00:00:00
Speaker 1: So the Wiggles are bringing their Bouncing Balls World Tour to Adelaide this weekend. They're busy both days, Saturday and Sunday. There's three shows on both days, ten, twelve, thirty and three. And you know, in all the years of speaking to the Wiggles, I've never had the fortune of speaking to my guest today, Captain Feathersword aka Adelaide's own Paul Paddock joins me, Paul, Captain welcome.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: Oh are there great to be here?
00:00:26
Speaker 1: Lovely to have you on. You know, every time Anthony joins me and every time we speak, he always mentions, he says, Paul's from Adelaide. He South Australia's finest. So before we talk about everything that's going on, quick history lesson for us? Born?
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Where lived? Where? School? Where worked?
00:00:41
Speaker 1: Where?
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Born in elizabeth Vale, went to Elizabeth North Primary School originally then murray Bridge for a couple of years. Crafers up in the Adelaide Hills Ye and then ended up in Morphort Vale for my final years of high school. Went to where he and a high school. Then I need music at the South Straton College of Advanced Education and did a Bachelor in Classical Voice like thought I was going to be an opera singer, which didn't last very long because it was a little bit on the boring side, and then eventually auditioned for Whopper and Nier and VCA and got accepted into Wopper, which was great, amazing.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: So you and Ryan Fitzgerald Werryander's most high profile alumni.
00:01:29
Speaker 3: Well quite possibly. Surely there must be somebody else out of Wearyanda.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'll check that. What a great story. And then you started with the Wiggles. You're from the very start, Yeah, one of the ogs.
00:01:42
Speaker 3: Yes, I actually came into it after about they'd been going for about two and a half years originally, and then literally fell into it. Got to know Anthony. I was doing a musical at the time, west Side Story, and it moved from Melbourne up to Sydney, and my girlfriend at the time heard that somebody had a to rent. Turned out to be Anthony, so I'd go to see her and got to know him, and cut a long story short, he had to have an operation for and was going to be out for five weeks and asked me if I wanted to fill in for him, and I hadn't even met the other three guys at that point, so just went, yeah, sure.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: One, that's amazing, and then your magic happens.
00:02:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I was like, oh yeah, maybe I'll stick around for a year, two, five something, And here I am thirty years later.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: I don't want to aid your Paul. You were one of my kids' favorites and they're now sixteen and fourteen. Like I feel, it's crazy how fast it those.
00:02:37
Speaker 3: Anthony and I especially, you know, when we have our generation coming now with their kids to the show and it's just like wow, and they're.
00:02:47
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, you're my favorite.
00:02:48
Speaker 3: I grew up with you, and my kids still love you, and they love the new guys as well, and yeah.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: It's funny. How An a credit to you. The music stays with you forever. We've got old DVDs of when it was your birthday and we're singing Birthday Captain. It's amazing. Those ear wombs just stick with you, even the old stuff from twenty years ago.
00:03:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And of course you know, the old stuff's become popular again with particularly like the DJ Dorothy Rave parties and stuff that a lot of the old original songs have been used.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: For that and they sound great, They're amazing.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's an incredible new way of getting all of our music to the current generation.
00:03:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: Well, as we know the Wiggles adult shows go so everyone loves to lean into that nostalgia. So before we talk about it, when you come home this weekend audience full of family and friends, do you get any time off to see your loved ones.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll probably go down and see my dad. My dad's still living in Roanella, so I'll pop down and see him. But yeah, a little bit time pressed to see cousins and annies and uncles and stuff as well. So and they're all obviously all their kids have past Wiggle age now Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: Captain Featherstor it might have been a fly at the Ronella Football Club. You just never know. Amazing, Hey, you are so busy. Let's rip through everything that you're up to with the Wiggles TV. Ready Steady Wiggle is season seven.
00:04:11
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, amazing and it's amazing. New lineup, great new look. It's a really spectacular season of the show. Plenty of value for everyone, and the kids are going to love it and.
