When Murray Cook takes to the stage with vocal powerhouse Lizzie Mack fronting their retro soul-rock band, the Soul Movers, it's with the same energy and optimism that drove the Wiggles meteoric rise to worldwide stardom.

"One of the tricks I've taken from the Wiggles is that you have to get everyone involved. There's bits that you can sing along to and lots of different dances," he says.

Cook settled in Enmore, in Sydney's inner west, with his wife Meg Munro and their children Hamish and Georgia - who both attended Newtown High School of the Performing Arts - about 20 years ago while still riding the Wiggles wave.

"There's a lot of charm in the inner west, a lot of diversity. It really hit home one day when I pulled up at the lights at the top of Enmore Road, and you could see people of all backgrounds, and I just thought, I love this place. There's so much tolerance and acceptance. I can't see myself leaving," he says.

Although Cook spent his childhood in Cowra and Orange, he sees himself as an inner west local through-and-through. It was in the 1980s, while studying at Sydney University, that Murray first lived in the inner west, in a share-house on Australia Street in Newtown.

"When I first moved here, Newtown and Camperdown weren't really the cool places to be - that was more Darlinghurst and Surry Hills. I remember a new venue opened on King Street and they put out a flyer on how to get here which said 'plenty of parking'," he says.

"Newtown's changed quite a lot but it still has that vibe it had when I first came here, Enmore has grown a lot too. Now you can just walk out the door and there are places to eat, it's really vibrant."

It was at the Enmore theatre where Cook and Mack - who both often attended gigs around Sydney - first met. "I think it was a Sunnyboys show - we were both so tall we could see each other over the crowd," says Mack.

The Soul Movers were formed in 2008 by Lizzie and her then-partner, Deniz Tek of rock icons Radio Birdman. They recorded one album in 2009, On The In Side, before Deniz and Lizzie parted ways and the group went into a hiatus.

"I'd seen Lizzie at gigs but I didn't know she sang, and when I heard her album I thought she was amazing. So I contacted her through Facebook and said 'I'd love to make some music with you'," says Cook.

It was "good timing" when Cook reached out to Mack in 2015, she says, because the guitar player she'd been working with was leaving for Europe and they were just about to play their first gig without a guitarist. In stepped Cook, and the pair's collaboration blossomed from there with the Soul Movers becoming Cook's main creative outlet.

"We were just playing other songs and jamming, but I suggested we put the wheels back on the Soul Movers and do some of the old songs and write some new ones and the rest is history," says Cook.

"It's pretty retro music but we've found that a lot of young people really love it too. Even though we're an older band we do get a younger audience."

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Since teaming up, Murray and Lizzie have worked on three albums together as the core members of the Soul Movers - Testify! in 2017, Bona Fide in 2019 and Evolution in 2021 - all released under ABC Music. This year they're back on tour, picking up shows which had to be postponed during lockdown.

"The music industry has really suffered because there wasn't that much support for it. The bands couldn't tour, venues couldn't open, so it's been really nice that it's opening up a bit now," Cook says. "We love just getting in the van and going on the road. Coming out of lockdown you don't take anything for granted - playing shows, rehearsing, all those moments with the band."

Adds Mack: "It's nice to be groovy and current, and on the Splendour [in the Grass] stage and doing shows like that."

As we're standing outside Enmore Theatre taking photos for Inner West Review, a passerby calls out from across the street: "Hey Murray!" It may be a decade since Cook moved on from the Wiggles, but those original, now grown-up fans never forget.

"At [the Soul Mover] shows quite often we get Wiggles fans coming along just to check it out but then they get into our music. It's funny at those shows - you get some 6 foot 5 guy with tattoos and a beard asking for a hug,"

As well as the gigs he's playing with the Soul Movers, Cook's busy on a sell-out stadium tour in capital cities around Australia with the 'OG Wiggles' - Anthony Field, Jeff Fatt and Greg Page. "I think OG is supposed to be original but everyone just says "old guy" because that's what we are," says Cook.

The group formed in 1991 when Field, Page and Cook were studying early childhood education together at Macquarie University. They skyrocketed to success, fast becoming one of Australia's largest cultural exports and selling more than 23 million DVDs and 7 million CDs. The group were even made Members of the Order of Australia in 2010 "for service to the arts".

