Sometimes you don't know how much you need a band until you discover them. Enter The Soul Movers.
By fusing the best parts of the '60s garage-rock sound with the positivity and personal power of the '70s, then sprinkling it all with funky soul elements, The Soul Movers take you down into the depth of your soul, before bringing you shimmying right back out.Comprised of original Red Wiggle Murray Cook, alongside powerhouse vocalist Lizzie Mack, drummer Luke Herbert, bassist Matt Crawford, and keyboardist Marko Simec (Paul Kelly, Kasey Chambers), the band have walked the walk in the music industry, and remain committed to the moving power of music.
The band recently released their tongue-in-cheek single 'Monkey' – a song about being a performing monkey. "Quite often when Lizzie gets me to do stuff for social media, I'd say, 'what do you think I am, a performing monkey?'" Cook shares. "So the code came from that."
The band pulls the best sounds and messages of their youth to the fore with their songs, enjoying the way music transcends time.
"Driving up Glebe Point Road right now, I was seeing the haircuts that we grew up with in the '80s," Mack says.
"These cycles really come back around every 30 years or so, and this generation, they're as excited about big sounds as we were, the big fuzzy bass, awesome vox, the Fenders and all the classic guitar sounds from the '60s and '70s.
"There's something so jubilant, something so beautiful about that message of I know who I am. Power-pop really is the epicentre of that teenage movement that happened in the '60s, that our generation was always tuned into. I'm really glad to see the next generation going back to that analogue sort of frame of mind essentially. It's basically our DNA."
Adds Murray: "It's the music we grew up with. We have a wide range of audience. We get people about our age, and we get the 20-somethings that were into The Wiggles when they were kids. And what I love about young people is they don't look at music and say 'oh that's old music,' – they're exposed to so much different music. I call it the Spotify Effect, they can access so much."
"Even your DJ set, the songs that we sing-along to together are 'Gimme Gimme' and 'Mamma Mia'," agrees Lizzie. "They're those great levellers, because there's so much joy shining through in that music, and that sense of agency.
"There's a lot of that in our music, even though it's personal and there's some sad songs, it's still communal. We don't deliberately write that into our music. I don't think you can deliberately put that element in, but when your personal DNA comes from a place that was created in the fountain of the '60s and the '70s, which was much more uplifting and joyful; I think of artists like Dusty Springfield who sang sad songs, but then 'I Only Wanna Be With You' – it just jumps out at you, jack-in-the-box style with joy and incredible instruments and amazing players."
The band have recorded previously at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama and Royal Studios in Memphis, and returned to those roots to record their new album 'Dumb Luck', that's released 1 September, featuring some legendary musicians such as Rev Charles Hodges, Al Green's keyboard player.
"We tried to include, in this album, our passion for the originators of music, which is why we've gone back a second time now to Muscle Shoals in Alabama, and Nashville and worked in those original studios," Lizzie says.
"We learn so much every time we go back. For example, Charles Edward Hodges, he's been Al Green's keyboard player on every single album, standing right next to him while he's on that Hammond B3, in the same spot he recorded all the same tracks with Al Green – when you can go back and collect that, and keep new information coming through those same instruments.
"They have voices, and those voices trigger the memories of those amazing songs that were written and recorded on those instruments. We like to keep that original fire burning. We're only throwing on one little chip, one little bit of driftwood really. But the main thing is that it is the original furnace. When you go back, we take our hats off and hold them very closely to our hearts. That's music, that's what it's all about."
The album features stunning vocals from the nieces of Al Green and Charles Hodges. "When listening to the last sound in 'Standing In Power', I couldn't help it, I had to turn the voices up. Because they are a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world," Mack says.
"In my mind, if voices can reach that far and have that much power, you gotta stand back and let it happen. Those women know what they do, they know who they are. They know they're that connecting element from a congregation to a heavenly power.
"They can encapsulate that and make a sound and wrap their life around it, because they've grown up in the church. Charles Hodges and Al Green, they're their uncles, they have made music together for their entire lives. They can't remember a time growing up that they weren't in a studio making music.
