Title : Ukulele taking centre stage with a new, harder image
link : Ukulele taking centre stage with a new, harder image
Ukulele taking centre stage with a new, harder image
An instrument associated with holidays in Hawaii is getting a rebrand with a South Australian band.
Key points:
- The ukulele first appeared in Hawaii in the 19th century
- Ukulele Death Squad playing at first fringe ukulele festival
- More people learning the instrument
Ukulele Death Squad member Julian Ferguson said playing the instrument — which first appeared in the late 19th century in Hawaii via Portugal — is addictive.
The 30-year-old, who has been dubbed "the wild one", regularly, and often unintentionally, breaks ukuleles on stage.
"It's like a drug almost, you know, it really is like a drug when you do get on stage, who would have thought?" he said.
"I don't know what happened, there was something inside of me that really got me going and I remember chipping my tooth on the microphone and Ben [Roberts, fellow band member] was like 'that's it, you've got to take on that persona when you play'," he said.
"Ever since then, every show's like a workout session in a suit."
The ukulele had various brief moments in the spotlight, such as in Tiny Tim's song Tiptoe Through The Tulips in 1968.
But it has only recently become cool in Australia and it is the Adelaide-based Ukulele Death Squad leading the way, much to the surprise of founding member Roberts.
Ukulele stereotyped as being played in a Hawaiian shirt
"We knew it had the recipe for success, but we weren't quite expecting the amount of success that we've had, I mean we started out at the Adelaide Fringe only two years ago selling out all our shows," Roberts said.
As the band gets ready to play at Fruke Fest, the world's first fringe ukulele festival at Carclew House in North Adelaide today, Roberts sometimes looks back on a time when he did not take the instrument seriously.
"At first I was one of those people that wrongly stereotyped the ukulele being one of those happy strumming instruments, throw in a Hawaiian shirt, strum around and sing songs like You Are My Sunshine," he said.
"But after receiving enquiries about teaching it, I picked it up, had a go and realised I could do so many different things which I can't do on other instruments like guitar and banjo and mandolin."
He now has plenty of students having weekly lessons, like veteran-beginner Bruce Riley.
"I love it, it's just what's in it is just huge and the amount of things you can learn and do is amazing," Mr Riley said.
Chelsea Lloyd has only been learning for a year and is hooked.
"I like that it's quick and easy to learn," she said.
"I used to learn the flute for seven years or something and that was hard work and I kind of enjoy that you can get so much gain in so little time."
Group pave the way for ukulele popularity
Greg Cooper is a South Australian distributor of ukuleles and has witnessed firsthand the explosion in popularity.
He said the Ukulele Death Squad had played a huge part in a dramatic increase in numbers.
"These guys have taken ukuleles to an entirely new level, they've got such a high-energy, high-powered show," he said.
For Ferguson, the Ukulele Death Squad has helped pay his way through university as he studies to be a lawyer.
While he said the band members were not in it for the money, their success had forced some re-evaluation.
"The sky's kind of the limit at the moment, we're almost spoilt for choice," he said.
"We're looking at China, we're looking at India, we'd love to go to America, we've got lots of offers in Australia, a few television opportunities coming up.
"There's still countries we haven't been to yet so you know, [we] can always get bigger and can always spend more time practicing and things like that, because musically we want to get better and better all the time."
Why the name Ukulele Death Squad?
And what about that rather sinister sounding name, the Ukulele Death Squad?
Roberts said it was all about their blend of Quentin Tarantino-esque Spanish flamenco punk-style music.
"We're very energetic, we've very high energy in our performances so we really wanted to have a name that stuck," he said.
"We wanted a name to have to showcase the ukulele and then to also bring it into a light which perhaps hasn't been seen before."
After playing at the Fruke Festival, the Ukulele Death Squad has other Fringe shows and will also appear at WOMADelaide.
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