The Ukulele Podcast

This week I'm chatting with Simon and Aaron - collectively known as musical comedy duo "Plastic Jeezus". There's lots to talk about, including how they got their start, their musical backgrounds, their award-winning shows and their attention-grabbing performances at ukulele festivals up and down the land. But it turns out that Simon and I were actually in the same class at school together and have...

This week I went to the 2023 NAMM music convention in Anaheim, California. Although I collected lots of interviews while I was there, this episode is my audio diary of exactly what I got up to while I was away! The people I met, the places I went to, and all the things I did and saw are all covered in this audio diary adventure of my brief trip to L.A. --- Ukulele Tales is sponsored by Kala Brand...

I met Magnus Sjöquist - Swedish U-Bass Supremo, and fello Kala Brand Artist - at NAMM last year. We didn't get to chat for long but among the topics that did come up were his 15-piece Steely Dan tribute band(!), his thoughts on using the bass as a lead instrument, and duetting the U-Bass with a bassoon back in his native Sweden. Magnus also talks about how he decided to take up the U-Bass... after...

Today I'm speaking to Aryy - the girl who made headlines around the world last September when she led a ukulele singalong at 30,000 feet for Southwest Airlines! Unfortunately, this interview took place before that happened, so we don't talk about it at all But we do talk about her awesome music, being a proud representative of the LGBT community, growing up on YouTube (believe it or not, she's bee...

Grammy award-winning musician, Danny Weinkauf , has composed music for television, film, children, and - for the last 20+ years - has been the bass player for They Might Be Giants . Not only that, but on their 2002 kids album No he became the first person to write and sing a song on a TMBG record that didn't have the name John. I caught up with him about a week into the current TMBG world tour, an...

Victoria Vox is a true independent spirit! I met her at the L.A. Ukulele Festival last year and we had a great chart about what it means to be an independent artist, how she played mouth trumpet on the Jay Leno show, how and why she came up with the name Victoria Vox, and lots and lots more besides. We also talk a great deal about her phenomenal latest album, Nirvana In R.E.M. - including where th...

Vince Esquire has played guitar and ukulele with the Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, G Love and Adam Sandler - as well as being an excellent musician in his own right. We talk about his rock influences - including how the Eddie Vedder ukulele album changed things for him. We also talk about his band Kanekoa, their new album Songs from the Great Disruption, and all the collabs they did for it, incl...

This week's episode is a bit of a break from the norm, as I take a trip to a local ukulele festival in Box - a small village of less than 400 people in the South West of England. Let me know what you think of the format, I'd love to do some more shows like this in the future if you enjoy them :) Ukulele Tales is sponsored by Kala Brand Music ! For a 10% discount on anything on the Kala website, ju...

Anthony Ka'Uka Stanley - is a ukulele virtuoso, and also an incredible hula dancer. He's been playing the ukulele since the age of 4 and dancing since the age of 2! I had a chat with him at NAMM and he spoke openly about what it was like growing up in a musical family, as well as Hawaiian musical culture in general. As well as this, there's also our first Uke-Story! Listener Nick DiSanto shares wi...

Boris Mogilevski - aka Boris Ukulele - is a musician, composer, and performer, based in the Netherlands, where he teaches the ukulele at the University of Delft. We spoke at NAMM last year about how he got started playing the ukulele, finding his audience on social media, what other musical instruments he plays, and taking his ukulele on safari to raise money for musical instruments for schoolchil...

Singer-songwriter Abby Lyons is a classically trained musician who wrote her first song at the age of 12. After toiling for five years on YouTube, she was recently commissioned to perform on the soundtrack for The Wheel Of Time, an Amazon Prime Original TV show. We spoke after the L.A. International Ukulele Festival and she opened up to me about all sorts of fascinating stuff including how she got...

Andrew Molina is a Hawaiian-born musician, from a rich musical heritage. He started learning the ukulele at the age of 13 and within a year was touring the islands playing to crowds of over 800 people. Now a full-time musician, Andrew is a composer, performer and teacher, having recently launched his own online Andrew Molina Ukulele Academy . I got to chat with him at the L.A. International Ukulel...

