From red Wiggle to soul shaker

HE may have hung up his red skivvy, but original The Wiggles member Murray Cook still has a penchant for audience participation when he performs with his band The Soul Movers.

“People are sometimes reluctant to stand up and throw their arms in the air singing, but when they do it, they really love it,” he said.

Cook fell in love with the guitar after seeing one of The Monkees playing an electric guitar on the 1960s TV show as a child and began performing in bands in the 1980s.

He met fellow The Wiggles members Greg Page and Anthony Field, who had previously been in pub rock band The Cockroaches with another Wiggle-to-be Jeff Fatt, whilst studying early childhood education at Macquarie University in Sydney.

He performed with the children’s music group they formed from 1991 to 2012, before the relentless touring finally got the better of him.

He played in various bands before connecting with his tambourine-wielding co-collaborator Lizzie Mack and joining The Soul Movers in 2015.

“When we started writing together it was really creatively fulfilling, which was what I was looking for,” he said.

The pair have a passion for retro garage and New Wave sounds — think early Blondie, Violent Femmes, B-52s.

“A lot of young people come and see us because they’re curious about what I’m up to and they have grown up with The Wiggles, then they love the band and stick around,” he said.

“It’s not The Wiggles, but it’s a good, fun rock ‘n’ roll show.

“It’s quite an interactive show – we tell stories about recording our albums.”

They include one they recorded in Muscle Shoals in Alabama, which they visited on a road trip after performing at South by Southwest conference and music festival in Austin, Texas in 2017.

They got talking to a guy outside Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, where Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin have recorded, who was the drummer in a band that was recording there.

“Lizzie mentioned that I was in The Wiggles and his grandkids loved The Wiggles,” Cook said.

With a new friendship struck, they returned the following year to record an album there. They have also recorded at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio and Al Green’s Royal Studios in Memphis.

“We were thinking, ‘what are these guys going to think of these people coming from Australia playing the style of music that we pioneered?’,” Cook said.

The Soul Movers will perform at the Mullum Roots Festival on Saturday July 12.

For more information and tickets, visit mullumrootsfest.com