Tones and I is fighting the good fight

After waves of support slots and festival billings where people were there for one song – that song – it was then she realised this was what she wanted to do. She wanted to find her audience.

Connections in the darkened venues and theatres are vastly more appealing to Watson than the arenas she was thrust into a couple of years ago on the success of "Dance Monkey". From the ground up is the new plan for Tones and I: building a career with substantive foundations, and, most importantly, on her own merit.

"I did it in Australia, and I haven't had that chance with Covid to do that anywhere else," she tells me, "I actually love London so much. I'm actually thinking I'm going to move over in January for six months or so and put in some work, because I just love it so much. I want to be a part of the London music scene. I want to put in the work there on my own terms. But you won't catch me in LA, that's for sure."

Finding a real connection is all Watson has ever wanted from her career. The fake plastic trees feeling of the California industry hotbed, and having to grimace until you make it with her earlier performances, repulsed her in a search for reality. As she recalls that time now, she remembers the absurdity of it all: "I didn't have enough songs released to even sing a whole set, I only had like six songs out so most of it was covers and looping," she tells me with disbelief. "So I feel like coming back and playing these venues where I can get to know people more, that's the long game. I don't think any relationship is built quickly. It's built over time and that's what I want to do, and that's what I've always done with street performing."

Toni Watson first found the spotlight calling after seeing street performers outside of her retail job in Melbourne. Prior to this, her forays into music came following a family gathering where a singalong unearthed her startling vocal skills and from toying around with instruments at school. Eventually signing to Sony-affiliated Bad Batch Records in 2019, after a few years busking around the Aussie coast, she released her debut single "Johnny Run Away". But it was her second single, "Dance Monkey" that spread with the ferocity of an outback wildfire where Watson's wildest dreams became to take shape. With 2019's debut EP The Kids Are Coming quickly following, the slippery slope took hold.

For the longest while, anonymity was Watson's greatest strength. Hiding behind a curtain of messy blonde hair, oversized hoodies and trucker caps, rarely inviting media or the public into her private life, the harsh whip of the spotlight's tail had struck her more than her fair share. "I don't think I did stay on the rails," she smiles, solemnly. "I know that I'm such a private person. I always have been but no, I've been through it in every single way. In any way you want to think falling off the rails means I've done that in the last three years."

Since then, it's been damage control for Watson - and that's where her second album enters the fray. "I think that Beautifully Ordinary is a way of embracing who I am. No one could ever contest that I've tried to conform at all in my career. Maybe that's the reason my decline was as fast as my rise…am I allowed to say that?" she cackles. "I mean, it's true. Why don't we just say it. But I think it's also the reason why I feel better now. I think if I had tried to conform to stay current, I would have lost my whole self."

If Watson had her way, Beautifully Ordinary would be her debut. Her actual debut, 2021's Welcome To The Madhouse was a rushed effort that sought to capitalise further upon “Dance Monkey” which is still the most streamed song by a female artist of all time, with over 3.1 billion streams as of June 2024. But amidst Madhouse's looping pop beats and hooky refrains, the anonymity struck too deep – this wasn't the body of work Watson has envisioned. This was the noise of the avalanche that was billowing down on top of her: "The most hard person to relate to is someone that's there striding success," she reasons, "and I understand that but if I could just speak on my personal feelings for a moment, I was busking on the street living in my van and six weeks later, I was on Ellen DeGeneres' show."

These days, Watson is brighter. She can still be softly spoken but eases into conversation if – weirdly enough – you treat her as a human being. I last spoke to Watson back in 2020, in the throes of the "Dance Monkey" frenzy and prior to a show at London's Kentish Town Forum. She was expectedly guarded with an entourage of close friends for support. Now chatting on a one-on-one calls from Switzerland, she is more confident in herself and, more importantly, in control.

The extent of her ambitions back in 2018-19 was to be a street performer, she recalls with longing eyes: "I had no intention of releasing music at all, I didn't know there was such thing as a chart because I just listened to the music that I liked...for the longest time I was working in retail, I just wanted to be a busker, I loved street performers. I used to watch them, they were at the front of my work in the city. And so when I did it, I thought I'd finally made it. My ambition was all wrapped up in wanting to be a street performer, and finding the confidence to be able to shift my life to that no safety net kind of thing."

With a curl of, ahem, a monkey's paw, in May 2019 she was indeed granted her safety net. "Dance Monkey" is now synonymous with Tones and I; a gripping shadow that looms and a song that's come to define her, whilst granting her access to a plethora of opportunities a galaxy away from her busking dreams. But, with such hyper-drive success, comes a muddied road.

"Someone said to me when I was going through it, just ignore it. And I said, 'That's so fucked up'," she recalls. "So we just have to let this shit happen to people online? We just have to ignore it? But then I realised fighting it was so much worse. So, so much worse."

The quicksand included death threats, bullying, and general Internet shit-housery. Speaking from a higher place now, she says, "You have to rise above it in your own time. Don't pretend or fake it. I tried to do that, but it was never true. I was so sad. I pretended that I was [okay] for my family, for my Nana's sake…I had to pretend I was fine because if your friends get involved, and they start attacking the people that attack you, then you have to watch your friends get attacked back."

It's an experience that Watson wouldn't bestow upon anyone. In a world hellbent on firing the next name into the spotlight for, what can often be a 24-hour news cycle of dagger opinions and poison rhetoric, she offers up some sage advice: "The worst I've ever felt is when I've attacked back and whether it's in my personal life with relationships, or whether it's online, I always feel way worse for doing so," she tells me. "Just keep control of your own self and your own mental health. Keep working on what you love and doing what you love…Don't let your brain manipulate you into thinking that you are undeserving of anything that you've worked so hard to achieve because there are people who will try and make that happen. It fucked me up for a while and I'm sure it's done that to a lot of people but keep fighting the good fight and you'll come out better."

