Whether your family is new to Wiggle Town or familiar with the colorful creators, The Wiggles’ latest album will entertain (and educate!) the whole crew.
The Wiggles recently released The Tree of Wisdom, which features 25 tasteful tunes that teach alongside a silly, nature-themed character. The album is accompanied by the group’s upcoming Australian and European tour, with a North American tour announcement coming soon.
If concerts aren’t in the cards yet, The Wiggles have also branched out with direct-to-parent content through their podcast, “Wiggle Talk.” The parenting podcast, hosted by Simon Pryce (the Red Wiggle) and Lachlan Gillespie (the Purple Wiggle), covers a wide range of topics within the realm of parenting, from selecting toys and establishing bedtime routines to managing allergies and coping with grief. It often features special guests, including doctors, childhood experts, and celebrities.
We sat down with Simon Pryce to discuss the new album, the tour, and “Wiggle Talk” — plus, we needed to know how the group creates music that parents are happy to hear on repeat!
The Tree of Wisdom album is now available, and The Wiggles just celebrated their 100th album release with Wiggle and Learn. How does the team keep the music fresh for kids and parents?
The Wiggles [have always] introduced a whole different range of musical styles, and that can be from all over the world … we’re always pulling music and influences from all different countries and styles. And I think that keeps it fresh for us, but also really keeps it fresh for our audience and particularly for parents.
We want to make sure that we’re creating music that parents will enjoy. Even if we’re redoing a nursery rhyme, we’ll orchestrate and arrange it in a kind of cool way, something that parents actually want to listen to as well.
The Bouncing Balls tour in North America just concluded, and The Tree of Wisdom tour is coming soon. How will it differ from past tours?
The Tree of Wisdom has been around for a few years, but over the last 12 months, particularly through socials, has gone viral. That’s due to his dance moves. Even with the Bouncing Balls tour, a lot of parents and children were coming dressed up as the Tree of Wisdom. So, we decided to frame this next tour around the tree and his dance moves. We’ve written some new songs. The Wiggles are always evolving and always writing [about things that children are experiencing].
How should parents approach a concert with children?
[We understand that] getting your children out of the house on time, anywhere, is a major achievement. I suggest leave quite a bit of time, but usually the venues are set up with things like pram [stroller] parking, and they’re very accommodating of families and children … we’re also very aware that a lot of times this is a child’s first experience coming to a big audience. A lot of people, there’s music, a lot of stimulation … we really try to make sure that we’re really engaging. The music is loud, but it’s not like a rock concert … it’s very accommodating for our audience.
Characters like the Tree of Wisdom and Captain Feather Sword add a different dynamic to the show. How do you guys incorporate them into your Wiggles world, and how do you come up with these characters that are really going to hit home with kids?
Anthony [Field], Murray [Cook], and Greg [Page] were early childhood teachers. That’s how The Wiggles all started. And when they started The Wiggles, Murray came in one day and said, ‘We have to have a dinosaur, children love dinosaurs.’ And so it really evolved from that understanding of what children get into. Children are innately the same as they have been, they go through the same likes and dislikes.
[The Tree of Wisdom] is a classic because children have no inhibitions, so the tree has no inhibitions. We don’t have any inhibitions about what we do. If we are feeling embarrassed about what we do, then it’s not going to resonate with our audience at all. They’re going to feel that, they’re going to see it. So, the Tree is a classic example of just letting yourself loose and letting yourself go. And then all the love and the enjoyment follows, because of his energy, because he’s just fun. And there’s nothing wrong with just having fun.
You have prior experience as a performer in live shows like The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. How do you incorporate that into your Wiggles performances?
There’s a great thing about The Wiggles — you bring yourself to it, and whatever skills and talents and who we are as people is who we are as a Wiggle. Being able to introduce more classical music, more orchestral kind of music, and more opera singing into The Wiggles, because that’s more of my background, it’s a really nice thing for children to experience that … it might be the first time they’ve ever heard it. It might be, at that age, that they might actually listen … and start form a love for classical music, orchestral music, and operatic singing. And so that’s kind of the beauty of what we do as well, that we’re all our own people. We’re not trying to be anybody else, we’re just ourselves.
You co-host a podcast called ‘Wiggle Talk’ with your fellow performers and special guests. How did this start, and how do you decide what to discuss?
It really started because Lachy [Gillespie] and I were asking each other a lot of questions [about parenting], and we didn’t have a lot of answers. It was reassuring to know that we were both going through similar things … we thought ‘if we’re having these discussions, I’m assuming other parents are having them too.’
Because The Wiggles have been around for 34 years, the parents who grew up with The Wiggles have children themselves, and this wonderful kind of life that The Wiggles have been part of, it was a way for us to really directly talk to the parents, which we hadn’t done much before, but we could do it authentically because Lachy and I are now parents.
What we try to do is give really practical advice to parents, real practical tools to help them in certain situations. And we’re all learning. We have a segment where people can either put in a voice memo or write emails to ask questions, because we want to be as interactive as possible in really answering the questions that parents of young toddlers have.
We have to talk toys! Are there any upcoming Wiggles-themed toys or items that you’re excited about? Something that you want to see parents bring into their homes, to the car, or even the concert?
There’s been a bit going on in Wiggle Town. We’re now making our own toys, which is a new thing for us, it’s part of what’s behind this new online store. There will be the classic range of your plush and stuff, but we’re a band, [so there will be] guitars and instruments, all those kinds of things, which really encourage what we were talking about before, that love of music and play. Children at the age of our audience are all about learning through play, and toys can really help facilitate that.
In addition to tours and albums, The Wiggles also appear on shows, YouTube series, and more. Where should parents start when getting into world of The Wiggles?
The world of The Wiggles has always been based around our music, and I think that’s the way you start. From that, you can feed into YouTube [series and episodes].
I’d start and just put the music on, the way we write our songs, they’re always developmentally appropriate for the stages in a child’s life. ‘Rock-A-Bye Your Bear,’ for example: Everybody clap, everybody sing. It’s very simple, but it’s understanding the marriage between lyric and action, word and action. I remember when my little boy, Asher, for the first time when he listened to ‘everybody clap’ [and clapped]. That’s a milestone actually for a child.
Families can listen to The Tree of Wisdom and Wiggle Talk on major streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and more. To find free activities, concert details, and more information about The Wiggles, visit thewiggles.com.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