00:04:25
Speaker 1: You're getting interactive to you're breaking the fourth wall. You know, now people get involved even more.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's great because kids, it's amazing. You can we get so many videos these days through social media of parents filming their kids actually interacting with the TV because we're asking them questions and then they're answering them, and it's quite remarkable. And it's good now that we get that feedback through social media from the parents, so that we actually get to see what was obviously been happening for years. Yeah, so that's great.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, So season seven on ABC for kids in ABC I View. Then you've got Wiggle Up gide Up, which is your new toe tapping country album. Who would have ever thought you guys have played with the most amazing ever Dolly Parton and the Wiggles together.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: It's amazing, it's amazing, and it's wonderful.
00:05:17
Speaker 3: How Working nine to five lent itself perfectly to Counting one to five and she was really happy to use let us use that all the other artists as well, Dasher Wiggle Up, Giddya Up. This fabulous song, really clever, really well written and awvil peck, you know, just the lineups amazing.
00:05:37
Speaker 1: But I'm listening to to the Slim Dusty one thinking did you record it pre passing? Is that just magic of music?
00:05:44
Speaker 3: Well, no, we had we had an album many many years ago, twenty plus years ago, the Wiggly Western, and we did a few country songs throughout that and just happened to record that with Slim Dusty and so we kept his vocal exactly the same and just swapped it in with the New Wiggles and it's worked out a treat.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: It's really good.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: God, it's amazing. You must be the most well oiled, well drilled, well disciplined team poets. It's phenomenal how much stuff is on the go.
00:06:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just keeps going to make.
00:06:19
Speaker 3: As soon as you know, we finish filming the country DVD, that will start on the next project, and then we're touring in the UK and America later in the year, and then you know, all of a sudden, it's the end of the year and we're doing our big show again. So we'll be back in Adelaide.
00:06:36
Speaker 1: And that's right. And so this is the new tour, this is the Bouncing Balls World Tour, which you're kicking off here in Adelaide. So I'm sure you've got some kind of input in that, you know, the greatest city in the country.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Exactly, Radelaide, as we all know, yes, exactly.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Is it the best? I mean, as fun as the TV shows would be to put together, as fun as the albums would be to make. It's all about going on the road, isn't it getting that instant feedback looking at to the crowd.
00:07:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I've always loved the live performance part of this job the most. It's having that immediate feedback seeing how the children react to what we're doing, and the parents enjoying watching their kids enjoying and enjoying themselves as well.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: Hopefully. It's a wonderful format.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: And you know, especially when we do these sorts of shows that are a little smaller than the entertainment shows at entertainment center shows at the end of the year, there's more immediate, closer feedback with the audience, which is great.
00:07:34
Speaker 1: It's so funny when you think about where your life could have gone had you become that opera singer, and yet here you are playing to bigger crowds than most musicians ever get the opportunity to do so.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: Exactly right, and who would have ever thought that? Like I remember one of my early phrases was, oh yeah, I might stick it out for one to five years or something. And at the time I was still had an agent, and I was still auditioning for other parts. And then it was right at that point where we hit Disney Channel in America and we just took off and all of a sudden there was no time for anything else. And we were doing three five week tours a year in America to you know, stadium sized crowds in hockey arenas and.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: All that sort of stuff.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: And then we're going to England every year as well, and it was it just went crazy ballistic.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: When you when you go out and about. I had many moons ago, my daughter would have been she I want to say, four or five. And the Wiggles were kind enough to come into the station for me on a weekend Lucky Simon, Emma and Anthony at the time. But they all came in civilian clothes and my four year old flipped because she didn't understand. She couldn't comprehend, her little brain couldn't quite compute who they were. Can you get around as Paul, are you are you? I mean, your face is so recognizable, but I guess, without the hat, without the patch, without the feather sword, can you actually enjoy somewhat anonymity or are you just getting bailed up by kids all the time.
