Unifying Force

It seems a little backward to be embarking upon a tour to say thank you to fans for supporting a music project that is yet to be released, though that is precisely the plan of Toni Childs who kicks off her 26-date Because You're Beautiful Australian tour this week. The Californian native could have long sustained a touring career based on a back catalogue of hits including Don't Walk Away and I've Got To Go Now, even after a ten-year hiatus on the Hawaiian island of Kauai due to the diagnosis of Graves disease, though Childs is on a mission; 2013 will launch her fifth record Citizens Of The Planet, and its accompanying live production will be her groundbreaking piece de resistance. 

“I think we need to start with us first,” says Childs when quizzed upon whether the project is in response to the broader environmental issues of the world. “When we feel good within ourselves, then we care and we realise the special existence that we have here on the planet. I feel like we kind of need to get there so the other just comes naturally… Citizens Of The Planet is talking on a myriad of levels but the thing that makes it unique I think is not only the music but the wanting to take it out on the road and communicate with a large visual palette, so next year Citizens Of The Planet will tour; it's like TED talks meets music. It's where you have 16 x 30 foot LED flooring, which means I could blow on the floor and it would ripple out like water, or I could kick my feet on it and suddenly you would see all these leaves scatter. And then we have 3D projection mapping… We can look at how a thought fires across a synapse of a brain and how that is mirrored in the universe – and how it's mirrored in the explosions happening in us. I believe in us – I just feel like Citizens Of The Planet is wanting to take this time to say, 'Can we all get on the same page?'”

Childs has assembled a team to help fulfil her grand vision, which incorporates crowdfunding as a key capital raising device and method of communicating the project philosophy. As she makes her way around Australia on tour this month, fans willing to pay extra for pre-show breakfast, cocktails or simply a phonecall with Childs will be directly funding the 2013 production.  

“By the time this [Because You're Beautiful] tour ends, we will have raised all the capital needed. We've recorded for five-and-a-half months, but now we need to mix and master, so all the funds will have been made to do that so we'll be able to say 100 percent of this record has been made through the funding of people who love my music…” Childs says proudly.

“So now the next phase that is also a part of this tour is to give people a taste of what Citizens... is going to be with little bits of technology, but then also to be reaching out to possible investors… to invest and embark in a touring company and the whole thing. I'm going independent, absolutely independent; not just sort of independent but completely independent and sometimes I go, 'Oh my god, we're really doing this',” says the inspiring singer through a nervous laugh before continuing defiantly: “but I wanna have this experience…”