Thomas Day has quickly emerged as one of pop’s most exciting new voices.
After taking off on TikTok with captivating covers, the 23-year-old American has captured the hearts of millions, continuing to evolve into a fully-fledged star. In 2021, he signed to Arista Records, and by 2023, he released his debut full-length album Love Me for Another Day.
He sold out his first-ever headline tour shortly after, amassed over a quarter of a billion global streams, and 7 million social followers across his platforms. In 2024, he released an EP, Angel Boy, and quickly followed up with this year’s kids.
Kids exposes a more assertive side to Day, moving away from the sentimental indie-pop vibes that were evident on his previous releases, replacing them with an edgier pop-rock sound – and this is just the beginning for him.
Day is now taking the world by storm, sharing stages with the likes of Joshua Bassett, The Driver Era, and more recently, Nessa Barrett.
Recently in Australia to support Barrett on tour, we sat down with the rising star to chat about his whirlwind rise, the pressure of virality, and what’s to come in the new year.
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Rolling Stone AU/NZ: It’s your first time in Australia, you’re here supporting Nessa Barrett on tour – what’s it been like so far, sharing the stage with her?
Thomas Day: It’s been sick. It’s funny, in the States, like, two years ago, I was gonna open for her at a couple shows but that didn’t end up happening. So it’s sick that it ended up working out in Australia, because I’ve never been here before. It’s sick seeing my fans come through and go crazy, too.
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You’ve also shared stages with Joshua Bassett and The Driver Era, is there anything you’ve learnt from them, seeing them perform night after night, that inspire you for your own shows?
Yeah, I think both of those performers, Ross and Rocky [Lynch, from The Driver Era], and Joshua, they’re so, so different. With Joshua, we’d been fans of each other’s music for a little bit, so it was sick that we got to tour with each other and become close. He leads a lot of his music with emotion, and with where I was when writing music at that time, it felt very appropriate and necessary for me to be opening for him. That was a super fun tour. That was my first bigger opening thing.
With The Driver Era, I mean, those guys are awesome. Ross Lynch, if you’ve never seen a show of his, I don’t think this is a hot take at all but I think he’s one of the better performers or frontmen in the industry.
Why do you say that?
His energy on stage, he just has that superstar quality immediately. Once you see it, you’re like ‘oh, he’s a beast’. He’s so cool. My live show has come a long way, in terms of what I do on stage. I just have a lot of movement, I can never really stay in one place. But with Ross, everything he does feels intentional. So it’s really cool to see somebody so locked in. And I think I like that vibe for my own live show.
Now we obviously need to talk about your social media presence, that’s had such a huge impact on your career. You’ve gone from posting covers to selling out your own headline shows. When you look back, is there a moment over the past couple of years where you go, ‘oh my God, this is really real now’?
The big moment for me, I think, was honestly this last headline tour. Because where I am right now in my career with what I’m doing, you know I’m producing and songwriting and writing basically everything by myself. It’s crazy to feel a genuine connection with the music, because it’s like nobody else’s but my mind. So with my new songs, it’s like, ‘wow these people are really, like, fucking with me. They like it’. And that’s really, really cool to see.
I’m not the type of fella to cry too much on stage, I mean I’ll cry like a baby just not on stage, and I had a show in Paris that I was nervous for. I’d heard Paris crowds can be harsher, less welcoming. But they were so sweet, I couldn’t even get a word in, they wouldn’t stop screaming. So now there’s a video online of me crying there.
That must be a pretty incredible feeling, having a crowd of people sing your songs back to you. I mean, for so many artists, that is their ‘I made it’ moment.
Yeah, when I was younger, I used to watch those Nardwuar interviews of stuff like that, they would talk about it and they’re not lying. It’s a real thing, it’s the coolest feeling. Because of how many people said it, it can sometimes be perceived as cliché. But I think it’s definitely a real feeling to experience that because you really feel like you belong in the room you’re playing.
If we compare that feeling, being in the room, to the connection you have with fans online, is there a difference? How does it feel having such a large audience there?
It’s really sick. And I honestly love it. I think the music industry has changed dramatically, obviously, for the past 20 years. And some people don’t like it, but I love it. I think there’s a lot of music that isn’t the best right now. Then I think there’s a lot of music that’s amazing. And with this new system of being able to reach people, I mean, you can literally give people exactly what they want by trial and error. I think that is the greatest gift.
