It’s not enough that Tones And I is running headlong into the release of her second album, preparing for a headlining national tour, and currently in the throes of a frenzy of radio and TV interviews to promote it all. She has also managed to find a moment, the night before we speak, to surprise a girls’ under-12s basketball team in Townsville, in Tropical Far North Queensland. She agreed to meet them at the gentle behest (via Instagram DM) of one of their mums.
“Obviously, that’s a bit of me,” she laughs, adjusting a patterned bandana over her platinum blonde hair. “I love kids and I grew up playing basketball. Easy.” Her eyes are bright, lively. “I didn’t let them know until the last minute, though, so it wouldn’t take any attention away from the girls.”
The musician, born Toni Watson, has never strayed too far from the community that built her up. Her origin story is the stuff of music mythology: she started out busking on a Byron Bay street corner with a Casio keyboard, where her powerful voice—rich, clear and punctuated with that distinctive growl—drew crowds. On one of her first nights performing, a music manager left her his card (and a generous tip). Eighteen months later, she released her first single, ‘Johnny Run Away.’
The notorious earworm ‘Dance Monkey’ followed soon after and shot through the charts like wildfire, reaching number one in 30 countries (and stayed at pole position in Australia for six entire months). Toni collected a bundle of ARIAs, locked in European tour dates, and buckled in. The fame train was off and hurtling.
Four years on, and with, in her words, “a lot of growing up” under her belt, Toni reflects on how she has evolved as an artist. Her second studio album, Beautifully Ordinary, will be released in early August.
“With this album, I really wanted to be more vulnerable,” she tells Cosmopolitan Australia. “It’s really tough for me, I’ve found, to open up. I would say that [my last album] wasn’t vulnerable at all. Spending the last few years learning how to write, how to be a better songwriter, how to put these feelings out … that’s what I really wanted to do with this album.”
Toni wrestles with a lot of big ideas in her new release: the push and pull of fame; an abusive relationship; a weary nostalgia for a simpler life. She sifts through old regrets and loss over the record’s 16 tracks, but also projects a careful strength—and sometimes, even bold, unabashed power. “I’m so sorry to myself/I could have loved you more and more,” she sings on the ballad-like ‘To Be Loved.’ But later, a promise: “I will fight for every moment till I say I’m done/I just want to be loved.”
"I’d never been given the chance or the opportunity or the love to tell myself I deserved better"
Beautifully Ordinary is long, but it needs to be; its narrative arc of loss, recovery and hope unravels slowly over its considered, often lyrically melancholic expanse. Sonically, however, lovers of Toni’s ability to create an infectious beat will not be disappointed: tracks like ‘I Get High’ and ‘We’ll See Stars’ are made for giddy dancing and no holds-barred belting. “I never really go into the studio knowing what I want to write about. Ever. It just comes. I always let how I feel take control,” Toni says.
How she feels now is more in control, more collected than in the past. In her first years of fame, she was subjected to intense scrutiny and internet vitriol, with netizens passing comment about everything from her voice to her looks to her relationships. “I was just accepting abuse online as Tones And I,” she says. “I’d never been given the chance or the opportunity or the love to tell myself I deserved better.
“When I was abused as an artist, I thought, this seems normal. I never thought, no. I don’t deserve that.”
It was only after the first wave of attention fell away that Toni found the space to recollect and regroup, turning her attention to her mental and physical health. It’s only now, after years, that she has found the courage to push against the noise. “My real turning point was the last year of my life, when I finally just started thinking, ‘OK, I’ve lived through this for all this time now. It’s time to stop looking back and start moving forward.’
”I wanted [the album] to feel triumphant at the end. There was a lot of grief and loneliness … but ultimately, I wanted it to feel like, I will rise above this.” On video, the image that Toni cuts is markedly different to her early days in the spotlight. In the past, she would take to the stage in loud trucker hats, oversized tees and dark sunglasses. While many interpreted it as a curated persona—perhaps intended to project a rejection of the patriarchal standard of pop stars dressing in bodysuits and glitter—Toni’s sartorial choices came from a more personal place.
“When this [fame] all happened, I was not happy,” she reflects. “I grew up as an athlete, playing basketball, and honestly those years of my life, from busking to the last year—those were me at my most unhappy with myself.
“Being in this depressive cycle, with everything that was going on, I didn’t have the mental health to say, right, I want to work hard on myself. I was just trying to keep my head above water. And the world definitely didn’t make me feel better about myself. If there was any body positivity to be had, it wasn’t coming my way. That affected it even more.”
In recent weeks, as the media trained its attention on her in the leadup to her album release, Toni has been the subject of a glut of articles and social media commentary focusing on her changing body.
She shifts in her seat. “I’ve lost weight—so apparently that’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.” She smiles dryly.
