While he doesn't get to spend alot of time at home, when he is Toby likes to make sure it's as "normal" as possible. "It'd be a bit boringliving the self-produced pop idol lifestyle all the time, so I like to do really normal stuff."
The next few months are going to be busy for the boys, who are starring in Happy Days at night, and promoting their latest album, Counting Down, during the day. "The show's not going to be us singing a two-hours show everynight, so it won't be as if it will be a strain for us to be doing this much," says Toby. "Besides, sometimes we get to the gig and we're drained from not doing anything all through the day, and we feel a bit flat, so this is good for us."
"I really like arriving home, because there's so muck I can achive by just dropping everything from my mind and getting back to normality. I like to do things like go down the road to rent videos and go to Coles"
Either way, whatever the group is doing now is certainly a far cry from the early days playing in Sydney clubs. "Before we became Human Nature, we performed at Malabar RSL Club. We had one show where I think there could've been someone urinating against a wall. And those tinkling sounds of all the poker machines in the background - well, we did eventually get used to them," Toby laughs. "That gave us the motivation to move on to something better."
Toby finds things like jogging and hanging out beside his pool as some of the best ways to unwind. He also enjoys shopping, and takes us with him on an excursion through Sydney's CBD. We end up at Calibre, which suppies the bands clothes, and pop in to the nearby Bambini Trust Cafe.
"I like to spend about half of my day just doing things that are for me," he says.
"That might be doing work from home, playing with the dogs, or just having coffee with friends. At the moment, for the other half of the day, i'm usually in rehearsals."
Not bad motivation for a man who says his next goal is for the band to perform at the 2000 Olympiccs' opening ceremony next year. "We don't know who it is that we have to tell, but that's what we would really love to do."
The rehearsals are for Happy Days: The Arena Mega Musical, which Human Nature are staring in. "We're The Naturals, the doo-wop group in the musical," Toby explains. "We're versatile singers and I think we can apply ourselves to alot of different things. It's refreshing to go out there and do something different."
Story Mardi Boardman
NW
October 25, 1999
Strangely enough, the band will be performing Earth Angel, the song that got them together in the first palace, when they were still at high school. "We first sang that when we were the 4Trax," Toby recalls. "We've got a new arrangment for it, but it's weird doing it 10 years later - to be harking back to thoes first times that we had together as a group."