Welcome to a breath of fresh air with Sandy because it’s a beautiful day.
Hello, and thank you so much for your company today. Have you heard of the Australian band The Dell tones? I know that the answer to that is going to depend on how old you are and where you grew up. But what I can tell you is that after listening to this story and music today, you’re never going to be able to forget them. Australia fell in love with the Delta ins in 1958, when for young Sydney lifesavers made their presence known on various street corners. The boys were heavily influenced by American doowop singers and by the emergence of Elvis. They were young, fresh and enthusiastic, humorous, entertaining and irrepressible, and able to light up a stage or TV screen. The kids of the day just couldn’t get enough of them. And they featured regularly on the charts. Today, more than 60 years on, audiences still scream still shout still go away singing the songs, dancing the steps and chanting the goofy chants. Founding Member Egan peewee Wilson takes up the story. Welcome. How are you today? Thank you, Sandy, good to talk to and you very well to do so. In. Shall I call you peewee or shall I call you as fine? Okay, so now that we’ve got all that sorted out, how did you get the name peewee? Well, it came out of the surf club. That’s the ironic name. You know, the slim guys were called Tabby and the Toby guys were closed slim. The short guys will call off the and I was the tallest in my group. So I got the name Little peewee. So that’s how that came about. Right? It’s a very fuzzy thing, isn’t it? Those kinds of nicknames. And it stuck with me, you know? And it’s so unromantic. You took it on board and have used it for your entire career. Well, I did I couldn’t get away from it. You know, I mean, the soon as the guys in the band joined, they all forbid peewee. So Ian was sort of lost in the shuffle very earlier. And that’s stuck with me all the while it’s a term of endearment. I don’t mind it at all. Talking about those early days in the surf club. I believe that you all came together as a result of that club and decided to form a band. Can you tell us how that all evolved? Yeah, well, I know a lot of who was one of the original guys in the band was a musician and a wonderful surfer, and wish to get together the socials. And I would start to sing melody lines, and he would harmonize over the top of me. And it was the first time that I’d heard that harmony. And it sounded so wonderful. So we thought we’d do a little bit of what they call the talent quiz back in those days, the two of us, and we were doing okay, and he was shorter, he was about five foot three, and the harmony was working well. And then we ran into one night at a dance at the Bronte surf club. And on that show where a group called the sapphires and Warren Lucas was one of the members. And we knew that he was a little bit uncomfortable with that with the group. And so we dragged him into the shower room at the surf club to hit an echo if you like looks fishy for all 55 and we break into harmony. And the three part harmony game was a step up. So we said that’s wonderful. We broke up at Christmas. And he went off to Surfers Paradise for a holiday and came back with a guy called Brian Perkins, another original in the in the group. And so the flute was born these two guys joined the surf club. So the four of us were active, patrolling members of the surf club.
It seemed to grow organically then because you didn’t set out to be a singer or part of a band, did you? I certainly didn’t. I had no aspirations to do a lot. That happened very, very quickly. I mean, it wasn’t long after that, that we found ourselves at the stadium shows you know we only had a repertoire of half a dozen songs in can you describe for us the music scene at the time because we’re talking about
late 50s, early 60s in Australia, what was happening there? Well, you know, the charts were so eclectic. You’d have anything from Frank Sinatra to swing music to Chet Woolley. I think it was during the purple people eater.
