Anthony Field Photo: MARK DAVIS
Before Anthony Field was the famous 'Blue Wiggle', he was in a band fresh out of school with his brothers, called The Cockroaches. Those bandmates gave him the nickname 'Happy'.
"When I left school I would experiment with alcohol - some people get happy, some people get violent, but I was getting sad which wasn't much fun for people around me," Field recalls on RNZ's Nine to Noon where he talks to Kathryn Ryan about his new memoir Out of The Blue.
Out of the Blue, by Anthony Field. Photo: supplied
Field, 61, is a founding member of the Australian children's musical supergroup The Wiggles. He's the blue one - and the last remaining of the original foursome.
The band has had phenomenal success: selling more than 30 million albums and DVDs, and more than eight million books. The Wiggles' YouTube channel has nearly four million subscribers.
For more than 30 years, Field and his bandmates have toured the world, entertaining children.
But through much of that time, he has experienced chronic pain and at times debilitating depression.
Anthony Field, the original blue Wiggle, with one of the more recent crews of Wiggles bandmates, from left, Emma, Simon and Lachie. Photo: creative commons - wikicommons - Spasmsmash
Field is the youngest of seven children and when he was growing up his dad worked long hours as a pharmacist in western Sydney. He remembers a happy childhood in a housing commission house, with three kids in one room, four in the other.
"I really loved my life as a child.
"But I had to fight for the old attention for sure."
It was when he went to boarding school as a teenager that the negative feelings began to take hold.
"With my personality it didn't suit me really well, you had to really conform to a certain way of thinking and I was all over the shop, so it was really hard. But it was hard for a lot of children in those days, with corporal punishment."
It was his dad who first noticed the struggles with mental health. His dad enlisted the help of a psychologist, a doctor that Field still sees 36 years later.
"He (Dad) was great with me, he basically told me about what mental health was because no one ever spoke about it."
But on stage - it's a different story.
"We've done over 5500 shows over the years and I cannot tell you one time I didn't enjoy it," Field says.
"On stage you're not alone, working with the men and women on stage that are part of The Wiggles and looking out and seeing the families ... it's a real show for us in the audience ... the children's energy is just contagious."
It was almost by accident that Field ended up with this huge career. After a three-year-stint in the army (which he puts down to a random recruitment that could have been a sign of his ADHD - "years later I got diagnosed with ADHD and I think it's a classic example of not thinking of the consequences") Field planned to join the police.
Instead, he found himself signing up with his sister in early childhood education.
"I had been in the world of men ... for the last three years. I had only seen men everywhere. I dropped off my sister to do this test and there were women everywhere, so I thought, 'ok I am going to do this'.
"That was the original reason, I had no interest in early childhood. But then I started doing the course and something clicked in me in this course, which was about empowering children, the value of creativity, music. It was based on the child's development ... as the course went on I didn't want to leave.
"I was loving what it was about and also the music education for children .... talking about songs are made for listening, for singing, for playing, for dancing. There was also different ways you could write a song ... it informed me of how to talk to children in the classroom which led to The Wiggles."
He met most of his original bandmates while studying at Sydney's Macquarie University and the boldly coloured, finger wiggling foursome went on to become one of the most popular children's bands of all time. But it came at a cost. Field would spend nine months a year on the road in the US. His son, Antonio, developed anxiety, worried his dad would not be coming home.
The most recent gang of The Wiggles tours with up to eight members. Photo: The Wiggles / Facebook
It wasn't till Covid hit that Field was forced to take a break.
"The best thing that ever happened to me, and I know it was a terrible thing for other people .. .but Covid for me was the first time I got off the road for any length of time. It was the first time I really got to know know children, and my wife too.
"The Wiggles for him (Antonio) were like 'took my dad away'.
"He's a really talented guitar player and drummer and he would never consider coming to see The Wiggles or playing with The Wiggles or just jamming with me, until after Covid.
"And last year he came to me and said 'Can I jam with you guys?' and it was like the best moment of my life because I realised The Wiggles were not the enemy taking Dad away more."
