";s:4:"text";s:3877:" “It’s opened me up to so many more fans and to have so many people discover my music, but I don’t want to be known for that until I die. I don’t want to be seen as someone crumbling and falling.
This time I will share my cover video about the song “TONES AND I – Dance Monkey” along with the Thank you for visiting my website. Subscribe now for more from the authority on music, entertainment, politics and pop culture. I just had a really good meeting, something that didn’t need to be shared and it was very genuine.”e’s ‘Most Influential People of 2019’ wants to spend hours with Tones comes as no surprise to the people who know her best. She’s Australian, and she dared to earn her stripes as a battler on the national pub circuit; thus giving Australians no ownership of her success. (Photo by Jack Neale)Tones wants to help others learn from her experience. She represents the possibility of a global career built out of regional Australia, sans a major label record deal and without a stack of co-writers. When it comes to iconic Australian women in pop, Tones And I will eventually be said in the same breath as Sia and Kylie Minogue.Just like Sia, Tones is no pop pushover. “How much do we have to fucking push someone, does someone have to kill themselves?”Tones And I has had an outstandingly fast rise to fame. “I’ve had people come up to me and say they’ve gone through similar things and it’s really helped them. It could be said that Tones And I is working backwards, building her plane while it’s flying.It feels radical. “Because I was busking eight months ago.” She pulls away slightly, grinning widely before shouting, “group high five!”A highlight reel of Toni Watson’s last 14 months: “Johnny Run Away” her first single (and first song she ever wrote) went double platinum a few months after release in March 2019; “Dance Monkey” was released two months later and hit number one in 35 countries; the track spent six months at number one in Australia, beating the last record by 15 whole weeks. It’s lunchtime, so perhaps champagne is christening the carpet and maybe Tones is jumping on a couch like she once did with Lewis Capaldi backstage at France’s NRJ Awards.Her assistant Abbie greets me with a hug at the door, she met Tones in September 2017 in Byron Bay and moved from the UK to take on the role. Hello all! Her friends, Abbie and Kurt, along with her co-managers, reps from Sony Music and YouTube, and even me, are invited to join the inner circle.“I’m so grateful that we’re all here,” she says, assertive and stylish in a pristine Nike tracksuit. “If I was, I wouldn’t be writing music and going on a world tour.”It’s during her onstage moments, when it’s just her and the same red keyboard she used while busking, that she feels truly herself.
The way she refuses to buy into traditional pop star tropes certainly has a lot to do with her success. At industry conference BIGSOUND last year Tones orchestrated a silent protest. The world is still learning about the sole songwriter behind the world’s biggest, multi-record breaking hit. Her service is to art.“This “Dance Monkey” thing is like a blessing and a curse,” she says. As they stood in awe of Tones’ playful yet utterly confrontational operation – this was pre-“Dance Monkey”, mind you – they later skipped dessert to rush back and join the growing crowd. In a country where artists are relocating in droves to LA and London in a bid to overcome Australia’s geographic handicap, Tones And I offers a new blueprint for future generations.