So we weren’t too sure what direction we knew we were going down the Huntley road. But at the same time we had Elvis was coming on the scene. And we knew that’s where we, we were heading towards that popular type of doowop music that was coming out of America. It was a wonderful time for a lot of different types of music. It was quite a different scene back then. What was the appetite light for what you were doing? Well, it was certainly there. I mean, you know, what was the first time that I think that we had our own transistor radios down on the beach, and we were listening to the music. But of course, I was a teen then 18 years of age when I first started. So we were really crowded out on the radio, listening to pop music. We didn’t think we got to have a career. And the Australian music scene, I think we had a couple of Australian people were doing well the charts are talking about slipped dusty, and there was a couple of others that were doing okay, in the jazz field. But apart from that there was no real Australian music scene at all. You mentioned that you’d appeared on bandstand, and with Johnny O’Keefe at the time to Yeah, that was quite an interest. I think the light Loudwater beat the original lead focus of the band was full of bravado. And he decided that we should go along and see the disc jockey of the day called Bob Rogers. Bob Rogers, by the way, it’s still alive, still, but he’s not he’s not he’s still performing radio, he said it was let’s go down to see Bob Rogers and we’ll have an audition. So we did just that. We just bought it at the studio. And we saw the on the sign up there on there, no entry, and we waited for that sign to go off and then we went to the studio we introduced ourselves and then we broke into harmony, and we will see a song that Nolan had written called why.
Before we finish the song he held up his hand and got on the phone to man at the time that was putting on big shows and 40 Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers others out of the country. He said I think I’ve got your local backing band for a guy an actor called tab. Now Tom Hunter was a teenage idol in those days. It was a big star. And taekwondo had a couple of songs on the charts called Young Love. And there was another one Rick’s house of the sunset.
We were just blown away. We didn’t want to think about this what was happening. So weather down the office and that’s when we introduce the Johnny keys. And I keep saying here’s the two songs that we want you to backup to have harder. But here’s a list of my songs too. If you could
In the Becky’s gave us the recordings. If you can learn about these for that for these songs too. Maybe you’ll do like Becky’s as well. We said fine. So I think that was about three months after we started. So we had a very, very small repertoire. There was more songs to do Becky Becky’s on that there was to do our own songs. However, we did overlap the show for Tom had, we did our keep songs. And then the next day, we knew we were unbanned standards and six o’clock we’re off to television shows which were aimed at teenagers back in those days. Tell us who Johnny O’Keefe was? Well, Johnny O’Keefe was the pioneer. He was moving into rock and roll. And I think Johnny was very much influenced, of course by Presley and very much influenced by Ray Charles and various other black singers. He was anti rock and roll up with Heller, a couple of songs of the charts. One was called The Wild One, which he popped went on to record later on.
I’ve had the reputation of being the wild one and lose the Rock and Roll ethos, which he did. And culture was the quiet subdued type of CEO. These two played off each other at the time of that on the charts. So he was the major pioneer in the club. And he’s held in high esteem out here, as you probably know. So as you were saying the delta is had a repertoire of about five songs. You started playing to up to 15,000 kids at stadiums around Sydney and you started to become backing support for all the US acts that would come out to Australia, like the Everly Brothers, Fabian Conway Twitty crash Craddock and a whole lot more. What was that like? Well, that was quite incredible. Yeah, we would usually open up the the big show, nobody quite knew what was going on. We’re looking in America for inspiration, of course, was so heavy in those days, and so marvelous. And it was great to meet these American performers. As you mentioned before the Everly Brothers were there, crash graddic, and boom, boom, baby, all these big star. So it was quite heavy and quite wonderful. And we enjoyed it thoroughly.
We’re on a wave of some sort. And as become loud, known as the first wave of Australian news, back in those days, 5850 960. So you really thought that as a result of all this inspiration coming in from the US that you could be the pioneers of this whole scene going forward in Australia? Yes, indeed, we did. And of course, God I cave mind is live also, as we were television show called Six o’clock rock, even though it was aimed at the younger mark. And I think this also coincided with the recognition that teenagers started to get their pocket money, and they started to spend it. And they started to buy records. So generally, the youth market was born in those days, but that first wave of music as well. So it was quite an exciting and heady time. And without Keef show six o’clock rock, he was introducing new acts all the time, New York people coming along to do their performances. So the Delta uns are about to make it huge. You started writing your own material by that time, too? Well, you’re not standing, we will never encourage the writer write songs, the record companies in those days could take a record from America who was doing well in America, and then block US release out here and give it to an Australian act. So it was those days when we had our list of repertoire of personnel that would pick the songs for you. We would follow suit. Generally speaking, we were doing covers for America. The first song that we had on the charts was G which was an original by the crows, and it’s arguably one of the first rock and roll songs. The songs like hanging fire, which was another hit for us later on was a local locally written song, however, come a little bit closer, which was another hit for us was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and there was quite a departure from the original.
