay there for just another three weeks to make history by beating Sheeran’s 14-week run with his global hit Shape Of You.
“It would mean that an Aussie held the Aussie chart record and that is the coolest thing,” the singer tells Insider.
“I didn’t think it would be me. You know the saying that it just wouldn’t happen to someone like me and it kind of loses its value because people say it a lot. Then when you think about it, that is exactly what you want to say.
“People are so used to, and I was so used to living that normal life I didn’t think this would happen in my narrative and then it does. That is exactly how I’ve felt about this.”
The breakthrough Australian artist of 2019, Tones And I has been making her mark on the charts here and overseas.
Last week she overtook Justice Crew’s Que Sera as the longest running Australian artist at the top of the charts and learned she has been nominated for eight ARIA Awards including Best Female Artist, Breakthrough Artist, Best Pop Release, Best Independent Release, Best Video and Song Of The Year.
Dance Monkey has also reached No.1 in 13 countries globally, including the UK last week and Slovakia, Scotland, Hungary, Finland and Germany.
It isn’t a bad feat for an artist who was living out of a van in Byron Bay and making a living from busking just a few months ago.
“In March this year I had no idea what was about to happen,” says Tones And I who is now signed to Sony Music Australia and released her debut EP, The Kids Are Coming, in August.
The reality of her success is most clear when Tones And I looks at her mobile phone, where she has been inundated with messages from friends and on social media.
“When I don’t look at my phone and I’m just doing normal things, it feels fine,” she says. “When I go over to the UK (next month) and other countries, that is probably going to feel crazy because I have never been there before and the shows have sold out.
“In terms of Australia, the only time it gets really surreal is when I play a show because people know the words and stuff and it is just crazy.”
Tones And I rarely does interviews and keeps her private life and her circle tight.
She grew up on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and quit her job in retail to move to Byron Bay last year, winning the Battle Of The Buskers at Buskers By The Creek on the Gold Coast not long after.
She set realistic goals and quickly exceeded them.
“My plan was to sell out one show this year and to get played on Triple J one time so the plan is done,” says Tones And I who not only has Triple J on board but every major commercial radio station in the country.
“I just want to take it day-by-day because when I look too far ahead, it gets a bit daunting. I know that people want me to say world domination or whatever but what
I am really thinking about is being genuinely happy, getting back into basketball, obviously keeping on doing music but being able to do those things that make me happy in everyday life like being fit, being healthy, playing sport, falling in love, just having a good life and I think that it is important that I don’t just focus 100 per cent on music.”
Tones And I, who counts Macklemore as her biggest inspiration, is midway through a sellout national tour. The perks of being a chart topping artist are starting to flow through with the singer recently flying business class for the first time.
“I actually fell asleep for like four hours and it was life changing,” she says. “I am actually a really scared flier … I am getting way better each flight.”
Another bonus of her chart-topping success is the big names such as Bebe Rexha, Diplo, Steve Aoki and Kygo who have been reaching out.
“I am just not ready to be a voice on someone else’s track though,” she says. “I want to keep writing my own music. I am nowhere near ready to just give a hook to someone.”
Business class flights and contact with some of the world’s biggest stars aside, Tones And I misses the old days sleeping on “the shittiest mattress” that she had to cut to fit into her van.
“It was like a metre and a half by a metre and a half and I used to sleep diagonally on it,” she recalled.
“I used to fit all of my equipment in the bottom and carry around a 35kg battery to charge my speakers and charge it up at the hostel and go and busk on the beach. When I think about it, it is probably the happiest I have ever been.
“I know I wasn’t selling out shows or making any of those big marks on the country but I was living off my music and I was happy.
“Not only that, I was waking up every day at a hostel where all my friends lived and worked as well in tents and vans and I had so much freedom and I would just go and busk every night and my friends would come down and have beers and we’d all hang out together.
“I have more freedom (now) to do whatever I want than I’d ever had in my life but the one thing that I can’t do is go back and live that life again, which is crazy.”