THE OG WIGGLES - Rewiggled
(Fully) Licensed To Wiggle
Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media | Friday 28 January 2022
After taking out the number one spot in the Triple J Hottest 100 with a sensational cover of TAME IMPALA’s Elephant, the OG WIGGLES – Anthony Field, Jeff Fatt, Greg Page and Murray Cook – will be hitting the road with Wags, Dorothy, Henry and Captain Feathersword to play for a slightly taller audience than they’re used to, embarking on a number of licensed gigs for grown-up fans. Anthony and Jeff got Wiggly with SENSE.
Today marks the release of THE OG WIGGLES’ brand new cover of LIME CORDIALE single Apple Crumble out now.
Anthony Field
A year ago, Anthony Field didn’t know what the Hottest 100 was. This year, THE WIGGLES took out the number one spot. He spoke to SENSE about how it came together, the upcoming covers album, and, um, SLIPKNOT …
So how did you react when you found out about the Hottest 100 victory?
Tom, you’ve got to go back mate. This time last year, I was sitting outside on the deck and my daughter was on the deck … listening to the radio avidly. She’s a music nut. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Oh, it’s Hottest 100 day.” I’m so out of the loop, I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that she was taking this thing so seriously. She listened to it all day, and then when it got to the top ten, whoever won, she was arguing because she thought it should’ve been whoever it was. She was ringing up her friends. My niece is also a music fanatic, and they were texting each other. Because of COVID, there was no one here, and I was really enjoying it! I was getting to hear these grooves. I said to Lucia, “Next year, let’s have a barbie and do it right!” [Laughs] Next year we were in it!
You weren’t just in it, you show-off – you won it!
I couldn’t believe it. It was Bryce and Ebony from Triple J who contacted us and said that someone wants us to be part of this Like A Version. Again, I didn’t even know about that. I just play folk music – I listen to music from hundreds of years ago … I’m way out of the loop … You could choose your own track, and I thought, “OK, let’s do an Aussie track.” But I would think of heroes that I grew up with – you know, THE EASYBEATS, Johnny O’Keefe before that, THE MASTERS APPRENTICES, SKYHOOKS … He said, “No, it’s all about contemporary versions usually.” He put us onto TAME IMPALA, and mate I watched Kevin Parker sing that song, and a couple of other ones he did, and he is just such a talent, and the song is so good. It’s funny, The Australian did an article on us and said that it was a joke version. It was never a joke version. We practiced that probably six hours a day for five days. We really did. Nick was the one that said, “It’s great, but it doesn’t say “THE WIGGLES”,” and you’ve kind of got to also do that. That’s when I said, “Let’s put in that great riff from Fruit Salad.” … It’s been an amazing experience, and I knew how much Hottest 100 meant to the punters because of my daughter, and we’ve had a bit of flak after it … To be honest, I’ve been on a high. We had a party, and I never party – we had a party at home – and mate, it was a great celebration … And now, at the moment, it’s number five on the ARIA Charts, which is incredible! … [We had] a bit of flak – “How come the Wiggles [won]?” People voted. I didn’t ask them to vote! [Laughs] What do you do? People who grew up with THE WIGGLES and who love TAME IMPALA thought, “Oh, this is fun.” In COVID times, a bit of fun’s not bad, is it?
I’ve heard several people making mashups of THE WIGGLES with heavy metal or something. There was one going around where someone mashed up Fruit Salad with a song by SLIPKNOT. I don’t know if you’ve heard it.
I did. I saw it. It’s brilliant. It is so brilliant. And maybe that was in the back of my head, because in America, Fruit Salad is the most recognisable WIGGLES tune. Not Hot Potato, it’s Fruit Salad … I think that SLIPKNOT thing was in the back of my head. That was brilliant. [Laughs] There’s also been some really psychedelic mashups of our time with Steve Irwin. A guy put these videos together, which you obviously know have been made under the influence of something [laughs], but gee they’re good!
At one point you put out a post saying, “What song should we cover for Triple J?” Myself and about a thousand other people were saying, Greg! The Stop Sign! by TISM! [Laughs]
Yes! And that would’ve been great. When we first started, there were funny rumours that we were TISM. [Laughs] That would’ve been awesome. That’s a great song … It was a good suggestion mate.
It would probably be a little bit controversial to hear a Wiggle say the word “cocaine”, though I can imagine you’d change it to Wizz Fizz or something! [Laughs]
Wizz Fizz would be brilliant. We’ve done an album coming out of covers inspired by the success of the TAME IMPALA cover. We’ve done Apple Crumble by LIME CORDIALE. That had words like, something about a naked woman … We asked them if we could change it, and they were cool. It was written by Idris Elba, so we had to get his permission I think … So we changed that to something about roses. We sung Bohemian Rhapsody, and Simon just hums the words “Mama, I just killed a man,” because we couldn’t do that. We did Pub Feed by THE CHATS, and we’ve done a WHITE STRIPES song, We’re Going to be Friends … We did a lot of songs, and then Australian artists have covered us. THE CHATS did Point Your Fingers and Do the Twist, DZ DEATHRAYS have done Hot Potato, Emily Wurramara has done Dressing Up in Style, SPACEY JANE has done D.O.R.O.T.H.Y. … This is just off the top of my head – I’ve missed a few. It’s going to be an amazing album.