It used to really be a risk to drop and change if you’re evolving your sound. But with social media, you can actually do trial and error, give people exactly what they want. And you also don’t have to. You can release what you want and then those people will still be there or more people will find it. It’s cool.
Do you find it difficult needing to create content on top on making music, is there a balance you have to find?
It’s just part of the game now. I put up my first TikTok in 2021, that’s when I first started to really blow up, singing in my car and posting original songs. I’m blessed because it’s accidentally become a part of my routine, posting every day, it’s like showering almost. If you get it, you get it, and while I’m still working on it, I like to say I get it a little bit.
I’m sure you’ve heard this comparison before, but you’re almost like a real life Troy Bolton, having swapped out sports for music. Why was music what you wanted to pursue in the end?
I was playing sports my whole life, I played football, American football, hockey, basically a lot of sports around the block. But music was there even before all the sports, and I’ve been pulled by music ever since. I honestly think it’s the only thing that I’m good at, it’s all I do. I write every day, I’ve been writing and producing ever since I was probably nine or ten, and playing piano since I was about two.
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And how has that writing evolved over the years? Obviously as you’ve grown and matured into a young adult, but are there other noticeable evolutions?
That’s a really good question. When I first started, my influences were definitely in a more indie realm. I listened to a lot of Frank Ocean. I’m currently listening to the new Daniel Caesar album. I used to do a lot of Daniel Caesar when I was a kid. I just love his music. And The Strokes and indie rock stuff. Then when I originally got signed, somebody who wasn’t really releasing was Shawn Mendes. And my label was like, ‘Thomas, brother, we have an idea’. They definitely wanted to push me in that direction with the whole pop.
I was writing with people, I kind of took a break from production, and I just kind of trusted because I was fresh in the industry. And like I was saying earlier with touring, I think it felt good to connect with people when I was singing my older songs, which still come from deep, deep personal things. But there’s actually a significant difference when you do it all by yourself. You feel that because it really is nothing else. So when it comes from a sign of evolving, like to where I am now, I find myself pulled so many different directions creatively and I hope that I never rest in one spot.
My journey of my career so far has been such a beautiful gift because I walked away from what started it. I learnt exactly what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. And now I’m in this space where I’ve learnt everything, and now I’m kind of just like going with the flow.
I wanted to talk about your EP that recently came out. Kids leans more into that alt-pop sound, can you tell me about why you made that choice?
I tried not to overthink anything with the songwriting of this. The title, Kids, I feel like they’re not really overthinking anything either, until you hit that age gap where you overthink everything. I find when I do that, it just immediately makes what I make feel inauthentic, or I’m trying to be something I’m not. So with production on this stuff, besides one record on there, “kids”, all the other records I recorded the vocals on my iPhone, just my voice memos.
“She got a thing about her” is probably six takes, “pollen” probably less. “Sore throat” is about the same I think. But “tethered” is crazy, when I made that song, I started producing it at like 10pm, I wrote it in about two minutes, then produced it all the way to like 7am. Then I finished it on a plane ride home.
We have to mention “she got a thing about her”, that song has gone crazy with over 16 million streams. Has that sunk in for you?
Yeah it’s pretty crazy to think about it. I wrote that on a treadmill in Iowa when I was on tour with The Driver Era. We had an off day and I remember writing that song at like 6am. Then I went back to the hotel room we were staying at, and my best friend was in there, and I said, ‘bro this song is going to be massive’.
That original sound that I posted on TikTok, my buddy sent me the beat to it. I thought about these chords and then I sent them to him, he sent me back a beat to it. Again, I recorded the vocals through my voice memos and then just directly put them into the editing app. There’s no tune on those vocals, no EQ. There’s no production on those vocals, and that’s the sound that ended up blowing up. So then I released it.
It’s crazy. I love that song. I wish I could say, and I mean this super, super humbly, that I didn’t think it would blow up. I knew that song was special when I wrote it. I think there’s just something magic about it. I wrote that song super, super fast and I didn’t overthink anything, and it doing so well makes me so happy.
You said you want to make more music, want to put more out there. Is there anything that you can tease for me? What’s going to come in the new year?
Honestly, so much music is going to come. I’ve been writing and producing every day, cause it’s easy since I’m using my phone. There’s going to be a lot more music. On my last tour, I teased at releasing an album – I want to really, really badly. “She got a thing about her”, I think there’s beauty and imperfection in that song, that’s something that I’m chasing with my sound right now. Cause I think there’s a lot of perfectly polished songs right now and they do great and people like them, but I think there’s also a life and a relief in listening to something that isn’t polished.
