Busker from streets to splendour of No 1

The song that changed Toni Watson’s life was written in about a half-hour while she was holed up inside a walk-in wardrobe.

Toni Watson, aka Tones and I, is pleased that Dance Monkey worked its way up to No 1 after eight weeks on the ARIA chart, rather than being an instant hit.

The song that changed Toni Watson’s life was written in about a half-hour while she was holed up inside a walk-in wardrobe at a granny flat near her manager’s house at Beechmont, in Queensland’s Gold Coast hinterland. There, surrounded by a drum pad, a vocal harmoniser, a speaker and two keyboards — one for bass, drum and synth sounds, the other for its prized key tones — she created something that soon would be heard around the world.

Named Dance Monkey, the song begins with a clean keyboard chord progression before being met by the insistent thump of deep bass notes in the chorus. Through it all, Watson’s expressive voice — a distinctive instrument that scales a remarkable range with an ear-catching affected accent — describes a conversation between audience and performing artists.

“So they say, ‘Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh-oh-oh / I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before’,” she sings in its chorus. “They say / ‘Move for me, move for me, move for me, ayy-ayy-ayy / And when you’re done, I’ll make you do it all again’.”

For Watson, who grew up in the Mornington Peninsula town of Mount Martha, the song is rooted in the experience of feeling overwhelmed by the occasionally drunk and aggressive patrons she encountered while performing on the main street of northern NSW’s Byron Bay last year.

Although Dance Monkey is now an undeniable hit, thanks in part to that memorable chorus refrain, the singer-songwriter wasn’t quite sold on the strength of its melodic hook at first. “I really loved the music, but I just didn’t think that it was going to be that strong. Repeating something three times is something I don’t usually do; I just thought, ‘Oh, it’s a bit of a cop-out, isn’t it?’ ” she says with a laugh. “But I guess it emphasises that I never once thought that I’m a good songwriter. I’ve never thought like that; I’ve always just written songs that I liked, that I wanted to play busking … I never really thought that it would go to No 1 in Australia.”

Yet that is the position in which Watson — who performs under the stage name Tones and I — has found herself. Australian music has not seen a success story like Watson’s in some time. Dance Monkey has held the No 1 position on the ARIA singles chart for four consecutive weeks, a feat unmatched by an Australian female solo artist since Gabriella Cilmi’s Sweet About Me spent four weeks at No 1 in 2008.

When it reached the top of the chart earlier this month, it became the first No 1 by an Australian artist since Dean Lewis’s Be Alright in August last year. The previous single by an Australian female solo artist to reach No 1 was Delta Goodrem’s Wings in August 2015.

It’s an extraordinary ascent for an artist whose music could be heard live only on the main street of Byron Bay until recently.

Now her direct and relatable songwriting is being enjoyed by a global audience that few artists would experience in a career, let alone within the six or so months since her first single, Johnny Run Away, was uploaded to Triple J’s Unearthed website. The three songs she has published to date have attracted millions of plays on streaming services, resulting in platinum accreditations from ARIA for Dance Monkey and her debut single.

Her swift transition from unknown to ubiquitous is such that last week, while wandering a department store, this writer heard Watson’s third single Never Seen the Rain amid a playlist heavy on American and British pop artists. How peculiar and pleasing for this one-off Australian voice to be sharing space with the likes of Lana Del Rey and Charli XCX.

While living out of her van in Byron Bay last year and busking through the winter months — when tourists and fellow buskers are comparatively thin on the ground — Watson estimates that she sold about 10,000 CDs.

“That was my full-time job,” she says. “I only wanted to live off my music; I was adamant. I just thought if I kept busking through the winter I’d have enough to get by at least. And I think it worked because every single night you busk, there’s people that don’t know who you are, and at the end of the night, whether it’s five people or 150, they know your music now.”

In an ABC News article last May, she was quoted as saying she earned about $1000 every four hours. When reminded of this, Watson sounds pained. “I would say that sometimes it was even a bit more, but I wouldn’t talk about that again. That’s the cringiest thing I’ve ever said in an interview, so thanks for bringing that up,” she says with a laugh.

Things have changed a little since she was selling CDs from beside her keyboard stand. Today her artistic output will double with the release of the debut Tones and I EP, The Kids are Coming, which includes her three existing singles as well as three new songs in Colourblind, Jimmy and the title track.

The EP is being released via independent label Bad Batch Rec­ords, with distribution handled by Sony Music. It’s a set-up similar to that of Melbourne multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Tash Sultana, another former busker to have found an international audience. Both artists are managed by Lemon Tree Music.

“I’m still classed as an independent Australian artist,” says Watson. “I don’t have a deal with Sony where they just bang everything on top of me like they do to some of their other artists. It’s a very small deal, that’s just a bit of a help with distribution.”

The singer-songwriter is pleased, too, that Dance Monkey worked its way up to No 1 after eight weeks on the ARIA chart, rather than being an instant hit.

“It’s just been really organic, which is cool, because I think that shows that people are just picking up on it and listening to it,” she says. “They’re not just getting it put in their faces straight away and going, ‘Well, we’ll have two listens then drop it off’; it’s more of an organ­ic build, which is really exciting.”

At Splendour in the Grass near Byron Bay last month, Watson opened the three-day music festival by performing for thousands of fans who had rushed to the amphitheatre as soon as the gates opened at midday. Footage filmed at that concert shows a young woman in a red tracksuit, Ghostbusters cap, aviator sunglasses and flaming yellow socks standing in the middle of a huge stage behind her simple set-up of two keyboards, drum pad, harmoniser and a microphone. At times, she appears overawed by what is in front of her: a teeming crowd of young people getting down to a set of songs she wrote for herself but that now has found a huge audience.

“It was an experience that I know a lot of people will never get to have, and that’s why I’m thankful for it,” Watson says of that performance. “There’s a lot of talented musicians out there that might not ever get to play on a stage like that. And I just thought to myself, ‘If this is the biggest crowd I’ll ever play to, then I’m going to have so much fun.’ ”

That she did, and the half-hour set at Splendour reinforced a tough decision Watson had to make a few years ago: whether to continue playing basketball, the sport she has loved since she was four, or to pursue a career in music.

After Watson left school, her fortnightly pub gigs began overlapping with her sports training, so her coach gave her an ultimatum that pushed her towards the performing arts. The subject is still a sore spot for the former point guard, who continues to love basketball as much as music.

While she has been saddened to discover that her court skills have deteriorated somewhat of late — too many hours at the keyboard, perhaps, and too few with the ball in her hand — she is heartened by the evidence that, despite feeling torn between her two passions, she seems to have made the right call. “Who would know?” she says. “No one knows — you’ve just got to give it a crack.”

The Kids are Coming is out today via Bad Batch Records/Sony Music. Tones and I’s national tour begins in Adelaide (September 13) and ends in Byron Bay (October 11).