What is more difficult – playing for drunk adults, or for pre-schoolers?
I hope this doesn’t sound [bad], but there’s a lot of similarities! [Laughs] I hope that’s not putting our audience down. They’re both free-spirited audiences, that’s how I’ll say it. It’s not how difficult, it’s how much fun – they’re both fun in their own way. With the adult audiences you’ve really got to get it right, and that means staying true to who you are. If we went there, we would disappoint them if we started using f-bombs and stuff. We’ve got to be THE WIGGLES, you know? That’s what we did at those other couple that we’ve done, and they were so much fun.
Jeff Fatt
A household fixture for decades, OG purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt isn’t just a charming (and possibly narcoleptic) character – he was also an Asian man on the tele during the 90s, while anti-immigration sentiment was being stoked across Australian by certain flame-haired politicians. He spoke to SENSE about the Hottest 100, inclusivity, and how falling asleep almost got him killed.
So how did you react when you found out about the Hottest 100 victory?
I thought it was quite out there. It was crazy. It was a huge surprise, and it was really just a testimony to how supportive and devoted our fan base is who have grown up with us. It was a real honour to know that they were behind us.
I have a question that is really going to come out of left field here …
I like the left-field questions. [Laughs]
Alright, well brace yourself for this. I was a kid throughout the 90s, and one thing I do remember from being a kid, particularly from growing up in Tasmania, there was a lot of anti-Asian sentiment being pandered around by Pauline Hanson and stuff like that. Did you ever have to bear the brunt of that? Did that ever affect your life? Apologies if that’s a loaded question.
I can’t really say it did, but I look at my ancestors and what they’ve been through … I think, as time goes by, there tends to be less of that racism sort of thing going on, though it does flare up again when you have the Pauline Hansons and the boat people incidents and things like that. A lot of it is stirred up politically for political point-scoring and that sort of thing, and that can have a fallout on the ethnic communities, but personally I can’t really say I have borne the brunt of any of that. I guess it’s a reflection of the social circles I am naturally mixing with. I mean, I was with THE WIGGLES all through the 90s, and it was a very natural evolution of the way things occurred. I can’t really say that I have experienced it to the extent that my ancestors would have, or any new ethnic arrivals into Australia who don’t have the grasp of the language yet. That sort of thing would certainly instigate a lot of racism.
It seems strange to me, and I’m kind of hanging on the coattails of points that The Betoota Advocate bought up, that a lot of these people who are jumping up and down at the new inclusive WIGGLES … are you forgetting that you were, as a child, watching four men, including an Asian man, living in a house with no women. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Yeah, it’s an interesting thing that they get up in arms over the all-inclusive WIGGLES now, because the WIGGLES were always inclusive. I think it’s what people have grown up with and what they’re familiar with … that big change, in having the Fruit Salad TV Wiggles, I think that sort of flew in the face of what they were comfortable with. But I think, as time goes by, they’ll get used to that.
Well who cares if they don’t? Their kids will.
[Laughs] The bottom line is that we’ve always been in it for the children and the pre-schoolers, and we’ve always treated them as an audience where there’s no barriers or any delineation between people who are disabled or ethnicities or anything like that. We’ve always tried to be inclusive of everyone … Over the time that THE WIGGLES have been going, I’ve always noticed how much of a chord we’ve struck with children who are on the spectrum, and children with Down’s Syndrome and things like that. We’ve found that they are an audience who will endure with you. They will keep getting older and older, but they will still love THE WIGGLES.
You had a health scare in 2011. How did that change how you live your life?
Interesting, that one. Now I look at life as being such a gift, and the fact that you have this experience of life, it’s such a valuable and amazing thing … By the same token, I don’t fear death, except for … I fear the way that you end up dying. It’s how you get to death, that’s the thing. I pray that my death is one, ironically, where I go to sleep and don’t wake up! [Laughs]
What was that old joke? “I want to go out like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep … not screaming in terror, like his passengers.”
Absolutely! That would be the ideal way, such a gift to have. [Laughs]
My understanding is that you lost consciousness and crashed your car…
Yeah, what bought it all on … Essentially I blacked out whilst I was driving, and then as I was coming to, I was feeling quite relaxed. I was yet to understand the severity of what had gone on. In reflection, I was lucky that I wasn’t injured badly or anything like that, or that I didn’t injure anyone else. I was very lucky in that sense. The whole thing of blacking out … I felt very relaxed … I’d like to think that’s how you go when you die. [Laughs]
As I was reading it, I pictured some paramedics reviving you, and as you open your eyes, they go, “Wake up Jeff!”
[Laugh] I didn’t experience that! Possibly because they hadn’t recognised me! [Laughs]
Or they realise it was you and go, “Shit! Missed opportunity!”
Yeah! “Can we do that again?” [Laughs]
Tickets available for the Over-18 Reunion Tour on THE WIGGLES’ Official Website
Rewiggled comes out March 11
Brand new single Apple Crumble out now!