Tell me a little bit about what happened when Tommy sands guitarist Scotty Turnbull, and drummer Hal Blaine saw you, we had no idea who Hellblade was. And at that time, you know, he was such a superstar, he was leading the Wrecking Crew, who were doing all the songs for Elvis, and for the Beach Boys, and all the superstars that come out of America. But Scott eternal had written two songs. So we went into EMI studios, and recorded the soil was with these two guys and with a bass player. Nobody out here knew Albert, who al Blaine was the record, Kenny didn’t know who Hellblade was, no wonder we know that you would think to give us an opportunity to get other jobs. But there wasn’t a beat was it as a result of that recording, that you all chucked in your jobs and decided to become professional musicians. That hadn’t been even earlier that that happened very quick. We were quite happy to top of tossing our jobs. Money was never an issue in those days. It was just for the love of harmonizing a love of singing and performing. In fact, we were quite happy to do it for nothing we would drive into Kings Cross it’s silly, just park the car and then stand on the corner and just start to harmonize and try to get a crowd around us. We were so worried audience so badly that the few jobs that were working just weren’t enough for us. So we were quite happy to do on our street corners. The duat bands, the colored guys in America, we’re doing out on street corners. So we’d heard about that. So we thought we’d give it a try to sell. You didn’t know what to do work for us too. Yeah, I did. Back there. Firstly was a little club in Kings Cross. We were hanging out the front door and the manager came out but it hurt us and come down and do a couple of songs for our patrons and we certainly without bowled out and broke into a couple of songs and the oldest lightened with did it there was acapella. And he said, Well, look, I’ll give you some squarely ball allies and some beers. Is that okay? It was five, five. And then he said, well come in tomorrow, and we’ll book you tomorrow night at eight o’clock. Come on, we’ll do another show. But squarely involved, I was just not quite
doing it. But when I was at a borderline, so we didn’t. The deal turns we’re destined for a whole lot more than a cheap Italian meal or two standby to find out what happens next.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kay. It’s beautiful.
It’s great to have you here, in peewee Wilson is sharing his story about how he and his friends became Australia’s top rock and roll group. In the early 60s. They were the toast of the nation. And they loved it. By the way, PeeWee is anything but he actually stands six foot three tall. At this time, we hadn’t thought it through how this career was going to work. Now while abou I seem to have an understanding of the direction that the band should go, this was the first time that we were getting admired. We were getting a pause. And there was lots of chicks lots of chicks. And that was a beat or carelessness. That was no one ever heard of anything like this ever happening before. We just didn’t have pop stars. Before this happened. We as I said were run on that crystal that first wave. So it was quite full of love. So we’re very excited and not terribly concerned about about anything rather than here. And now it was we will be in the here and now for sure. And I bet you were and of course you were still surfing and patrolling the surf beaches. So all those chicks and many of the chicks that you talk about would have been bikini clad and running after you. Doe eyed Yes, it was fabulous. Yeah, it was it was really fantastic. And the best years of our life as well. I think we’re in that period because we were only concerned with the performance, putting everything into it. And other just wonderful days. I was not at 58 When we started I was it. I think the other guys were a little bit older than me maybe 19 or 20. And of course unfortunately Noah died in a car accident not too long after that, didn’t he? Well, mold killed it, suited to a car accident, said the terrible shock and our song Get a little dirt on your hands was just starting to chop
And with all that credible publicity was the first Australian rock’n’roll tragedy, because they were happening overseas. I think the daddy Hollywood, the day the music died, Buddy Holly was killed in a crash. This was quite a shock and, and it really knocked everybody. It was a big deal out here. When I was a little boy my daddy used to say to me so
we got a lot of big plans and hard work to beat.