"There was a little girl that I was playing with, around three or four, and she's singing along at the age of three. I said to her mum, 'they're gonna keep on this work aren't they?' They say, 'yeah!' like there's any choice. That's their job, being the ongoing connection. That's such an important role I think; if you can get salvation on vinyl or any music format, if you can find salvation, that reminds you of the deep sentiments of being human."
"And because of the type of music we make," adds Murray, "it's important that it's organic instruments and real voices, all that sort of thing. We use some modern technology, but we do try to get the sounds that we grew up with."
"It totally blew our minds that first trip in 2019," Mack continues. "It takes a few people opening those doors, they don't let anyone record at Royal [Studios]. It took introductions, and that's another element that reminds you how special it is. You don't get to touch the handle, someone else has to open the door for you. But once you're in, just walking into the studio, it's Sistine Chapel material.
"The studio has power and that sounds really freaky. It's not a ghost kind of thing, it's more like things happen. For example, our keyboard player's mother had died and he had to go to Slovenia and bury her in traditional fashion.
"So I was in the studio and I FaceTimed [Marko] in Slovenia with Boo, and they were chatting and we showed him the B3, because he loves that keyboard so much and Charles Hodges is his number one guy. And Marko said: 'Imagine if we could get Uncle (Charles Hodges) on that,' and Boo goes: 'I can make a few calls.' And that happened.
"And you wonder, why did I call Marko, why did Marko suggest that, and why did Boo say yes? Charles fit it in between two other things that he had to do that day. He literally had an hour and a half. That's the kind of stuff that happens at Royal.
"So our song 'All Over You' has Uncle Charles on it. All the work we do as musicians, all the day-to-day grind, all the stuff we don't want to do, but we have those moments, and those moments can see you through for years."
The band adores performing live, seeing it as the culminating act of their lifelong obsession, the pinnacle of connection. "It's a pretty high energy show and we love crowd interaction," Cook states.
"'Lift Me Up' has a good call and response, and if you haven't got the audience onside before that, then they're really loving that. We have another song with dancers and I join them. And Lizzie tells stories, I tell stories.
"It's a bit of a Sonny and Cher show there sometimes, you know. The brother-sister thing, there's a few gibes, there's definitely some dad jokes. We've had people come up to us afterwards and say 'I was really moved by that, I really felt something. It was very personal for me.'
"We give 'em bang for their buck, but it's way beyond that. I mean, that's our chance to really show people who we are and why we are doing this. We give everything we've got, and that's musical and personal.
"It's funny because Elvis used to always call himself an entertainer, but there's an element of holding back in that, there's a tiny bit of cheese. We're not performing monkeys at the end of the day, which is why we can write a song about it.
"We're there because we believe it. It's our life, it's our whole life. There's no difference between our making music and our personal life. We've been in the game so long, it's melded together and we get up on stage, that's the fun part. We can give it both barrels."
'Dumb Luck' is released September 1, 2023. Pre-order it.
The Soul Movers 2023 Tour Dates
Fri 18 Aug - Leftys Music Hall (Brisbane)Fri 1 Sep - George Lane (Melbourne)
Sat 2 Sep - Cherry Bar (Melbourne)
Sat 9 Sep - The Great Club (Sydney)
Fri 29 Sep - Hamilton Hotel (Newcastle)
Sat 30 Sep - Old Bar Beach Festival (Old Bar)
Sun 1 Oct - Old Bar Beach Festival (Old Bar)
Sat 21 Oct - The KISS Arts Festival (South Coast)
Sun 22 Oct - The KISS Arts Festival (South Coast)
Fri 27 Oct - The Royal Oak (Launceston)
Sat 28 Oct - The Republic Bar (Hobart)
Sat 11 Nov - Kinema Bar (South Coast)
Sat 9 Dec - Twin Towns (Gold Coast)
Sun 10 Dec - Cleveland Sands Hotel (Brisbane)
Sat 16 Dec - The Seaview (Mid North Coast)
Sun 17 Dec - The Hoey Moey (Coffs Harbour)
