Tones and I among Aussie artists finding success in busking

A new generation of Australian artists are finding fame by playing for the public in the streets, shopping centres and — in Tones and I’s case — on the beach.

Byron Bay busker Tones And I moved to Byron Bay after waiting too long for a busking permit in Melbourne. Picture: Elise Derwin

Byron Bay busker Tones and I — aka Toni Watson — received 19 warnings from the police as her crowds grew so large they spilt on to the streets.

The local constabulary didn’t want to take Toni Watson’s permit away; they had become fans of her act alongside the hundreds of people who would scout out her regular performances in the beachside cultural mecca.

So they suggested Watson move her Tones and I sessions to the beach to accommodate her burgeoning fan base.

“Every time I busked I had a couple of friends who would try to keep people off the road or standing on cars,” she says.

“But it got too big. The police said the only spot I could keep playing was the beachfront. I’m not a big fan of sand.”

With thousands of people following her work both on the street and online last year, Watson finally uploaded her debut single Johnny Run Away in February.

Byron Bay busker Tones And I has so many people watching her that she needs to be moved to a bigger space. Picture: Elise Derwin

Within days, the young basketballer who grew up on the Mornington Peninsula was scoring airplay on Triple J and now has more than three million streams on Spotify alone.

Her first tour of Australia kicks off next week and all eight shows are sold out.

Tones and I is the latest artist who has kickstarted their career on the streets, following in the illustrious footsteps of chart-toppers from John Butler and Tash Sultana to Keith Urban and Troy Cassar-Daley.

Global superstars including Ed Sheeran and Passenger — who spent many months playing for fans in shopping centres and outside venues around Australia in his backpacking days — also began their quest to get their music heard on the streets.

Sultana is a recent graduate from busking to the biggest festival stages of the world, initially winning thousands of fans with her regular performances on Melbourne’s well-trafficked Bourke Street Mall alongside YouTube videos of her playing any one of the dozen of instruments she has mastered.

She turned to busking to make money when she couldn’t find a “normal” job and found the experience honed a strong work ethic which serves her to this day as she tours the world with her debut album Flow State.

“It was my rehearsal space,” she says of her street music days.

She turned to busking to make money when she couldn’t find a “normal” job. Picture: Elise Derwin

Her good friends, Melbourne folk twins Pierce Brothers used to busk across the mall from her. Their debut EP The Records Were Ours would debut in the top 10 of the ARIA chart in 2017, as well as hitting No. 1 on iTunes in several countries.

Sultana took them with her on a US tour that same year and the musical pals are back playing sold-out North American shows this month.

While some streetside discoveries happen by accident, Tones and I followed John Butler’s lead and approached busking as a professional avenue to build her fan base before releasing her music.

Butler honed his prodigious guitar skills on the streets of Fremantle in the mid 1990s before eventually setting up his own label Jarrah Records with manager Phil Stevens.

But it wasn’t as simple as finding a place where plenty of pedestrians roam and setting up her keyboards for Watson.

Busking is now a bureaucratically fraught affair with most major capital cities and regional centres requiring prospective outdoor musicians to audition and secure a permit before they can perform for the passers-by.

The John Butler Trio approached busking as a professional avenue to build a fan base. Picture: David Kapernick

Watson was waiting for her Bourke Street Mall permit to come through when she decided to quit Melbourne and try Byron Bay.

“I had planned to get a permit for Bourke St but it took over a year. Someone then told me about the busking scene in Byron, so I took leave from my job, bought a van and headed north,” she says.

“That’s when the Bourke St permit finally came through so I thought I would stay up there for two weeks and head back to Melbourne.

“But then a guy walked past and gave me his card and it turned out he was an entertainment lawyer and became my manager.”

Watson admits she was consumed by nerves when deciding between chasing her music dreams or holding down a “normal” job when the music-minded lawyer Jackson Walken-Brown savvily advised to take on full-time busking.

“I started making enough money to live and put some away to help with recording and whatever else we needed to do,” she says.

“After two weeks of doing it, I couldn’t believe this was now my life.”

While the word of mouth in the northern NSW beach town was instrumental in gaining her a following, a video from prominent mummy blogger Constance Hall who happened to be walking past one night certainly helped to boost the numbers online.

Passenger was a busker before turning into a number one selling artist.

When she wasn’t playing the streets of Byron, Watson was living in her van as she sought out boutique bush festivals nearby which would take a chance on new talent.

“Van life is hot and sweaty and muggy. I did it for a whole year, living in the Art Factory carpark. What I can say about van life is you grow very, very attached to your van, you love it like a person,” she says, laughing.

While her unique keyboard-driven melodies and beats and heartfelt songs — Johnny Run Away is about her best friend coming out — have won her early fans, it is her ability to spin a yarn like her busking predecessors such as Butler and Urban that has struck a resounding chord with music lovers.

She plans to keep her show as intimate when she graduates to venues this month.

“A lot of people just want to say hello. Or thank you. I get thank you a lot of the time, people saying they were going for dinner and never stop for a busker,” she says.

“And then, depending on the song, they want to talk about their own experience which is really special.

“Three months ago, I had no idea any of this would happen. I thought I might be a successful busker for the next 10 years and I was completely prepared to do that.

“And now I’ve sold out my first shows, it’s just so crazy.”

Tones and I performs at the Worker’s Club, Fitzroy on May 16, 18 and 19, Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane on May 23 and 26, Big Pineapple Festival, Queensland on May 25 and Oxford Art Factory gallery on May 30, 31 and June 1.