And that put that up at the top five, and the band broke up. We just split. It was such a Saturday. So we split. But with some encouragement from our friends from the music industry as a whole. We put the band back together again, that was already 1963. And I believe you kind of reinvigorated your surf club origins at that time. And then you had the hip hanging five, right? Tell me a little bit about who that was written by and how that came to make you a household name. Well, that was a tongue in cheek with what I just said hanging five was written by would you believe it was a surf club member? And he was also a detective. I thought it was in the police force anyway. But he submitted the song to the record company and they liked it. They liked the corny lyrics. And they said why don’t you do this song. So we put an extra verse in it played around with the song and came up with what we thought was a surfing hit. However, it was a big departure from the Beach Boys and the California sound Jan and Dean who of course had big hits back at the Beach Boys. But they use a lot of force setup, quite a different vertical ensemble sound, where we use the Delta just do watch out for that song. But it was a big
moment and it’s time to make a start and up and up Molly’s surfboard on the rack upon my car, I head down to the surf side where the waves are breaking fine. I’m gonna catch a mountain but I won’t go down and my dad gonna walk the bike ride
on a legend ride and give it nice and tight all the time. As long as you’re moving down the wall. as steady as she goes. You got your toes upon the nose
and now you’ve hit the beat genuine feeling fine, you turn your head around for the second time, you may get out the back swells and coming back.
We follow them up with a song called out the back also in five inactive, but it charted but it didn’t do anyway the success of hanging five heads. So what happened after that? Well, we thought we’d do a surfing album, which we did. But albums you know, Sandy weren’t all that important back in those days, they weren’t massive. So the record companies didn’t realize just how massive they are now in the future that we’re going to be. And then we’re just fighting to see all the singles. And there was not a great deal of money to be made in singles anyway. But we found that song with a Libra and stole a song called a couple a little bit closer. And that was also successful. And then in 1964 The Beatles emerged and that rocked your world again, didn’t it? It certainly did. I remember sitting after a show at Cannes and I think it was lovely do came on the charts that I send to the guys have a listen to this. Well, as I said, I think our days are numbered. And simply because they played their own instruments. There was no bass vocalist that was so I knew that I was really talking about my role.
And they write their own songs. This was quite a departure from what we used to because guys that were heavy hits like Neil Diamond, for example, and Bill sadaqa these guys originally were in the Brill Building writing songs for pop stars and didn’t have a career. They’re just writing songs until they changed oversight of the scene their own songs. But when we heard the Beatles we stopped not long after we stopped recording, and just started to concentrate on your live performance.
Why did you stop recording? Well, I think we’d run out of ideas. And we fell out of touch with the pop music scene and call after that left the band. And then we had various changes in the band. This did help our recording career, our record company dropped us after a couple of failures. And we didn’t think about reliving our career to live 68. When we decided to give go over to London and give it a try for that geographical position. At that time, then you’d recorded 18 singles five albums in Australia, you’d played on every known television show featured in every known publication and got your chops down. So well live that no audience ever left in any state below enchantment. So then it was off to the UK because that was the time when Australian bands were all heading across the waters to try and make it over there. The BJs the seekers and the easy bits that actually made it already. Were you hoping to follow in their footsteps? We weren’t late. It sounded like Well, that’s the way I was wondering what I could do, perhaps we could do it. But prior to that we were focused, as I mentioned before their live performance. And because our live performance was very successful. The recording why and however, as you said, we followed the lifelike lemmings over to London to give it a try over there. We’d already proceeded with some negotiations with EMI in London for recording, but it hadn’t come off until we landed it landed. And then we got a job at the London Playboy Club doing a gig at the London Playboy Club. And because we’ve concentrated so heavily on our live performance, we knew that we could handle a live performance. So we were quite confident we’d do well. But our single which was a cover of Stevie we would give me some lovin started to get a lot of airplay. And it looked like wave success was starting to charge at you. And we thought well we’re off and running.
