“The idea with music is that you can’t see it. You can’t touch it. You can’t taste it. You can’t smell it. All you can do is hear it and you trigger so much with just sound.” - Sweet Boy/TOMMYY
Australian native, Sweet Boy, has encompassed his music in a way that can only make you feel truly human. Born in Lismore near South Wales, now residing in the Gold Coast, he’s created an art that is not only emotionally evoking but melancholic. While living a life kept majority private, and simply having his music speak for itself, listeners can only wonder what the story is behind such reflective pieces.
“When I would write music, sometimes I would put myself mentally in the position to peel back a bandaid. I’d put my finger in it to get that emotion out and then put it back.”
Sweet Boy has amassed over 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, with well over millions of streams across his platforms. The 23 year old has always felt that this was his journey all along. As a kid he was always present artistically. “Since I was a kid I was always creatively oriented. I made paintings, and then I got into film and then music. I had a poster of New York. I used to dream of going to the New York Film Academy. Sweet dreams.” While he has always loved the arts, his fall into music was due to a close friend. “I had a friend, we were like 15. It was a time where Facebook was really popping off here. He started rapping, and it was this whole movement. He told me I should give it a try. I was never into music, I was more into film, but quite literally from that day it snowballed for the past 7 years.” Ever since then he’s created, and felt his pivotal point was in one of his final years in school. “I’m not huge into star signs but from what I’ve been told, Tauruses can be stubborn. I was in year 12 in school and finalized that music was going to be what I do.”
When asked about the motivations for the separation between TOMMYY and Sweet Boy, it was all just a challenge for him at first. “TOMMYY was a mission I made around November 2022. I said to myself, I really want to do music and I released a song every single month and posted everyday. I told my friends I wanted to make a new Spotify and put something out that I wouldn’t have done before. I made the single, ‘i still think about you.’ I said to my manager, if this gets 50 monthly listeners I’d be happy. And somehow I ended up here.” When asked about inspirations for his work, he kept his response small, but didn’t shy away from the beauty of the life around him. “They definitely came for a reason. But my friends are huge inspirations and have been for a very long time. Where we’re from is not a very creative place. So when I got friends who were all making art, it was a big fire for me. A lot of the Sweet Boy music is written from very real things and that’s just life.”
With a special collection of work between both platforms, Sweet Boy has added to a genre of music that pulls at the strings of human condition. Although he’s humble about it, his work has truly changed the lives of many. Through his artistry he unites us all in our shared feelings of emptiness and longing. With all that being said, he leaves us on a final note that truly encapsulates his being. “I honestly just put my work out and think if people like it that’s sick, and if they don’t that’s cool too.”