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  • Hello.”

  • Hello.”

  • Do I call you Tones or Toni?”

  • Tones.

  • I can't even believe that this is my life sometimes.

  • It's going number one in so many countries.

  • “'Dance Monkey.'”

  • “'Dance Monkey.'”

  • “'Dance Monkey.'”

  • For anyone that thinks that I'm, like, an overnight success

  • just doesn't know about, like, the hard yards

  • I've already put in.

  • I used to work at a surf shop on Bourke Street,

  • which is really the busiest part of Melbourne.

  • And there was like, you could busk on Bourke Street.

  • I really, really wanted to busk.

  • I couldn't even play an instrument at this point.

  • One of my friends was like, you should come to Byron

  • because you can literally just park up and busk out

  • of the side of your van.

  • And I was like, OK, I'll give it a go.

  • So I bought a van, moved to Byron Bay

  • and started living in my van.”

  • What was your impression of Byron Bay when you first

  • got there?”

  • “I said, 'I don't think I'm going to fit in here.'

  • There's a lot of buskers in Byron, but very acoustic guitar.

  • It's very, like, bohemian.

  • So probably the first time anyone's

  • pulled out a keyboard on the street,

  • let alone, like, the drum pad,

  • the synthesizers, and the loop pedal and the harmonizers.”

  • [singing]

  • “I stumbled across her when she was busking

  • in Byron, in September 2017.

  • It was the very first time she'd tried busking.

  • I heard that,

  • and I said to my wife like, 'Whoa. That was pretty cool.'”

  • He gave me his cardsaid 'entertainment lawyer' on it.

  • And I said to him, 'I don't have any legal issues.'”

  • Tones was my first management client.

  • She came in, and lived with me and my family

  • for a while after there, and worked out of my studio

  • a lot in that first year while she was busking.”

  • “I'd go up every Monday, Tuesday

  • and stay there, write music, go busk for the week.

  • I was busking day, day, day, day

  • in the winter, when no one else would busk.

  • In the rain, when no one else would be busking,

  • I would be busking.

  • It wasn't about the money.

  • It was about, no matter what,

  • being able to get more fans.

  • So there might be 20 people that night

  • that would otherwise never know who I was.”

  • When did it hit you that your busking was becoming a thing,

  • that you were an attraction?”

  • “I know that there was a point where

  • I realized if I posted on my social media, and said

  • I was busking somewhere people would come.

  • Other buskers started getting angry at me.

  • Some started a Facebook group.

  • And were, like, we're going to run Tones out

  • of townlike, for no reason.

  • They just hated how big the crowds were getting.”

  • People don't walk past Tones.

  • No one does.

  • By the second song there were always like 10, 20 people.

  • By the fifth,

  • the crowd was hectic every single time.”

  • “I love busking.

  • There's so many good, amazing people on the street.

  • It's the reason that I'm here.

  • But there was one night that was very frustrating.

  • And I wrote a song about that.

  • People grab my hands

  • and be like, 'You know you stopped me dead in my tracks

  • when I was walking by.'

  • [singing]

  • 'Just sing one more song, just one more song.'

  • 'I'm just going to get my husband.'

  • I'm literally just repeating what people tell me.

  • That's why if you replace 'dance' with the word 'sing,'

  • it's just about me busking.

  • [singing]

  • I always wanted to do a song with a bass drop chorus.

  • I really like that song that's like,

  • 'You just want attention. You don't want my heart.'

  • I loved how it was like

  • So I played some bass,

  • and I kept that loop.

  • I put the other loop down.

  • I sang what I'd already written.

  • It just felt so right.

  • I wrote 'Dance Monkey' in half an hour,

  • and then it was done.”

  • [singing]

  • Just watching her busk with it, early on,

  • people just loved it.

  • And we're like, this is going to be a cracker.

  • Like a proper cracker.”

  • You guys basically specialize in buskers at this point?”

  • Essentially —”

  • We just like working with buskers, that's

  • the thing, we like working with people that

  • want to create art, and tour and make their life music,

  • and buskers do that.”

  • Did Tones have original music when you guys first

  • made contact with her?”

  • Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

  • 'Johnny Run Away' was the most developed demo,

  • and that was the first release we put out.

  • [singing]

  • That caught a fire real quick

  • in Australia, crossed over to commercial radio,

  • which was huge.”

  • In Australian terms, 'Johnny' —

  • it doesn't get any better than that for a debut.”

  • Even though, like, my song was getting high rotation

  • on like, all the mainstream radios, that does nothing.

  • You have to keep busking,

  • and I didn't want to work at Woolworth's.”

  • So when did you first hear the demo for 'Dance Monkey?'”

  • “I never heard a demo.

  • She came into the studio, and played me the song

  • how she played it.

  • And then it was sort of our job in the studio to make it,

  • I guess like, radio friendly.

  • Just about that bass drop, making sure

  • that it was not too straight,

  • that it really swung.”

  • We set up 'Dance Monkey,'

  • and were going to release it.

  • I was like, 'Look, maybe it's just a live track.

  • Maybe it's just a banging live.

  • Maybe it doesn't do as well as 'Johnny,'

  • and I was trying to just, I don't know,

  • just keep expectations in check.”

  • Dave said to me that, 'Don't be upset

  • if this song doesn't live up to 'Johnny Run Away'

  • because that song is probably more of a radio hit, which

  • is apparently everything that matters these days.”

  • Now she forever tells a story that, 'This is the song

  • that my manager Dave said was probably not a radio song,'

  • and it's like the biggest song in the world right now.”

  • [singing]

  • In Australia, it's broken the the record of any

  • female artist ever.

  • Any Australian artist ever,

  • and any song at number one, the most consecutive weeks.”

  • “A lot of songs become big in Australia.

  • Some of them cross over to the U.K.,

  • and other European countries, but not all of them

  • can make the leap to America, like,

  • what does it mean for your song to break in the U.S.?

  • Is that meaningful to you?”

  • That is like another whole universe in itself.

  • It's like, breaking the U.S. is like re-releasing

  • 'Dance Monkey' again to the world.”

  • Do you ever feel guilty that the song that

  • helped you make it is sort of complaining

  • about the very thing that helped you make it?”

  • No, I'm writing it about the girl that

  • knocked over my keyboard, and the guy that

  • tried to steal my money and the two guys that were

  • literally yelling out 'Again! Again! Again! Again! Again!'

  • right in my face, and the guy that walked past me

  • and said, you're [expletive] — all in, like, 30 minutes.”

  • Have you been back to busk since 'Dance Monkey'

  • hit number one?”

  • It's very hard to do.

  • I want to dress up as Old Tones

  • from the 'Dance Monkey' film clip and go busk.

  • People ask me how I feel.

  • I get a little bit frustrated because I don't

  • know how I feel, but like sometimes

  • I have those small moments when you're driving

  • in your car on your own, and you just think to yourself,

  • 'Holy [expletive],

  • I have the most streamed song in the world right now.'”

  • [singing]

Hello.”

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