00:09:04
Speaker 3: No, it's probably probably one of the most fortunate parts of being this character. It seems that a hat and a page, if you want to, you know, rob a bank or something, put on a patch in the hat, nobody seems to know.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: Who you are. I remember when we were doing shows at Madison Square Garden there would be a huge.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: Line of people waiting to say hi after the show, which is which is great, and that's absolutely fabulous, and it's great to see them all. But I had an appointment I had to get to. So I jumped off the stage and walked out with the crowd and just listened to everything that they were saying about the show, how they loved it, and how you know who was their favorite character? Walking with everyone, and nobody had a clue that I was in amongst them, which was great.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: Well, that is a win win, isn't it. We are looking forward to You're always a joy to see when you're here. The highly anticipated Bouncing Balls World to It kicks off here in Adelaide, I've seen the balls on the post. Tell me you're channeling your worry Andy, you're Ranella wine flies. You just kicking barrels out into the audience. Is there some kind I know you're not allowed to give too much away.
00:10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm really big balls and just getting them as far as we can the audience. It's quite amazing how you'll watch somebody and they'll hit it and they'll expect that it's going to continue going one direction, and then three seconds later it hits them in the back of the head and they just, thank God, they're just inflatable beach balls.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: It's all good, excellent, well that plus all the classic songs the new album. Paul, lovely to meet. Your first and foremost congratulations on what you're doing is you know, Adeladian is very proud of anyone that has an association with this town. You were doing the South and the North particularly very proud. So we're on on that welcome home. We look forward to seeing you this weekend and have a great world tour.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Lee, Thanks thanks for having me on.
00:10:45
Speaker 1: Paul Paddick aka Captain Feathersword. It is the wiggle up, giddy up, that's the name of the album. The tour is called Bouncing Balls and it's here this weekend, Saturday Sunday, six shows for your folks. You can go ten, twelve thirty or three Saturday or Sunday. Maybe you could even go to all six of them.
Speaker 1: So the Wiggles are bringing their Bouncing Balls World Tour to Adelaide this weekend. They're busy both days, Saturday and Sunday. There's three shows on both days, ten, twelve, thirty and three. And you know, in all the years of speaking to the Wiggles, I've never had the fortune of speaking to my guest today, Captain Feathersword aka Adelaide's own Paul Paddock joins me, Paul, Captain welcome.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: Oh are there great to be here?
00:00:26
Speaker 1: Lovely to have you on. You know, every time Anthony joins me and every time we speak, he always mentions, he says, Paul's from Adelaide. He South Australia's finest. So before we talk about everything that's going on, quick history lesson for us? Born?
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Where lived? Where? School? Where worked?
00:00:41
Speaker 1: Where?
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Born in elizabeth Vale, went to Elizabeth North Primary School originally then murray Bridge for a couple of years. Crafers up in the Adelaide Hills Ye and then ended up in Morphort Vale for my final years of high school. Went to where he and a high school. Then I need music at the South Straton College of Advanced Education and did a Bachelor in Classical Voice like thought I was going to be an opera singer, which didn't last very long because it was a little bit on the boring side, and then eventually auditioned for Whopper and Nier and VCA and got accepted into Wopper, which was great, amazing.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: So you and Ryan Fitzgerald Werryander's most high profile alumni.
00:01:29
Speaker 3: Well quite possibly. Surely there must be somebody else out of Wearyanda.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'll check that. What a great story. And then you started with the Wiggles. You're from the very start, Yeah, one of the ogs.
00:01:42
Speaker 3: Yes, I actually came into it after about they'd been going for about two and a half years originally, and then literally fell into it. Got to know Anthony. I was doing a musical at the time, west Side Story, and it moved from Melbourne up to Sydney, and my girlfriend at the time heard that somebody had a to rent. Turned out to be Anthony, so I'd go to see her and got to know him, and cut a long story short, he had to have an operation for and was going to be out for five weeks and asked me if I wanted to fill in for him, and I hadn't even met the other three guys at that point, so just went, yeah, sure.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: One, that's amazing, and then your magic happens.
