Anthony Field Early life and education Where was Anthony Field born? Field was born in Kellyville, New South Wales. Did he have any siblings? He is the youngest of seven children, What was the name of his parents? Field's mother, Marie, made sure that all of her seven children learned how to play at least one musical instrument. Where did he go to school? He attended the all-boys boarding school St. Joseph's College, Did he create any musical groups when he was young? In 1979, while they were students at St. Joseph's, he and his brothers Paul and John formed the pop group The Cockroaches. Did the Cockroaches become popular? 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".
Did the Cockroaches ever make an album?
Did the Cockroaches ever make an album?
Field was born in Kellyville, New South Wales. 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. In 1979, while they were students at St. Joseph's, he and his brothers Paul and John formed the pop group The Cockroaches. 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 field'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. His first break was as an infantry soldier, medic, and rifleman 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. 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. CANNOTANSWER
CANNOTANSWER
Anthony Donald Joseph Field, AM (born 8 May 1963) is an Australian musician, actor, songwriter and producer. 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 Australia's regular army, until they disbanded in the late 1980s.

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. Despite Field's strong dislike of touring, the Wiggles became one of the most successful and active groups in Australia. Field, whose signature color is blue while performing with the group, 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. After the departure of Cook, Fatt, and Page in 2012, he is the only remaining original Wiggle.

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

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. 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.

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.

The Wiggles
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 the mid-1990s, despite the success of the Wiggles, Field reported being suicidal and "frequently gripped by anxiety, sadness, and negativity". 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. In early 2013, Field became the only original member of the group to remain after Fatt, Cook, and Page retired. He remained in the group because he wanted to continue to educate children and as Wiggles manager Paul Field stated, "to placate American, British and Canadian business partners".

Field's musical influences include Lightning Hopkins, Elvis Presley, and the Rolling Stones. He plays several instruments, including the tin whistle, bagpipes, guitar, drums, trumpet, violin, percussion instruments and didgeridoo, and has been known to sing in a deep rich bass voice. Field, with input from the other members, produced most of the Wiggles' music, DVDs, and live shows.

Personal life
In 1999, Field was named "Bachelor of the Year" in Cleo. In 2003, he married Michaela Patisteas, a former dancer whose family owned Griffiths Coffee in Melbourne. They have three children, who have joined the Field family business by appearing in several of the Wiggles' TV shows and videos. Beginning in 2007, Field, who is a registered breeder of Miniature Fox Terriers, did voiceover work for the TV show RSPCA Animal Rescue for Channel 7 in Australia.

Field, in describing his enthusiasm for competitive sports, has stated, "My love of cricket is abiding", a sport that "instills the same loyalty and passions in me as I know baseball does for many in North America". He is a fan of the Australian rugby league club the Wests Tigers. He is also a fan of singer Julio Iglesias. As Field's fitness improved, to the point that his training regimen became comparable to that of an elite athlete, he gained an interest in gymnastics and acrobatics.

Field went public about his experience with clinical depression in mid-2007 to draw more attention to the condition. He has stated that "being on the road is a dangerous job for someone with depression," but has dealt with it through diet, exercise, talking about it, and having a good support system (including his father before his death in 1998, his wife, and his friend Murray Cook, among his bandmates). He chronicled his health struggles and how he overcame them in his 2012 book How I Got My Wiggle Back.

Field is a devout Catholic, something that he reported helped him deal with his chronic health issues and depression, especially the spiritual practices of prayer and devotion to the Virgin Mary as expressed by Our Lady of Guadalupe. He has two large tattoos on his arms: one is the Virgin Mary with the words "My life is in your hands" in Spanish; the other is a heart with the words, "My love, my heart" in Spanish. The names of his wife and his three children are also tattooed on his arms.  He admits that he got his tattoo of the Virgin, which he hid from fans for a long time, during a visit to Mexico while on tour in North America, in the middle of a bout with chronic pain and dental problems, as he put it, "in a moment of madness".

Field was made a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2010 "for service to the arts, particularly children's entertainment, and to the community as a benefactor and supporter of a range of charities".

In 2018, Field, along with fellow Wiggles member Lachlan Gillespie and band members Oliver Brian and David O'Reilly, started a band for adult fans called the Unusual Commoners, which played a mixture of traditional Australian, Irish, Scottish and folk songs.  They performed their first international show in St. John’s, Newfoundland in late 2018.

In July 2020, he and the other classic Wiggles appeared in the Soul Movers music video for "Circles Baby".

Works cited

References

External links

1963 births
APRA Award winners
Living people
The Wiggles members
Australian musicians
Macquarie University alumni
Members of the Order of Australia
Australian Roman Catholics
Tin whistle players
Bagpipe players
Banjoists
Australian people of Italian descent
Musicians from Sydney
People educated at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
Australian drummers
Male drummers
Australian male singers
Australian children's musicians
Australian bass guitarists
Australian trumpeters
Male violinists
Australian keyboardists
Australian multi-instrumentalists
Australian rock guitarists
Lead guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Australian male guitarists
A cockroach is an insect of the order Blattodea. 

