- I don't know what to say.
(lively, string music)
- Hello, I'm Nathan Evans and a TikTok I made
managed to get me a Number 1 in the UK charts.
♪ Soon may the Wellerman come, ♪
♪ To bring us sugar and tea and rum. ♪
♪ One day, when the tonguin' is done, ♪
♪ We'll take our leave and go ♪
(lively, string music)
- I started singing when I was like 6
I think it was the love of making noise,
I think that's how it started (laughs).
My Mum and Dad, they both were karaoke presenters,
so they sang round about the house,
and everybody would join in.
It was always, like, just a hobby for me
until later on in my teenage years when I was like,
"yeah, I want to start doing this properly".
- What's happening? Been a long time since
I come on here and just actually spoke and said hello
- Last January is when I made the TikTok account
and at this point, I was doing steel erecting,
I was working, like, 11 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts,
coming home, sitting down in front of the computer
and I would make a TikTok.
♪ Oh now, my soul has been torn and reborn, ♪
♪ Started breathing, what have I done? ♪
♪ What have I done? ♪
- So, at the time it was just a bit of a hobby,
it was just something fun to do,
it was somewhere else I could express my music,
and it was actually my niece and nephew that got me into it.
And I just kinda started to gain a small following.
- 15.5k,
what?
- People would give suggestions, I'd sing them and then
in June
someone asked me to sing a sea shanty that was called
"Leave her Johnny".
♪ Oh, the times were hard and the wages low ♪
♪ Leave her Johnny, leave her ♪
♪ And the grub was bad, and the gales did blow ♪
♪ But it's time for us to leave her ♪
- The response was fantastic, everyone loved it
and, like, the comments underneath it were like
"Can you sing Drunken Sailor? Can you sing Wellerman?
Can you sing-"
Just loads of different sea shanty's,
loads of different other folk songs.
In October, that's when I started my postman job.
Again, that was ideal for me because
I would start at 8 in the morning,
I would finish 'round about 3 in the afternoon, half 3,
I would get home and I would have all of the rest of my
afternoon, and all evening, to focus on music.
A couple of months had passed,
I think at this point I was at 50,000 followers
and I uploaded Wellerman.
♪ There once was a ship that put to sea, ♪
♪ The name of the ship was the Billy of Tea ♪
♪ The winds blew up, her bow dipped down ♪
♪ O blow, my bully boys, blow ♪
♪ Soon may the Wellerman come, ♪
♪ To bring us sugar and tea and rum, ♪
♪ One day, when the tonguin' is done, ♪
♪ We'll take our leave and go ♪
- So it was the 27th of December,
that was the date that I uploaded it.
I want to say within 2 weeks,
it went from the TikTok, and then,
maybe 5 days, it soared in the views,
there were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of viewers,
there were so many thousand duets.
Andrew Lloyd Webber jumped on it,
he's seen that, he dueted me.
Ronan Keating and
Gary Barlow,
they done their own version.
And then 220 Kid and Billen Ted got in touch with me,
and they said,
"We've seen your TikTok, we've done like a remixed version
of your TikTok video, it's only like a minute long".
They sent me it over and they were like,
"what do you think?", I was like,
"this is fantastic".
People from Capital, people from Radio 1
loads of different radio stations all grabbed the sound
off his remix and started playing it on the radio stations.
- So my timeline, like everybody else's,
has been full of these lads singing this
♪ Soon may the Wellerman come, ♪
♪ To bring us sugar and tea and rum ♪
- Absolute banger. Well, I didn't think it could get
any better until 220 Kid has dropped this remix,
Sea Shanty EDM, it's a thing.
♪ Soon may the Wellerman come, ♪
♪ To bring us sugar and tea and rum. ♪
♪ One day when the tonguin' is done, ♪
♪ We'll take our leave and go. ♪
- And drop.
(EDM music)
(host laughs)
- I joined a management team, I joined with a record label,
I got a lawyer, I got everything sorted within like, 3 days,
because I realized how big it was going,
and how quick it was going.
