The Sea Shanty Singer is Singing His Own Songs Now

Nathan Evans had no idea when he uploaded a cover of “The Wellerman,” a whaling song with a shanty beat, that it would help touch off, well, a sea shanty tidal wave.

Mr. Evans, a Scottish singer, was working as a postal worker and living with his fiancée at her aunt’s near Glasgow to save money. But he hadn’t given up on a music career. He was slowly building an audience by singing cover songs on TikTok.

Soon, indeed, “The Wellerman” came.

Mr. Evans uploaded a somber, stripped-back version of the whaling song to TikTok in December 2020, when much of the world was still shut down. It quickly spawned a craze. There were duets and remixes, covers of sea shanties and even popular songs adapted to sea shanty cadence and collected under the hashtag #ShantyTok.

“Everyone needed a pick-me-up and sea shanties are great for that,” Mr. Evans said in a phone interview, reflecting on the moment. “It’s very inclusive. Everyone can join in.”

Sailors once used sea shanties to keep time on merchant vessels. In 2021, Mr. Evans’s shanty was used to help pass the time when few people were sailing anywhere. Much as the old shanties had, it helped build rapport and community.

It also propelled Mr. Evans, now 30, into the spotlight, and the music industry took notice.

After his video became popular, he was working his postal route when he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize. It was someone from the Universal Music Group. “I really thought one of my friends were prank calling me,” he said. “I was like, nah, this cannot be happening.”

He then made a music video for “Wellerman,” which has since been viewed 399 million times on YouTube. That led to performances at festivals and recognition from strangers on the street in Glasgow.

“Hearing so many people singing back a song I had uploaded on a TikTok is just mind-blowing,” he said.

He kept with the sea shanty theme at first, releasing an album of folk songs in 2022. But Mr. Evans doesn’t just want to be “the sea-shanty guy.” He’s been writing his own songs — a little more pop, a dash of country and folk — many of which appeared on an album, “1994,” that has been streamed more than 150 million times since it was released in November.

“Everything I’ve got right now at the moment I owe to ‘The Wellerman’ and sea shanties,” he said. “That could have ended horribly.”

The folk-inspired songs he writes still have stripped-back vocals, harmonies and choruses — the kind of tunes, he said, that people can “sing in the car.”

“It’s not a million miles away from some sea shanties,” he said. “I just wanted people to hear the real me.”

More personal milestones have happened since “The Wellerman” video. Mr. Evans and his partner moved into their own home because of his success, he said. They got married and welcomed a son, Hunter, in 2023.

His audience now stretches beyond the internet. Last month, he performed for a crowd of tens of thousands before a Six Nations Championship rugby match at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. This month, he is taking the songs from his “1994” album on tour in Europe.

“Being on the stage, that’s the happy place,” he said in an interview on the morning of a sold-out concert in Amsterdam.

“To look back on that, knowing a 60-second TikTok video is what put me there?” he said. “It’s crazy.”