Cockroach may also refer to:

Books
 Cockroach (novel), a 2008 novel by Rawi Hage
 The Cockroach (novella), a 2019 novella by Ian McEwan
 Cockroaches (novel), the second novel in the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbø

Films
 , a 2010 film by Luke Eve
 "Cockroaches" (CSI episode), an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
 Walter Bradley, aka Cockroach, a character in The Cosby Show

Music
 Cockroach (album), a 2001 album by Danger Danger
 Cockroaches (EP), a 1987 EP by Voivod
 The Cockroaches, an Australian band in the 1980s

Other
 Cockroach Labs, software company that sells CockroachDB
 Cockroach, nickname for a pro-democracy protestor during the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
 Turkish people
 Poles

See also
 Kockroach, a 2007 novel by William Lashner under the name "Tyler Knox" Paul James Field  (born 3 May 1961) is an Australian musician, filmmaker and author. He is best known as one of the founding members of the Sydney pub rock band The Cockroaches and The Field Brothers and as Managing Director for the children's music group The Wiggles.

Early life and education
Field was educated at St Joseph's College Hunters Hill, where he excelled as a rugby player and musician. Upon leaving school he attained his teaching qualification from Australian Catholic University and a diploma of religious education from Aquinas Academy in Sydney.

In the late 1970s, while still at boarding school he and his brothers John and Anthony formed the pop group The Cockroaches.  Paul was the lead vocalist for the band and also booked their first live shows in pubs in the inner city of Sydney and Kings Cross.

Career

1979–1994: The Cockroaches

The Cockroaches enjoyed some success in Australia, producing three albums, one of which, The Cockroaches, sold 100,000 copies and became platinum. The band consisted of the three Field brothers, who played guitar and vocals, fellow boarding-school student Tony Henry, who played drums, Phil Robinson on bass, and Jeff Fatt on keyboards. According to Anthony Field, Paul Field was "a picture of professional efficiency", whereas John Field was the showman of the group. John Field's performances on-stage built the Cockroaches' reputation for being a party-band, even though alcohol and drug use was never part of the band's culture. In the heyday of The Cockroaches, they played over 300 gigs a year all over Australia; according to Anthony Field, they were "one of the biggest crowd-drawing groups in Australia". Australian musicologist Ian McFarland called The Cockroaches "an in-demand pub band [that built] a sweaty, frenzied atmosphere with good old-fashioned showmanship and unpretentious, energetic rock'n'pop".

In 1988, The Daily Telegraph surveyed booking agencies and described the band as the "Hardest Working Rock 'n' Roll Band in the Country".

In September 1988, while The Cockroaches were on tour in Queensland, Field's eight-month-old daughter died of SIDS.  Her death "had a devastating effect on everyone involved", but The Cockroaches went back on tour to "create a sense of normality" and because he "had bills to pay". By early 1989, however, "nothing was ever the same again"; Anthony Field left the band to study Early Childhood Education at Macquarie University, and The Cockroaches disbanded.  Anthony formed The Wiggles in 1991, with Murray Cook, Greg Page, and fellow Cockroaches band member Jeff Fatt, and they dedicated their first album to his niece.

1996–2020: The Wiggles

In 1996, at the request of his brother Anthony, Field became the Wiggles' manager and began working with them. At first, he booked venues for the group, "mainly pre-schools, RSLs and theatres". By 2007, he produced and directed their videos and oversaw their consumer products. As manager of the Wiggles, Anthony Field has said, "I totally trust Paul; he is an honest man".

Field has expressed an appreciation for the development of the Wiggles coming out of the tragedy of his daughter's death. He has performed a song with the Wiggles called "Sleep Safe My Baby"."When I think of how much joy [The] Wiggles have brought to children, it's good to know that out of an event so horrifying, something good has come", Field has said. Field has his daughter's name tattooed on his right arm and the names of his four other children and his wife on his left arm, something his younger brother Anthony has emulated when he had the names of his three children tattooed on his arms. Paul Field's children have appeared in several of the Wiggles' videos and television programs. His son Luke Field served as tour manager and his daughter Clare Field was dance captain for The Wiggles' "Dorothy the Dinosaur Show"; both had toured with the group for most of their lives. In 2020, Field retired from his role with The Wiggles to pursue other exciting opportunities.

2011–2020: The Field Brothers
In 2011, twenty years after the last recording of The Cockroaches, Field and his brother John recorded an album, entitled 1964 because its cover featured a picture of the brothers taken that year. Their sister Maria co-wrote a track on the album, and some Cockroaches songs were re-recorded as country songs, including their hits "Some Kind of Girl", "Rely on Me", and "Permanently Single".  The album was dedicated to the Fields' parents and to Paul's oldest daughter, and reflected the previous 20 years of their lives.

2016 saw the release of The Field Brothers' second album Every Day Is Like an Elvis Movie, which featured cameos from guests including Greedy Smith (Mental As Anything).

2021: Solo career
In February 2021, Field announced he would release his first solo album, Love Songs for Lonely People, in June 2021. The album was preceded by the singles "Valentines Day", a duet with Australian country singer Kasey Chambers, a cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", with Jimmy Barnes and "This Way to Love and Happiness".

Love Songs for Lonely People was released on 4 June 2021.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Awards
Field was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the arts, particularly to children's entertainment, and as a supporter of charitable endeavours."

References

Living people
Australian songwriters
People educated at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
Musicians from Sydney
The Wiggles
Australian rock singers
Australian male singers
Australian people of Italian descent
1961 births
Members of the Order of Australia