"I've known [Anthony, Greg and Jeff] for so long and we've spent so much time together, we're like brothers. When we were touring a lot I spent much more time with them than I did with my family," says Cook.

"Last year was going to be our big year because it was our 30th anniversary, but with COVID we couldn't do the tour we wanted to do and there was a lot we couldn't do."

Last month they played a huge show in Melbourne and on April 23 they'll be playing at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. There's no twist on the show - it's just good, clean Wiggles fun like the audience of 20-somethings remember from their childhood. It's the innocence and nostalgia of the music that resonates with the crowd.

"They dress up, they bring us gifts and they make signs like they did when they were little kids. It's so joyous. The manager of Rod Laver Arena said it's the most joy he's ever seen in an audience. We play it straight, it's just innocence," says Cook.

"My daughter, who's 28, came to one of the club shows and she said it's just so great, because everyone knows every song really well because when they were little they listened to them over and over and drove their parents crazy."

Although she "knew nothing about the Wiggles" when she first met Cook, Mack speaks with a lot of admiration about her bandmate's musical legacy and how he helped shape generations of young Australians.

"They changed Australia for two generations of kids. The people we get mobbed by at Soul Movers shows are anywhere between 17 and 30, the expression they have on their face is always the same and they always say the same thing: 'you were my childhood'," she says.

Cook left the Wiggles at the end of 2012, handing the red skivvy over to his understudy and long-time voice artist for the group's CDs, Simon Pryce. Of the original Wiggles, only blue Wiggle Anthony Field remains in the band, leaving a new generation of entertainers to take the reins. Some of the members, like the newest yellow Wiggle, 16-year-old Tsehay Hawkins, were fans of the Wiggles as kids.

"I'm really proud of the fact the band went on after we left, it shows the strength of the concept and the philosophy behind it. When Greg, Jeff and I left at the end of 2012 it took a little while for the next lot to catch on, but as new generations came along they grew up with the newer members," says Cook.

But the original Wiggles are still "very much involved" with the band, and even came together with the new members to record ReWiggled, which became the first Wiggles album to hit No. 1 on the ARIA charts when it was released last month.

The first half of the album sees popular bands cover songs by the Wiggles - some of Murray's favourites are Polish Club's cover of Apples and Bananas and DZ Deathrays' cover of Hot Potato - and the Wiggles past and present cover an "eclectic mix" of popular songs in the album's second half.

"It's a funny collection because it's everything from Bohemian Rhapsody to Pub Feed by the Chats. We had a lot of fun with it. The new Wiggles we know really well, because most of them worked with us at some point earlier, and it was a great collective. The depth of talent is what I love," Cook says.

The Wiggles also took out the No. 1 spot in Triple J's Hottest 100 this year with their Like A Version cover of Tame Impala's Elephant - in true Wiggles fashion the song was mashed up with the Wiggles' own Fruit Salad. The track beat The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber with their song Stay which took out No. 2.

"Doing Like a Version last year was great. Just walking around Enmore so many people came up to me and told me they loved our version of Elephant. Later in the year people started coming up and saying 'you might be in for a shot at the Hottest 100' - I thought getting 95 or something would be great," says Cook.

"It was just amazing. It never would have occurred to me in a million years we'd win the Hottest 100. Kevin Parker from Tame Impala said something similar, he said 10 years ago if someone had told me that the Wiggles would win the Hottest 100 with a cover of our song I wouldn't believe it."

Cook says Tame Impala have been "very good sports" about the popularity of the cover version, even dressing as the Wiggles on a Halloween show while touring in America last year.

Amid everything else, Cook still finds time to give back to and share his love of music with his inner west community. He and Mack have been working with Tempe Public School students as part of the Voices That Matter program, funded through the Inner West Council's EDGE arts initiative.

The pair walked students through the songwriting process and they came up with their own song, Was It Just a Dream, based on their experience performing in a school show. The students will have the opportunity to perform their song in front of a live audience when they open for the Soul Movers at their show at EDGE Sydenham on August 20.

"They had never really considered writing their own songs," says Cook. "And the experience was a real eye-opener for them that they can write music if they can play music, especially in a collaborative setting."

Murray's inner west favourites