00:02:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I was like, oh yeah, maybe I'll stick around for a year, two, five something, And here I am thirty years later.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: I don't want to aid your Paul. You were one of my kids' favorites and they're now sixteen and fourteen. Like I feel, it's crazy how fast it those.
00:02:37
Speaker 3: Anthony and I especially, you know, when we have our generation coming now with their kids to the show and it's just like wow, and they're.
00:02:47
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, you're my favorite.
00:02:48
Speaker 3: I grew up with you, and my kids still love you, and they love the new guys as well, and yeah.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: It's funny. How An a credit to you. The music stays with you forever. We've got old DVDs of when it was your birthday and we're singing Birthday Captain. It's amazing. Those ear wombs just stick with you, even the old stuff from twenty years ago.
00:03:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And of course you know, the old stuff's become popular again with particularly like the DJ Dorothy Rave parties and stuff that a lot of the old original songs have been used.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: For that and they sound great, They're amazing.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's an incredible new way of getting all of our music to the current generation.
00:03:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: Well, as we know the Wiggles adult shows go so everyone loves to lean into that nostalgia. So before we talk about it, when you come home this weekend audience full of family and friends, do you get any time off to see your loved ones.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll probably go down and see my dad. My dad's still living in Roanella, so I'll pop down and see him. But yeah, a little bit time pressed to see cousins and annies and uncles and stuff as well. So and they're all obviously all their kids have past Wiggle age now Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: Captain Featherstor it might have been a fly at the Ronella Football Club. You just never know. Amazing, Hey, you are so busy. Let's rip through everything that you're up to with the Wiggles TV. Ready Steady Wiggle is season seven.
00:04:11
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, amazing and it's amazing. New lineup, great new look. It's a really spectacular season of the show. Plenty of value for everyone, and the kids are going to love it and.
00:04:25
Speaker 1: You're getting interactive to you're breaking the fourth wall. You know, now people get involved even more.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's great because kids, it's amazing. You can we get so many videos these days through social media of parents filming their kids actually interacting with the TV because we're asking them questions and then they're answering them, and it's quite remarkable. And it's good now that we get that feedback through social media from the parents, so that we actually get to see what was obviously been happening for years. Yeah, so that's great.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, So season seven on ABC for kids in ABC I View. Then you've got Wiggle Up gide Up, which is your new toe tapping country album. Who would have ever thought you guys have played with the most amazing ever Dolly Parton and the Wiggles together.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: It's amazing, it's amazing, and it's wonderful.
00:05:17
Speaker 3: How Working nine to five lent itself perfectly to Counting one to five and she was really happy to use let us use that all the other artists as well, Dasher Wiggle Up, Giddya Up. This fabulous song, really clever, really well written and awvil peck, you know, just the lineups amazing.
00:05:37
Speaker 1: But I'm listening to to the Slim Dusty one thinking did you record it pre passing? Is that just magic of music?
00:05:44
Speaker 3: Well, no, we had we had an album many many years ago, twenty plus years ago, the Wiggly Western, and we did a few country songs throughout that and just happened to record that with Slim Dusty and so we kept his vocal exactly the same and just swapped it in with the New Wiggles and it's worked out a treat.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: It's really good.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: God, it's amazing. You must be the most well oiled, well drilled, well disciplined team poets. It's phenomenal how much stuff is on the go.
00:06:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just keeps going to make.
00:06:19
Speaker 3: As soon as you know, we finish filming the country DVD, that will start on the next project, and then we're touring in the UK and America later in the year, and then you know, all of a sudden, it's the end of the year and we're doing our big show again. So we'll be back in Adelaide.
