Wiggles of joy as Australia's Fab Four mark 20 years on job

By Sid Astbury Jul 20, 2011, 5:10 GMT

Sydney - The Wiggles, into their third decade as the world's most successful children's entertainers, started out as a clean-living Australian rock band with a slightly different brand: The Cockroaches.

The band consisted of the three Field brothers - Paul, John and Anthony - along with keyboardist Jeff Fatt, now better-known as the Wiggle in the purple jumper. They toured, had hit singles and even wrote the soundtrack for a Russell Crowe movie.

Lessons learned on the road were used to craft an outfit that has sold more than 36 million CDs, DVDs and books.

The Wiggles are the top-earning Australian act, out-earning Crowe and fellow actor Nicole Kidman.

The Fab Four - now consisting of Fatt, Anthony Field (blue), Murray Cook (red) and Sam Moran (yellow) - own the rights to all their material and finance everything themselves.

Paul Field has hung up his monochrome jumper and is now the business brains behind the enterprise. There are live shows, album sales, films, merchandising and endorsement deals to wring more dollars from the franchise.

Music is still at the heart of what they do. Each year, The Wiggles shut themselves up in their Sydney studios for several weeks to write new material.

'The Wiggles' music isn't all that removed from what we did in The Cockroaches, just a different subject matter,' musical collaborator John Field said. 'The Cockroaches sing about girls and love and stuff like that. The Wiggles sing about hot potatoes and cold spaghetti.'

Part of their staying power is that their short and catchy tunes are in a variety of styles. They do folk, they do rock and they do orchestral.

The Wiggles show their provenance as a rock group by having Murray Cook on stage with his guitar. He has wondered aloud whether he has been the inspiration for any of those who front today's rock groups.

Three of the original Wiggles were students together at university in Sydney. Three of the few men among the 500 women studying for an early childhood education degree, they cut their first album as part of a course assignment.

After graduating, they were schoolteachers for a while, giving up their day jobs to become full-time entertainers in 1993.

Anthony Field said a grounding in educational theory has served them well.

'A lot of what we do comes from a child's perspective,' he said. 'It's got a lot to do with what songs are about and the language we use.'

'From the start, we gave a lot of thought to what was appropriate for children's music,' he said.

In 2003, they played 12-consecutive sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, beating a record set by Bruce Springsteen. More than half their income comes from the United States, where they tour three times a year.

The lads endeared themselves to Americans by continuing to tour in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

They earned plaudits in Britain, too, touring there right after the 2005 London bombings. As was pointed out at the time, the giggly Wiggles went where national sports teams said they were afraid to go.

Fatt is 58, recovering from heart surgery and not on the bill of the current US tour. Four years ago, Greg Page handed his yellow shirt to Sam Moran, pleading illness prevented him from going on the road.

The Cockroaches lasted 12 years, The Beatles were around for only 10. How long will The Wiggles go for?

'We've been around for a long time, and I think we're in it for the long haul, so we'll plough on,' Cook said in 2007 when Page quit the band.

To mark 20 years in the entertainment business, the band plans to put on 50 shows in Australia this year. The Big Birthday in the Big Tent tour features just that: a big tent.

'Moving out of arenas gives us the chance to get up close and personal with our wiggly audience,' Anthony Field said. 'People are going to love that. It's sort of like that circus tent atmosphere.'