Well it wasn’t to be and ther was some bad blood between ourselves and the management and that fell apart and we came back to Australia. In the meantime, though, EMI had promo code you as the new orgasm of sound. And that album you’re referring to was arranged and conducted by one Bill Shepherd of BJs fame and backed by Australia’s own Twilight’s. Yeah, musically, led by guitarist Terry Britton, who would later write global hits for people like Cliff Richard Tina Turner and Michael Jackson. So it was a huge album, but didn’t really come to fruition in the way you’d hoped. No, no, it didn’t say any. And I think the reason was simple is because a lot of stuff was so violent, the light dig, which is an Australian pioneer of pop music, too. And also Bobby Pierce, who was one of the members of the Dell times, they read about four or five songs in the record company offered us a couple of songs. And the songs give me some love, and we pull it up. It was quite different from anything else that the album. So the album was the mishmash, and had no cohesiveness. It wasn’t pulled together, there was no real thought given to the idea of putting it together as an album. It was really a series of singles about how to release and if one of them picked up, we would have followed that, as it have humans, which was what we call back in those days a wealth tracker. It was one that we had 11 tracks, and we needed another track. And we were doing he was still blogging in a live show. And so we put that down and it was put down spontaneously, the bell live the way we used to record back in the late 50s. All live the beat band live, and we just had a ball with that song and it transferred to the single and so even though it was different from anything else on the album, it was we would have fallen down that path. I think they will, we would have found our genre and we would have kicked off as it turned out that it didn’t happen
We did Top of the Pops, which was like countdown. Yeah, big time. It was it was huge. And first of all, we walked on the streets and had young people yelling out to us. And we felt oh, we’re on our way to practice. But wasn’t to say you came back to Australia was that with your tail between your legs? Indeed, indeed. But we had thought that there was still openings for us Am I had dropped the contract, it was out for us to come back again. So I thought was would come out to Australia for a while. regather ourselves changing our management. We weren’t too sure which way we’re gonna go. But I said, but we had aspirations of going back again, to pick up where we have where we left off, and got together some more songs together, and happily guy with even with a repertoire, and start doing some more writing ourselves. But as it happened, the management fell apart, as I mentioned before, and we were left on our own. And then there was a series of changes within the band The band started to complete.
So far, we’ve never did go back. I think it was at that time that you met your beautiful wife, Carla, and turned yourself into a farmer worse.
Yeah, who would have thought that we had any I had any all anybody had any been felt like tendencies of the better we were in the suburbs surface? Well, I think there was that period, we were quite taken. The whole British scene was just about because it was that blade 6919 70 Carnaby Street was was raging and the psychedelic era was on. So we thought, well, let’s have a shot at this. So we came out to Australia with came out with Karla. And we thought, Well, let’s start warm up here. And Carla took over the management of the band. She filled the shoes. And she knew how to do it. And she was quite talented that we’ve started to kick on in, in Australia, but the psychedelic area godbey had one drop of acid and that was the end of me. I just went Farley gone.
I was flew with this urban dwelling. It’s living in apartments and several they want us to land around here, some cows and so we just dropped out altogether. And when finally
exactly, I
went to a joint venture with one of the original members of the build times Brian Perkins or white Brian burgers. In fact, all the originals apart from myself are all gone. We build out dwellings on either end of the farm. And we actually went into farming and root vegetable row crops, which was a heady time and grew the beard down to here, the hair down to here. Turn into hippies, as you say. So what brought you out of that stage? Well, it was odd, we’ll quite enjoy it really. And we formed some new friendships up there with people that that were of the same like minded and dropped out some of the musicians so we were having a great time, having a party pot parties and getting stoned and listening to Neil Young men to Crosby, Stills and Nash and these sort of bands. We thought maybe we’ll gather this track if we ever get back together again. But that wasn’t the to be.
As busy as he was on the farm growing vegetables, Peewee Wilson wasn’t done with music yet. Don’t go anywhere. The story’s unfinished.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day.