Christopher Davis-Shannon is not your typical musician! Based in Philadelphia, he plays soprano ukulele and the double bass, somehow managing to alternate between one of the smallest and one of the biggest instruments you can possibly play. With a unique fashion sense, and a love of music old and new, the Banjolele Tinman is quite a character. In this hour-long walk through Hyde Park in London, we...

Brittni Paiva is an award winning half-Portuguese, quarter-Danish, eighth-Japanese, and eighth-Hawaiian musician who started learning classical music at the age of four! She picked up the ukulele at 11 years old, using her classical training to teach herself, and hasn't looked back since. We talk about how she released her first album at 15, and how it inspired another famous Hawaiian musician to...

Bakithi Kumalo is the South African musician who shot to fame as the bass player on Paul Simon's Grammy award winning album Graceland. This album was part of the soundtrack of my childhood and it was a thrill to chat to him about all sorts of topics. As well as performing with the likes of Sting, Gloria Estefan and the Grateful Dead, we also talk about Bakithi's impoverished childhood, and how mus...

Happy new year! This week I want to know all about your goals and aspirations for 2023. I talk to listeners on my Patreon, Facebook and Instagram pages to see what you have planned, and then share a few of my new year's resolutions too. We talk about everything from improving our music theory, songwriting, performing live to playing at the National Dutch Ukulele Day. People from all over the world...

This week's conversation is with Lendl San Jose - aka  Ukulenny . After a quick chat about how the last few years changed things for musicians, the talk takes some weird and wonderful tangents about all sorts of things from pasta to parenthood. We talk about Lenny's love of the saxophone, how he creates his famous multi-track videos using loop pedals and other technology, and we try and put a...

Today I'm chatting with Mandi Harkett - one half of the tremendous duo, Opera-Lele! We talk about what happens when you're about to have the biggest year of your career when a global pandemic strikes. And how do you build back up once things start to open up again? What do you do when Facebook takes down the page you've spent years building? And does she really have a DeLorean? We also talk about...

This week's conversation with Jake Shimabukuro was recorded at the Grand Northern Ukulele Festival in Huddersfield, back in the summer. A big thank you to Jake, for being so generous with his time, his manager Brett Lind for coordinating everything, and also to Mary-Agnes Krell, the GNUF head honcho for making it all possible. We discuss how emotional it was performing live again following Covid,...

This week I'm up in London talking to Tyler Austenfeld aka TenThumbsPro on YouTube. Like me, Tyler is one of the OG online ukulele instructors and has seen and done it all. Not only has he been a full-time online music instructor for over a decade (although he hates to be referred to as a YouTuber!), he also has a passion for traveling, and an insatiable appetite for learning music. We discuss eve...

This week I'm having a chat with the one and only Bernadette Teaches Music. We've both forged fairly similar paths as online YouTube ukulele instructors and as there aren't many of us about it's important we stick together! Bernadette is an open book and tells us everything we could possibly want to know: from how she got her start as a YouTuber, all the way through to going into labour during a u...

Marlén Rodriguez -Wolfe is the CEO of the Ukulele Kids Club - a charity that provides ukuleles to sick children in hospitals around the world. In this episode of Ukulele Tales, she tells us how the charity got started, the benefits that music can have on sick children, and how we can help the UKC continue to expand and grow. I'm currently auctioning off my limited edition Twenty One Pilots ukulele...

Thanks to James Hill for being the first guest on my brand new podcast, Ukulele Tales! James was super generous with his time, and we spoke about everything from Wayne Gretzky to washing dishes. James is currently working on a brand new album, Uke Heads, which you can be a part of, so be sure to check out the links below to follow him and find out what he's up to. There's also a ten-minute long bo...

Ukulele Tales is launching officially on Wednesday November 23rd with a feature length interview with James Hill, followed by weekly interviews every Wednesday with some of the best ukulele players and personalities in the world I'll be chatting to the following: * James Hill * Victoria Vox * Jake Shimabukuru * Operalele * Plastic Jeezus * Abby Lyons * Bernadette Teaches Music And many, many more!...

Ukulele Tales is launching officially on Wednesday November 23rd with a feature length interview with James Hill, followed by weekly interviews every Wednesday with some of the best ukulele players and personalities in the world In the meantime, I’m dropping a short teaser episodes each Wednesday where I want to hear YOUR ukulele tales! Specifically, I'd love to hear from you about any of the foll...