After I finished, I was pretty lost. It did become my identity, I was Murray from the Wiggles, Murray Wiggle.
I'd actually like to start by going back to the beginning.
We're in a room surrounded by guitars but do you remember the time you first picked one up?
I was probably about 11 or 12, I desperately wanted to play the guitar.
I talked to my parents about buying me one and they actually borrowed a relative's guitar.
It was awful, even then I knew it was an awful guitar.
So, when was it that you realised that you actually had an aptitude for it?
- Couple years ago, I guess. (Both laugh)
I'm so glad we were here for this moment.
It was an obsession but after a while I realised it wouldn't pay the bills (laughs).
Little did you know...
Well, my dad did say to me, "It's great fun playing music but you'll never make a living from it."
I had thought about teaching high school when I was younger.
But then I thought, nah you'll be teaching a bunch of kids like us. I don't wanna do that.
I went to the Australian Institute of Early Childhood and there were like 500 women and about five guys.
I was going to say, what was the reactions to this handful of guys...
Look, mostly they loved it because there should be more men in childhood education.
It is an undervalued sector.
So, as I understand it, The Wiggles debuted at a Randwick childcare centre?
Yeah, it was really quite daunting in a way. We were asking them to pay attention for half an hour.
The trick was to have things for the children to do, involve them.
So actions, dances, teaching stratagies like modelling.
The teacher just does something, dosn't say anything about it and the children will start copying them.
You just do it, you don't say this is a hot potato.
That's so funny, as soon as you started doing that I instinctively wanted to follow you.
I think that's Pavlov's dog in action right there.
- Guitars. - Oh wow, and a selection of ARIAs
- That's the gold one right? - Yeah, the gold one's the Hall of Fame.
Think we were inducted in the same year as Kylie, which was cool.
Basically we went out on the road in a Tarago with a trailer on the back, just the four of us.
We did everything, we set it up.
We played in places no one else went, really...maybe Slim Dusty.
- (Laughs) - 'Cause Slim went everywhere, he was one of our heroes for that.
I was curious about the, well, I don't know what the technical term...
- Wiggles fingers - The Wiggles fingers!
'Cause it was inspired by cricketers but I guess there was a bit of a child safety component?
The thing of being a man in early childhood, a teacher in early childhood.
You have to be aware that you can be accused of things.
Part of that is, in the photos when you've got kids there if you've got your hands doing this...
Everyone sees where your hands are, it's a shame that it's an issue but it is and you have to protect yourself.
I wanted to ask about that transition about breaking into the US.
'Cause you went from playing quite big shows in Australia to parking lots at Blockbuster.
Yeah, we did do a Blockbuster parking lot in LA to about four people.
- (Both laugh) - One of which was the publicist.
It was just fun, we enjoyed it. Then the Disney Channel in America signed us and that was what really broke us.
I think in two years we went from playing to four people to playing Madison Square Garden.
When we first met John Travolta, one of his people came into the dressing room and said,
"Mr Travolta would like to meet you if that's ok?" and we were like, Yeah!!
He came in and I went to shake his hand and he goes that won't do and gave us a big hug.
It was a weird sort of feeling that John Travolta is hugging me and I've never met him before.
One of the interesting things around that time is that um...
In the aftermath of 9/11 a lot of bands just didn't play.
But you guys did. Why was it important to you to keep playing shows during that point in history?
It was pre-Facebook so we were getting messaged on the message board on our website.
All these people saying please still come, we kind of felt a bit of an obligation.
We met some families who lost some people in the attacks.
One guy, Brian Cannizzaro, who we never knew, was coming to the show with his family at one of
these shows, they had tickets.
He was a fireman, he was one of the first responders and he was killed.
We met his family and we still keep in touch with them.
His wife, Jackie, said that to take her son's mind off of it they were watching 24 hours a day Wiggles.
To actually come to the show and meet us was some comfort.
To me, there's sort of irony to you being the soundtrack to so many families around the world.
Almost by design, it had to come at the expense of your own family.
Was that very real for you?
Yeah, yeah for about the first three years of touring we were doing 500 shows a year, multiple shows.
We're missing out on things with our children while we're entertaining everyone else's children.
So, I'd occasionally miss a birthday...well, more than occasionally.
So yeah, the irony wasn't lost on us, no.
Is this The Wiggles on the front page of the New York Times?
Yeah! That was pretty big news apparently (Laughs).
So in 2012, you stepped away from performing with the band, what was that moment like?
It was a hard decision because we still loved it, we still loved doing the shows.
But we always knew there was going to be a point where we couldn't do it anymore.
My son was doing his last few years of high school and I'd missed so much time with him.
He particularly needed me to be there.
So for the first couple years after I finished I was pretty lost.
It's hard to give up something that you've been doing for 20 years and move on.
Especially something that takes up some much of your life.
I second guessed myself a lot, I thought I might have made the wrong decision.
But it was kinda too late then (Laughs).
I had already burnt all the red skivvies, there was no way for me to turn back.
Talk me through the selection here, what have we got?
This is just some of them, there are more. I did go a little bit crazy there for a while.
How many do you have all up?
I think I have about 40 or 50. I guess there was a search for something that was meaningful to me.
And so when do The Soul Movers enter your world?
I was playing in some bands. At one stage I had about six or seven bands.
But I really felt like I needed something that was mine.
Lizzy Mack, the singer used to go to lots of gigs, I'd go to lots of gigs.
I'm 6'4, she's about 6'1 or 6'2.
So I'd always see her. We didn't know each other well but we knew each other well enough to say hello to.
Two giraffes at the back, Oh what are you doing here?
Yeah, it was a bit like that.
We just started writing songs together and she's amazing.
I'm always saying that I'm the junior partner in the songwriting but I'm happy with that.
When you get up on stage, what's the feeling you're looking for?
I don't know, it's kind of a need.
You kind of need to do it, you need to make music if you have this bug that I seem to have.
You really do feed off the audience, you get a lot of energy from them and if they get into it and dance
it spurs you on and you play better and you have a lot of fun.
You've got generations after generations that were raised on The Wiggles, right?
It might sound like a slight eulogistic question. How do you want to be remembered?
I guess, that I helped bring joy to a lot of families.
Few years ago, we were at the children's hospital and there was a dad and son that was with the dad.
He had autism.
His father said he doesn't actually speak but sometimes he'll sing a couple lines from your songs.
And Anthony knelt down to the boy and just sang 'Toot Toot Chugga Chugga' and the kid sang every word.
When we stood up again, the father was just in tears.
'Cause he said that was the most language he's ever used in his life.
I'm sort of tearing up right now because something like that is so rewarding. You remember those moments.
It's an amazing legacy.
Yeah, yeah, I really think The Wiggles is about joy, about spreading joy.
It's not a bad thing if you can do that, I think that was a pretty good life's work.
Murray, you are an absolute pleasure to talk to, thank you for taking the time.
My pleasure.