Tones And I has taken part in a chat with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, opening up about her current period of lockdown, and a notable desire to head back out on the road.
The conversation took place as part of the new At Home With Apple Music series, which has seen a number of artists speak from lockdown to discuss what has been happening in their world at the current time.
For Lowe though, this conversation appears to have been a long time coming, with the host having previously put out the call for a chat with Tones And I during a 2019 interview.
Speaking from her home in Melbourne, Toni Watson described how she’s adapted to lockdown, and how COVID-19 has affected her upcoming plans, including her first major tour.
“This was like the ‘I can’t believe I’m playing sold out shows around the world’ tour,” she explains. “And I can’t believe that I’m achieving all this. And I can’t believe the difference between now and a year ago and then just bang, like nothing.
“So I haven’t even had that experience where I’m on my third tour or I’m an artist that’s been around for a while. So for me it really was just there’s nothing that could bring me down from this peak that I feel and this achievement that I feel. And then boom, a pandemic. It’s crazy.”
Despite this, Tones explains that she feels thankful she’s been given the opportunity to work more on her music in the downtime.
“I’m not thankful about the pandemic, but if I was, for any reason, to have to stay home for a long period of time, it’s happened at a point where I am still so fresh, that I’m so inspired,” she explained. “I have not released my first album yet, which I am working on.
“And still, there’s so many things I care about. And I don’t feel like I’ve written so many songs about different things and I’m struggling to find that creative side of me.
“I released an EP and then I just got scooped up and thrown around the world. And although I am so proud of myself and thankful, I now get to sit back and go, ‘Whoa, now I can write more’, because I really didn’t have that opportunity.
“When this happened, it happened so quickly. I guess if we don’t think about the things we’re thankful for in this time, then we’re being constantly negative.”
As the chat continues, Tones touches on how she’s managed to work on showing a more vulnerable side in her music, and how Macklemore has served as a strong influence on her work.
However, Tones wraps up her chat by taking a look back on the massive year she’s had, which recently saw her take out the 2019 International Songwriting Competition for her global chart-topping hit, “Dance Monkey”
“When I look back now, even in this short amount of time that I’ve had the privilege of being able to go on this journey, which is due to the hard work I’ve put in, and I know that, and I don’t say that enough,” she explains.
“The other day, I was printing out some of the highlights of the last year to put into frames, to hang on my wall. And even just doing that, to me was like a little way of looking back on the last year. And I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness. I cannot believe what is happening right now.’
“I still haven’t released that many songs, an EP and two singles. There’s still so many songs I wrote when I was busking, when I wrote ‘Dance Monkey’ and all that stuff, that I haven’t been able to release yet. And then I’ve got new songs that I’ve been writing in the last three months as well.
“So it’s all the new, and it’s the songs that I love for different reasons, all put into a big clump. It’s almost like ‘Bad Child’ versus ‘Can’t Be Happy All The Time’, versus ‘Dance Monkey’, versus ‘The Kids Are Coming’. They’re all very different songs. So, I would say very similar to that, except none of the songs replicate any of those songs either.”
Check out the full chat via Apple Music.
