Tony O'Connor was born in 1961. BT Fasmer of "New Age Music Guide" observed, "Nature was very important to Tony. He used nature sounds quite heavily in his music, which added both life and context. He even stopped songs in the middle to feature nature sounds. For him birds singing or sounds of waves had a special musical quality... His music will be of special interest for fans of Medwyn Goodall and Clifford White, which both debuted in the late 1980s." In the mid-1980s O'Connor moved to the Sunshine Coast hinterland with his then-girlfriend Jacqui O'Rourke