Welcome back. Peewee was in love doing some serious farming with his wife, Karla in the bush. As he found out though, things at home had moved on. It was the age of rock festivals and bands of stone musicians who ghost at their sandaled feet during 20 minute guitar solos. What happened was that we actually ran out of money, which is always an incentive to get back into the music business again. And we’re offering a show with another pioneer of Australian rock roll called digger Reville. So we got together and rehearse to put a show together. But the show was very successful, we started to build up a crowd. It was at that time that we said, okay, perhaps we’ll give this farming business away and go back into rock and roll again. But these were different times, of course, because we’re talking about 1983. Now, so the music scene had changed out here a great deal. So I knew that we couldn’t go back as to be the deltas and just survive on nostalgia alone. So there had to be some changes by which we did. It’s fairly new audiences hadn’t forgotten you one little bit had that? No, they had. So what I decided to do was to incorporate the instruments into the band because we were a vocal boy band, we came back very much the same to the boys picked up the guitar, but we still had no drama, and I wasn’t an instrumentalist. So two new members came in, I played piano and drama. And so we had an ensemble now that had the musical instruments Incorporated. We still use the I’ll do what harmonies So you started to record for what would become your first album in more than 12 years. And that album was called Bob till you drop right? Yeah, it was basically a recording of our own live show
We had a show of time Saturday, rather hit venue called can sellers. You can sell us was converted Funeral Parlour into a pop venue. But it was frequented by a lot of the people in the movie business and in the newspaper business and in the pop music it received.
In Sydney Yes, we were offered this show, but it was it was going to be a back to bandstand type of show. However, little patty was on the show to another pioneer of pop music in this country. And I was standing up the back a little patio and I opened the show and she was performing. But I was deeply concerned because the potter’s there were all highly below professional people. And Patti was doing her cabaret show, unfortunately weren’t paying attention to Patty. And there was a lot of noise of murmuring going on. So I went down to the boys and I said to the fellas, look, we’re not going to get away with our cabaret show here. These people aren’t going to be interested in last telling them jokes. So what I want to do is just stop the show right off the top keep the music going right through to the end, but no talking no stopping. So they all agree that we got out the shower. Well after the first two songs I think it was I pulled out the chairs put the chairs back, packed them up
We thought, well, this is wonderful. Okay, they booked us in for six weeks. And this went on for a couple of weeks, until we had some very good press, we still couldn’t get a recording contract, because we’re still seen as lost out again. And indeed, we weren’t until fella called Bob Brown came down who was from Katie Hill. And Katie Hill was producing records back in those days. And they’re all big sellers. Because our television advertise. He said, look happier, we put down your live album, and we’ll throw it out there. We said, Yeah, fine, we can’t do anything. So he put out what we call the album, drop, which was a revival album. And it went to number two, it just shut up the charts like crazy. And then actually, we knew we were back. It was just again, you must have been so surprised by the success again, absolutely. floored could not believe it. And the live shows picked up of course, because television, as you know, is a great medium for gathering popularity. So off we went. But still our recording company was was interested in recording this again, Katie K tell I haven’t heard that name for 100 years on a blast from the past. I’m chatting with EA and peewee Wilson from the deltona. So the times have changed. It’s been a couple of decades since you were last on top at this point. But there was a another wave for nostalgia is that how you describe it? Was it like an unexpected appetite for what you had been doing? It was you know, and I still felt though, that we needed to have some more changes. So there was one song on the album, popular drop that we took a little bit of time over. And it was called Get a job. And it was a cover of a solid, proper booklet, a trial piano. So it had that all the doowop sound to it. The song was 60 songs. And what we did do with it, we’ve, we thought we’ll experiment with this and use keyboard synthesizer, and put electric drums on it and so forth. Just as as a bit of fun. You really got into the 80s mode yesterday. So we thought well maybe we can combine the 50s and 60s do up sound with with the contemporary 80s Feel Ansel, and so to the alpha gal. I gradually started to get some AirPlay so we thought well maybe this is the track we should be going down to combine those two things so that’s what we started to do.