Letting her true personality shine in the way it wanted would have potentially added fuel to that roaring fire, but it also meant nobody could get a real read on Watson. “I've been too private, they don't know my personality,” she reasons. “[Maybe] if people knew [me] a bit better and understood me…but because I've been so quiet and private…I've really put on this persona not meaning too, like, I'm just happy to be here, the little chubby girl in the corner, [from that] I learned something. People think I'm like this shy, sad girl…[but] I needed to protect my space.”

It's why more compact venues are more suited to Watson's idea of fame – while modest in size, they end up being the most rewarding when it comes to building a spiritual connection with both her audience and her craft. "You know, if I could come back and play good sized theatres in these places like that would be for me, the pinnacle," she muses, "Obviously, I love playing live shows, but this is perfect, where you can see everyone's faces and you can still really bring a great show. But I think at that moment, I wasn't prepared to be picked apart. And obviously it happens to so many people, but it's just not who I am. I don't reach for that kind of success, because it can ruin your life if you're not the right person. It's like a constant game to stay relevant in. It's too much stress for someone to do that."

Beautifully Ordinary is just that. It's a celebration of the fact that Watson is ordinary. She's still the same person whose ambitions matched that of any fellow street performer, or amateur bedroom hair-brush singing starry-eyed icon. The glaring eye of fame is counter-intuitive to what Watson’s ideal is. Now, after an arduous healing journey, she’s offering more of herself to those that have stuck by her. "I was such a private person through the peak of my journey," she remembers. "I thought it would be nice to give back to the people that have followed my catalogue and not just my one song, a little bit more of who I am. It's a goal for me to try and open up a bit more."

Being able to do so took a bit of work on Watson's part though: "I was listening to my album, maybe three quarters of the way done, and I was like, it's still vague. I waS probably was ten songs in and I was like, 'oh my god, I haven't done it yet,' because I'm subconsciously procrastinating. I didn't even realise I wasn't doing it, and once again, I was just writing an album that I feel like I could have gone a bit deeper. So then I had to troubleshoot the music I'd already picked – really read the lyrics and then make sure that the new songs I wrote, I was really hard on myself. Like, is it giving something? Am I offering something new not as a songwriter, not as a creative, but as a human? I mean, there's still upbeat pop trash on there. I mean, I am me!"

She cackles again" "But I definitely think there's a little mix of who I am in this album. I'm a bit more proud of this, I think."

Her two records are symbolic of her personal standing. Where Madhouse has a cartoonish, neon, horror-fever dream feel to its artwork, with Watson approaching a decrepit-looking house, Beautifully Ordinary shows her inside far more palatial digs. Softer colours and serenity exuding, its a fixer-upper and she’s ready to play the game. This feeling extends into the sonics of the album, with her most personal effort full of beckoning ballads (her creative bread and butter) and more thoughtfully-constructed music rather than quick-fixing pop hits. The opening one-two of “To Be Loved” and “Someone Like Me” build gently, but Watson’s vocals empower themselves with a shimmering vulnerability.

"Jimmy" from her debut EP is the first time Watson attempted to be as vulnerable. "I told everyone it was about a boy called Jimmy. But in true form, like I said, back then I was too scared to be vulnerable. I named songs after different people because I didn't want anyone to know anything about me."

She did the same with "Bad Child", but hiding behind anonymous pronouns presented a double-edged sword for Watson. Once people began relating to her lyrics, a shame took hold. "In the first big interview I did, I made sure that I said that's not about me, that's about a friend that asked me to write a song about their childhood," she says. "And then I felt guilty because people were relating to it."

Recognising she had an opportunity, nowadays she's ready to embrace her platform. While wanting to conceal her family and protect them from the glaring spotlight, Watson understands there's a payoff that outweighs all of this: "I wanted this album now to open up with talking about domestic violence and touching on my home life. And I know that's going to raise more questions, but my toe is in the pond. I know that there's a long way to go. But there's just so much stuff that I've been too scared to open up about. I actually did speak about it at my London show for the first time which was nice, and everyone really made me feel supported. And I know I'm in a position to speak out and help women, I just need to make sure it's coming from a genuine place because I don't think it's going to work unless I'm ready. But I know that we're gonna have to talk about it in interviews soon when the album comes out. So it's trying to get ready for that. I want to be as open as I can."

I ask how she's feeling about her honest new era and she offers defiance: "Um, well, I still really like it after over two years of writing it and listening to it. So I mean, that's a good sign. I can't say the same for my last!" Recalling her debut album, Watson admits, "there are songs I do love, but there are some songs that will haunt me. Just because of the sheer laziness I remember writing them I'd just double the first verse and make it the second in a higher semitone like, just songs. I was like, whatever we need to fill space, whereas this album was different. I wrote too many songs for this album, and I loved them."

These days Watson exudes confidence. Snippets online from promo reels and fan footage show an artist transformed, compared to the one thrust into the spotlight a few years ago. "I always looked like a drowned street rat, and I did that for years, I didn't change myself, I didn't have the confidence to change myself," she remembers. "And I was who I was for a long time, and I think only in the last six months I really can feel that I'm feeling better in myself. I'm looking after myself, I'm taking my own life into my own hands, instead of being told what to do and where to go, and just constantly pushing the same three and a half minute song, which, you know, for me, might not have even made the album."

Acceptance has been key to this whole journey for Watson. Even down to knowing that having broken streaming records means her name is bandied about with other female pop stars, she's in her lane, and that's where she's happiest. "I'm never going to be compared physically, to any people that are seen as the pinnacle of the pop music world – and that's fine – but I think that embracing the person that I am and the way that I have lived my life is what that is all about."