"Dance Monkey" was a global smash hit for this Australian artist in 2019, and since then the music video has had well over one billion views on YouTube!  It is perhaps most remembered for Tones and I dressing up as an old man, complete with beard and prosthetics!  For this collab, I enlisted the services of an American vocalist I encountered as part of an online music club called dnldr.  Danielle Hollobaugh is an accomplished singer, having built a solid fanbase on social media over the years!  She is also a professional actress, so that's another handy string to her bow!

The arrangement was a lot of fun for me to put together.  I remember I had the vast majority of it done within one continuous four-hour session.  I came home from work one day and then started on it, then just kept pushing through without a break.  All that was left to do from there was to add Danielle's vocals, and then I was able to achieve a very nice mix.  A lot of the sounds were taken from my Roland FA-06 music workstation, with the bass coming from my Technics SX-KN930 keyboard.  I ended up using the drums from a different unfinished project, and they work fine here.  This collab was actually completed in early 2020, but I'm only getting around to uploading it just now.  Original song by Tones and I.  Cover collab by Protis & Danielle Hollobaugh.

Tones and I - Dance Monkey (collab With Danielle Hollobaugh)

Protis has been writing music since 1998, when he was still in high school. The name Protis came about from watching the TV show Pokemon; his original name was Piggy, and just how Pikachu evolves into Raichu, well he decided that Piggy would evolve into Protis. The name has stuck ever since then.

Protis is a big fan of computer-based music.  The first computer program he used for music purposes was Cubase Lite on good ol' Windows 3.1 operating system.  Over the years he moved on to Cubast VST, where he further developed his skills as a songwriter.  Most of his early recordings were instrumental works, as at the time he was unable to compose decent lyrics.

After a while, Protis decided to leave the realm of General MIDI and progress into the world of loops and samples.  He accomplished this by using the ACID range of products.  Countless hours were spent with this brilliant piece of software, coming up with lots of cool beats.

Protis has also dabbled in the FruityLoops software, now called FL Studio.  He utilised FL Studio to write songs which contained his first self-penned lyrics.  He was surprised at just how well his lyrics came across in each song, fitting in well with the music.  And all this from someone who could never write words to his songs!