And then I get in the studio
and started recording proper vocals
for Wellerman and send it over to 220 Kid,
he remixed it within a day.
And then he sent it out to all the radio stations,
and they actually got it playing that night.
So, it was about
9, 10 days from the initial release
that I think it ended up on the radio, I'm sure.
Everything that was happening was just all so surreal.
- Oooooooo
my god.
See how I was,
I was a postman on Friday,
I have just signed
to the biggest
record label in the world.
I have just signed the deal
with Polydor records.
I've done it, I've done it, it's done, it's done.
And I'm releasing a single,
I'm releasing a single,
I'm releasing a single.
- On TikTok, you only get, like, 99 plus notifications,
and everyday like, during the hype, in the peak of all this,
every couple of hours, I would go onto TikTok
and it would be 99 plus, 99 plus.
My phone was pinging 24-7,
and I was seeing myself on SNL,
Brian May had done a duet as well,
that was a complete pinch-me moment,
I had no idea what was going on.
But, because of the pandemic and because of Coronavirus,
when you boiled it all down, you look from that perspective,
all this was happening,
but it was all happening on the internet,
I was just sitting in my room.
It was amazing, but it was also like,
"what is going on?"
(chuckles)
♪ There once was a ship that put to sea, ♪
♪ The name of the ship was the Billy of Tea ♪
♪ The winds blew up, her bow dipped down ♪
♪ O blow, my bully boy, blow ♪
- Filming a music video was,
was actually really fun.
Obviously, I've not done it before
so I didn't really know what to expect.
When I done it, it was green screened,
so you don't know what,
what's going on behind you,
you don't know what the director sees,
so it was fantastic.
♪ Take her leave and go ♪
♪ Soon may the Wellerman come ♪
♪ To bring us sugar and tea and rum ♪
♪ One day when the tonguin' is done ♪
♪ We'll take our leave and go ♪
- Wellerman's been on the charts for,
I think it's about 7 or 8 weeks,
and now it's gone to,
it's gone to Number 1.
(upbeat music)
- Number 1
that is-
(laughs)
That is absolutely insane!
- To say that I'm like, I'm Number 1 in the charts
is just outrageous.
I didn't think we were gonna get it,
I though Olivia Rodrigo was gonna hold us off forever,
because we were sitting Number 2 for so long,
and the fact that we stayed at Number 2 for so long
and then made it to Number 1,
it was just like, I was absolutely blown away.
My silver Number 1 award, it's on my shelf
in my dining room, sitting front and center
so everybody can see it.
To say that this is a dream come true, that's happened now,
is an understatement really.
So, we've got a couple of singles hopefully coming out
in the coming months,
and then by December, hopefully we'll have an album out.
If you watch my TikTok, I sing loads of different variety
of music and stuff so that's kinda what I want,
when I bring an album, that's what I want it to be.
Also in December, we've got a UK tour
and then in January we're going on an European tour.
It's gonna be the busiest I've ever been in my life,
but it's gonna be the best time, I think,
that I've ever had in my life so
I'm very much looking forward to it.
- My niece and nephew,
now they're just really happy and so chuffed
because this is how it all started,
and they're the ones who kinda put me on the platform.
Friends and family are
like, they're so supportive.
They want to know what I'm up to now,
and they want to know what interview I'm doing next,
what TV I'm going to be on next,
like they want to know all this stuff
and just make sure that I'm okay.
Everyone's kinda still treating me the exact same
so I think that's kinda helping me stay grounded
and stay, stay where I'm at.
♪ One day when the tonguin' is done, ♪
♪ We'll take our leave and go ♪
- In this time, everybody just being
fed up and stuck in the house and feeling alone,
just all these feelings,
and this song comes along and it's just kinda
seen everybody having a bit of enjoyment,
having a bit of happiness.
Everybody was joining in and everybody played their own part
and it was just, it was just fantastic.
And even now, it's still happening so
it's amazing.
(lively music)