Anthony Field

Anthony Donald Joseph Field (born 8 May 1963) is an Australian musician, actor, songwriter and producer.

In 1979, while they were students at St Joseph's, he and his brothers Paul and John formed the pop group the Cockroaches.

He is best known as a leader of the children's group the Wiggles and a member of the 1980s and 1990s pop band the Cockroaches.

While still a teenager, he helped found the Cockroaches with his brothers, Paul and John.

The Cockroaches recorded two albums and enjoyed moderate success, interrupted by Field's service in the Army, until they disbanded in the late 1980s.

His first break was as an infantry soldier, rifleman, stretcher bearer, and ambulance driver in the 5th/7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, Australia's regular army from 1982 to 1985.

He played the bagpipes in parades and on training missions, but ended his military service in July 1985 and suffered from a bad back as a result of his training.

He also went backpacking in the U.K., listening to roots music, to children's music by artists like Raffi, and to recordings of children's books.

In 1986 they signed with an independent label, Regular Records, which issued their first three albums, including The Cockroaches (March 1987), which peaked at No. 9 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart; it sold 70,000 copies and was certified platinum by their label.

The album spawned the single "She's the One", which became the band's biggest hit when it peaked at No. 7 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in April 1987.

When the Cockroaches disbanded in the early 1990s, Field enrolled at Macquarie University.

While at university, he decided to record an album of children's music, enlisting the assistance of fellow student and guitarist Murray Cook, former Cockroaches roadie and vocalist Greg Page, former bandmate and keyboardist Jeff Fatt, and Macquarie instructor and composer Phillip Wilcher, who later left the group.

By the mid-1990s, despite the success of the Wiggles, Field reported being suicidal and "frequently gripped by anxiety, sadness, and negativity".

Field attended Macquarie University to receive training in early childhood education, and founded the Wiggles with fellow students Murray Cook, Greg Page and former bandmate Jeff Fatt in 1991.

He worked as a preschool teacher for two years before the success of the Wiggles led him to focus on children's music full-time.

The Wiggles became one of the most successful and active groups in Australia.

Field, who wears a blue shirt while performing with the Wiggles, was responsible for the production aspects of their stage and television shows, albums, and DVDs.

His issues with chronic pain and depression, which almost forced him out of the group at the height of their success, are well-documented.

The Wiggles recorded their first CD in 1991; it sold 100,000 copies.

Field worked as a preschool teacher for two years before the success of the Wiggles and their extensive touring schedule, which he strongly disliked, forced him to quit.

After the production of their second album, the Wiggles adopted colour-coded shirts to wear on stage.

According to Field, he wore blue because Cook and Fatt already owned shirts in their colours of red and purple respectively, so he and Page "met in a Sydney department store and literally raced to see who got the blue shirt".

Page ended up wearing a yellow shirt and Field originally wore a green polo shirt, but changed to blue to avoid clashing with Dorothy the Dinosaur.

Each Wiggle developed a "schtick" based on their actual behaviours, which evolved into caricatures, and served the same purpose as the uniforms in differentiating their characters and making them memorable to young children; Field's was eating.

Field created and played the original Captain Feathersword; the role was taken over by Paul Paddick in 1996.

Field also played Wags the Dog.

By mid-2004, shortly after his marriage and the birth of his first child, Field's serious medical issues, worsened by their heavy tour schedule, caused him to consider quitting or re-inventing the Wiggles, despite their great success in the U.K. and North America.

After meeting chiropractor James Stoxen in Chicago in 2004, Field improved his health to the point that he was able to continue.

He began to hire teams of chiropractors for himself, his fellow bandmembers, and castmembers in every city they performed, which he credited with making it possible for them to fulfill their touring requirements.

After the departure of Cook, Fatt, and Page in 2012, he is the only remaining original Wiggle.

Field was born in Kellyville, New South Wales, Australia.

He is the youngest of seven children, and grew up in north western Sydney.

He came from a long line of musicians, especially the women in his family.

His great-great aunt was Queenie Paul, known for performing at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney, and his grandmother Kathleen accompanied silent movies in the mining town of Cobar.

Field's mother, Marie, made sure that all of her seven children learned how to play at least one musical instrument.

He attended the all-boys boarding school St Joseph's College, which his great-grandfather Paddy Condon, an Italian immigrant and master stonemason, helped build.

He was inspired by his sister Colleen to study early childhood education, and became convinced that teaching preschool children "was my calling".

He was also attracted to the profession's freedom, artistic nature, and lack of discipline, which was different from his experience in boarding school.

Field put off university when the Cockroaches became successful, but he was dissatisfied with touring and plagued by "perhaps irrational, but very real, feelings of inadequacy and depression".

By his mid-twenties, he decided that he did not want to tour any longer, so he took two breaks.