“Everything is up for discussion. My body shape, my music, my livelihood, my relationship"
“Everything is up for discussion. My body shape, my music, my livelihood, my relationship. I wish I could say that I could be someone where that doesn’t affect me. But it does. Especially when, like, my nanna, my family—they can see everything.”
Recently, Toni has been experimenting more with her style, embracing her femininity and eschewing the caps and cargos of yore for blowouts and black minidresses. Fans, she acknowledges, may be surprised by this iteration of her aesthetic—but to her, it’s a return to her most natural self.
“I lived in a van for two years and I was a street performer. Dressing up and fashion—that was never a priority for me. Honestly, just getting a shower without a million girls lining up before me was amazing.
“I’ve always said this to my friends: I’m not a tomboy. I’m a girly girl and I always have been. But I didn’t feel comfortable in myself and my body. So, I covered myself up.”
More and more, Toni feels excited about fashion, and wants it to be as much of an arena for her creative expression as her music is. “Going into this happy place now, I love myself more and I want to experiment with clothes like I used to when I was comfortable in my own skin.”
But Toni’s new look has its detractors—just as her old aesthetic did. The double-edged criticism serves as evidence of the intractable position that women in the public eye are put in. Cover yourself up and reject the norms of what a pop star should look like? You’ll be bullied online. Show off your body and begin to align with those norms? You’ll certainly be bullied online.
“Women artists just have to do so much more physically,” she says, “and be so much more interesting physically. Even me, even when I wasn’t showing my body, I was wearing lots of colour. I was trying to be physically interesting … not appealing, because that’s something I knew I wasn’t, but just interesting.”
So how does she feel being back in the spotlight again, having experienced such a cruel distortion of its glare in the past? “I won’t lie, there’s a lot of anxiety under the surface. It’s great to know that people still care … but coming up to any big release … you get all the attention again.”
“I’m a bit nervous waiting to see. If I succeed again, some people don’t like that. So it may draw all these people back out, which may put me back into a really dark space. I’m hoping that the growth I’ve had over the past year and the firmness I’ve had about reassuring myself that this is my journey—I’m really hoping we have a different experience this time around. I’m hoping that I don’t fall into a dark place but sometimes it comes and you just can’t control it.”
But when it comes to her sound, Toni doesn’t feel pressured to be anyone or anything but herself. She is steadfast. “I will never let anyone push me in a direction with my music,” she says, visibly loosening as the subject turns towards her music again. “If I lose that, if I let people convince me about that… this is my thing, this is the one thing no one can touch. Because I can’t lose that, because then I’m losing everything. If I try to be like someone else, I’d be losing my authenticity.”
Thankfully, Toni is not like anyone else. But with such a unique sound and massive global appeal, it can be hard to understand immediately where she fits in the Australian industry. It’s been a breakthrough summer for sisterhood in the global pop arena: titans like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have publicly espoused their love of indie newcomer Chappell Roan, while Lorde and Charli XCX recently released a song designed to make the internet “go crazy”, which tackled their professional and personal jealousy and ended with them declaring their undying support of each other. Has Toni seen this kind of camaraderie amongst women in the Australian music industry?
She lights up when I ask. “Oh, absolutely,” she says. “Amy Shark reached out almost instantly [to offer] support, and we’ve been good friends ever since. I’ve only ever had support with Amy. We’ll message constantly. G Flip, who is non-binary, who I have to mention, has been an incredible human for me.” Toni famously introduced G Flip to their now wife, the American reality TV star Chrishell Stause, in 2022. “They called me on their wedding night. I love them both so much.
“And Jessica Mauboy is genuinely, genuinely, genuinely the person that everyone thinks she is,” she continues. “She’s so thoughtful, so kind and is just there. I want to shower her with praise right now. She is such a good person, for everyone who needs her.”
Toni has so much more to say, at her most animated when she’s doling out compliments to the women around her. “And Thelma Plum! Just an incredible person and human being.” Toni recalls how Thelma held her hand through her first photoshoot at her first ARIAs, back when Toni had been a street performer a few months prior, reassuring her through the media circus of it all. “She’s always been there for me.”
Whether it’s girls’ basketball teams in regional Queensland, or her peers in the music world, Toni’s community has surrounded her and lifted her up—and, sitting down with her, it’s clear that this road runs both ways. Toni’s energy and enthusiasm for the people around her is infectious. As for where she’s off to after this interview? “Just gonna get ready to go busk on the street!” Naturally.
This article originally appeared in Issue 01 of Cosmopolitan Australia. Get your copy and subscribe to future issues here.
Styling: Fleur Egan and Toni Watson; Photography: Giulia Giannini McGauran; Hair: Caitlen Monica and Natalia Poposka; Makeup: Natalia Poposka; Assistance and BTS: Rebecca Koroi; Production assets: Rosie Tupper; Props/set: Mission Brown/Brandon Carr