It started to work for us I started to work for sub stage, the band grew from four to six. And so we’re off and running and started touring. We will do an eight week tours around the country. He virtually started a whole new genre do what fusion right
data was has the most powerful element was the dust Alger element filament. I think if we continue down the strike pure rock and roll and kept the same sound as we’ve had back in the 60s, their career may have taken a different path. Who knows when we’ll never know that but it may have if we stuck with what we do best. Perhaps it would have would have been but as you said, it didn’t stop at popularity. And we were one of the most popular live shows around the circle at the time. He’s still playing nicely. And you know, the band has fallen today. We haven’t performed now so it’s I think it’s 2016 I think it is we haven’t sold sometimes I do. I do indeed. You know the smell of the grease paint the roar of the crowd. It certainly gets into your blood. And I do miss it. You know, it’s impossible. Sandy, I think a lot of people romanticize bands, thinking this democratic setup but it’s almost impossible to
by Tyler democratic band, you’re always trying to find different talents wanting to go different ways. So it’s very difficult. That was always a problem holding a group together, I was the only original member that was there right through those ideas, the other boys are gone. So it was very difficult. And I had to assure that I had a position in the band. So that’s why I had to keep those do what roots going because the bass voice was so essential for that harbouring sound for that ensemble sound. But yeah, to answer your question, yeah, I do miss it. And now we’re all back. We’re all back talking to the band’s all talking about. So that’s all good,
actually, but it may not be entirely over then.
Well, as long as long as the voice holds up, and the other guys are all free to kick it back in a year. But I just haven’t found the gusto to get back into it together to put the band back together. It’s kind of a lot of hard work. I’ve got to be really prepared for that if I’m kind of put it back together again, because I don’t want to compromise the show.
Before I let you go, there was a slogan that you immortalized back in the 80s. And I’d love you to tell me how you came up with it. It was keep raging and stop the aging. I love that.
Well, it was funny because we were bought on the success of Bob to the drop. Some years later, we recorded another album, which was in a similar vein called rockin and above. And I remember I was doing the commercial for it. And I was I was on a bit of rollerblades and I was rolling around behind the announcer all these rollerblades and as I can’t pass I’d say something silly like put on your dance shoes or something like this. And I just happen to come by and this phrase came out keep on raising and stop the agent and it was on the commercial. It stayed with me ever since. I think it really started us off though really because people saw us towards the end of that era towards the end of the millennium people still sources coming from that genre so it clicked and it worked for us.
Are you still a member of the surf club? Do you still get in the water today? No no no. For surfing out again, but not back in the surf. So anything left on your bucket list or you’ve ticked it all off? What an amazing career that you’ve enjoyed. Well, yeah, that’s why it’s dodgy whether we do put the band back together again, as I said, wouldn’t like to compromise the band when I put it back to where it was when we left off, because it was still working in the live show was still working. In terms of recording. I doubt that very much whether we’d be interested in doing any recording together, but I don’t think anybody’s gonna be interested in that at all. But who knows Sandy in the future will help us
ain’t an awful lot of changes haven’t you? Certainly have. Let’s just say something’s come around for Bill. But for me, of course, the golden days were those early years, and there’s no doubt about that were the fun times. I’ll look back on firefight memories. However, the revival was pretty exciting, too.
And there may be another one. Ian Wilson, thank you so much for your time. today. It’s been such a joy to hear your stories. As far as I can work out, the Australian audiences are just as keen to hear from you as they ever were. In 2012, you received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian club Entertainment Awards. Congratulations. It’s certainly been a lot of time of music, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s been a great ride, and I’ve really enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you. So it’s been really enjoyed talking to you. The Delta ins have been delighting audiences with their rich doowop sound for more than 60 years. Amazing, isn’t it? As I said at the outset, the people who are lucky enough to see them these days still scream and shout and dance the night away. As their time-honoured playlists are rolled out. A big thank you to our listener Ray in Melbourne, for asking me to chase down the Dell tones peewee Wilson, it’s certainly a story that needed to be told. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about the Dell tones. Don’t forget if you have a special guest you’d like to request. Just get in touch with me through the website, a breath of fresh air.com.au and I’ll do my best to get them onto the show for you too. Till we meet again same time next week. Have fun, won’t you? I’ll see you then. Bye now.