According to Y.O.G.A, the entire 9 to 5 phenomenon really started on the road to Stagecoach. “So I guess it all started on the road to Stagecoach,” he says. “There’s a photo of me with this Stagecoach-bound RV… frantically thinking of edits for the set that would be really fun for people to dance to.” In the van were Jimmy the Queen, Kyra, and Blake O’Connor on harmonica, all riffing ideas as the traffic slowed. “I was like how do we make use of the time? Edits for the set.” One of those quick ideas was pairing The Gambler with 9 to 5. “I was like, ‘Oh, you know what? It’s in a similar tempo… I reckon that’d mix well.’” And sure enough, the edit landed perfectly.

Getting to the set however, was its own saga. “We’d lost the keys to the van and I thought we were going to miss the set,” he says. “I think you can even see in the video footage of when I’m playing the set, I still look panicked.” Between searching for the keys, getting last-minute accreditation for O’Connor, and nearly missing a Triple J interview (“I was just in such a fragile state at that stage”), the whole day was chaos. But the set happened, the edit worked and 9 to 5 quietly became a crowd favourite.

A year later, it came back into his life completely by accident. He was on a six-hour road trip to the Mullewa Rodeo & Muster, staring at a beautiful Western Australian landscape and feeling creatively empty. “I was like, ‘God, we’ve got to film a video but I’ve got nothing to film.’” With no new remixes ready, he dug through old edits. “‘Oh yeah. 9 to 5.’… It was by no means something I’d spent much time on… but it’s the remixes you spend 20 minutes on that go the hardest online.” He pulled over, filmed a simple walk-and-strut video, sent it to McKenzie, then left the country for a family holiday with no phone for two weeks.

Then came the call. “Tom goes, ‘Dude, have you been online?’” The video had blown up without him even knowing. “At that point it was only a few days in - 40,000 Reels had used the sound… Every second there was a new video from America.” It even showed up in unexpected places: “A friend in Canberra said, ‘I just asked ChatGPT how I should grow my business with Reels, and it suggested using the 9 to 5 Y.O.G.A. Remix.’ I’m like, ‘Holy moly.’”

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Soon Dolly Parton’s management reached out, but there was a hitch. Parton owns her own masters - “like a boss” - but not 9 to 5, which belongs to the studio that produced the film. When they reached out to SME, they got silence. “A week later, they said nothing… and then we just thought, ‘What is in our control is recording this song from the ground up.’” They rebuilt it entirely: Seb Bartels on guitars, Maddy Hotter on BVs, Tommy Marlo on bass and piano, Dave Winel on mixdown, everything except the lead vocal.

Finding the right voice was the hardest part. “It’s such a unique voice… soft but playful… with that southern twang.” After months of trial and error, the answer came to him in the car. “I was listening to Taylor Moss… and I thought, ‘What the hell? How did I not think to ask Taylor?’” She was in and out of hospital but told him, “Hey, I’m your guy for this. Just give me some time.” The moment she recorded it, he knew: “This is exactly what we needed.” They debuted it live at Hot Dub on the Harbour with the Opera House behind them an unreal full-circle moment.

For months, fans flooded his DMs: “‘When’s 9 to 5 going to be on Spotify?’” Eventually, the demand pushed everything over the line. “It’s the power to the people,” he says. “They reminded me daily that it needs to happen.”

From an RV on the way to Stagecoach, to a dusty roadside in WA, to exploding online while he rode donkeys on holiday, to a full re-record and a massive live moment Y.O.G.A’s 9 to 5 Remix became a global hit almost entirely by accident. “It’s just such a great random story,” he says. “The universe took it to a new place… and I’m just so happy we got to put it out.”

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