00:06:36
Speaker 1: And that's right. And so this is the new tour, this is the Bouncing Balls World Tour, which you're kicking off here in Adelaide. So I'm sure you've got some kind of input in that, you know, the greatest city in the country.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Exactly, Radelaide, as we all know, yes, exactly.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Is it the best? I mean, as fun as the TV shows would be to put together, as fun as the albums would be to make. It's all about going on the road, isn't it getting that instant feedback looking at to the crowd.
00:07:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I've always loved the live performance part of this job the most. It's having that immediate feedback seeing how the children react to what we're doing, and the parents enjoying watching their kids enjoying and enjoying themselves as well.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: Hopefully. It's a wonderful format.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: And you know, especially when we do these sorts of shows that are a little smaller than the entertainment shows at entertainment center shows at the end of the year, there's more immediate, closer feedback with the audience, which is great.
00:07:34
Speaker 1: It's so funny when you think about where your life could have gone had you become that opera singer, and yet here you are playing to bigger crowds than most musicians ever get the opportunity to do so.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: Exactly right, and who would have ever thought that? Like I remember one of my early phrases was, oh yeah, I might stick it out for one to five years or something. And at the time I was still had an agent, and I was still auditioning for other parts. And then it was right at that point where we hit Disney Channel in America and we just took off and all of a sudden there was no time for anything else. And we were doing three five week tours a year in America to you know, stadium sized crowds in hockey arenas and.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: All that sort of stuff.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: And then we're going to England every year as well, and it was it just went crazy ballistic.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: When you when you go out and about. I had many moons ago, my daughter would have been she I want to say, four or five. And the Wiggles were kind enough to come into the station for me on a weekend Lucky Simon, Emma and Anthony at the time. But they all came in civilian clothes and my four year old flipped because she didn't understand. She couldn't comprehend, her little brain couldn't quite compute who they were. Can you get around as Paul, are you are you? I mean, your face is so recognizable, but I guess, without the hat, without the patch, without the feather sword, can you actually enjoy somewhat anonymity or are you just getting bailed up by kids all the time.
00:09:04
Speaker 3: No, it's probably probably one of the most fortunate parts of being this character. It seems that a hat and a page, if you want to, you know, rob a bank or something, put on a patch in the hat, nobody seems to know.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: Who you are. I remember when we were doing shows at Madison Square Garden there would be a huge.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: Line of people waiting to say hi after the show, which is which is great, and that's absolutely fabulous, and it's great to see them all. But I had an appointment I had to get to. So I jumped off the stage and walked out with the crowd and just listened to everything that they were saying about the show, how they loved it, and how you know who was their favorite character? Walking with everyone, and nobody had a clue that I was in amongst them, which was great.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: Well, that is a win win, isn't it. We are looking forward to You're always a joy to see when you're here. The highly anticipated Bouncing Balls World to It kicks off here in Adelaide, I've seen the balls on the post. Tell me you're channeling your worry Andy, you're Ranella wine flies. You just kicking barrels out into the audience. Is there some kind I know you're not allowed to give too much away.
00:10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm really big balls and just getting them as far as we can the audience. It's quite amazing how you'll watch somebody and they'll hit it and they'll expect that it's going to continue going one direction, and then three seconds later it hits them in the back of the head and they just, thank God, they're just inflatable beach balls.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: It's all good, excellent, well that plus all the classic songs the new album. Paul, lovely to meet. Your first and foremost congratulations on what you're doing is you know, Adeladian is very proud of anyone that has an association with this town. You were doing the South and the North particularly very proud. So we're on on that welcome home. We look forward to seeing you this weekend and have a great world tour.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Lee, Thanks thanks for having me on.
00:10:45
Speaker 1: Paul Paddick aka Captain Feathersword. It is the wiggle up, giddy up, that's the name of the album. The tour is called Bouncing Balls and it's here this weekend, Saturday Sunday, six shows for your folks. You can go ten, twelve thirty or three Saturday or Sunday. Maybe you could even go to all six of them.
