Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Worst Rock Band In History - The Story of The Shaggs

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

The Shaggs were a rock band formed in 1965 by sisters Dorothy ("Dot"), Betty, and Helen Wiggin in Fremont, New Hampshire. Their father, Austin Wiggin Jr., believing his mother's palm reading had foretold their musical success, insisted they form a band. Despite lacking musical training or interest, the sisters practiced daily under his strict supervision. In 1969, they recorded their only album, Philosophy of the World, characterized by off-key vocals, erratic rhythms, and unconventional melodies. Initially dismissed, the album gained cult status in the 1980s, praised for its raw authenticity.

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And Austin, he's a fairly normal teenager living in New Hampshire. And one day in the 1940s, something crazy happens to him. His mom gives him a palm reading because she considers herself to be somewhat of a fortune teller. And with this palm reading, she tells him three things. One, you're going to marry a woman with strawberry blonde hair. Two, you'll have two sons, and three, you'll have three daughters who will form a famous rock band. And young teenage Austin is probably like, whoa, what if all this comes true? But as time goes on and Austin gets a little older, one of those predictions actually does come true.

He ends up marrying a woman with strawberry blonde hair. Then the second prediction comes true. He and his wife end up having two sons. And that only leaves his mom's three. third prediction. He's going to have three daughters who will form a famous rock band. And so Austin and his wife have four more kids, but three of them are his daughters, Helen, Dot, and Betty. And so boom, Austin's like, holy shit, my mother's prophecy's coming true. My girls are going to be famous. So Austin, he waits several years until Helen, Dot, and Betty are old enough.

Then in 1965, once they're teenagers, he buys each of them an instrument and he orders them, you're going to start a rock band and you're going to practice every day until you're the biggest band in the world. Even though the girls have no interest in making music. Austin's still like, fuck you, it's the prophecy. Now practice. And so he names his daughter's band The Shags after a haircut that was popular in the 60s. Here's actually a picture of the three girls if you want to see what they look like. Now Austin, he's convinced that they're going to be as big as the Beatles and they're all going to be so rich. So he becomes not just a very strict stage dad, but he becomes an absolute psychopath about making them practice every day for hours and hours on an extremely strict schedule.

And he eventually pulls them out of high school and he forces them to focus on the band full time. And they're not allowed exposure to the outside world. They aren't allowed to leave the house except for church on Sundays. They aren't allowed to have any friends and they definitely aren't allowed to have boyfriends. and when they're not practicing, he makes them do calisthenic exercises so that they'll be fit and in shape once they're famous. He even makes them do weird seances with him to try and connect them with his dead mom, the fortune teller, so that she can tell him more about the prophecy. Now, you would think that with all this practice the girls are forced to do,

that they would get really good as a band. However, there's a problem. Austin doesn't really like music. Like he doesn't listen to it recreationally. a fan. He thinks it's for no good long-haired hippies. So he has no musical knowledge or influences. Not only that, he's so strict that he doesn't want his daughters, Helen Dot and Betty, to be influenced by anything outside their home. So they aren't allowed to listen to music or go to concerts or anything like that. So they have no musical knowledge either. Like the girls don't

know what a song is supposed to sound like. They don't know how to tune their guitars. They don't know how to play on beat because they don't even know what rhythm is. And on top of that, these poor girls, they just don't really care to be famous. I mean, they're just doing this because Austin is forcing them to and they're all terrified of him. And this goes on for years. The girls are basically imprisoned in their own home, isolated from the rest of the world, and forced to practice. But then it gets even worse for them. Because it's now 1968. And Austin is ready for the whole town to hear how great his daughter's band is, and he starts booking live shows. And I'm sure the girls, they're like terrified, but they know they have to do this, or they'll

have to suffer Austin's wrath. So one night, they show up to a local town hall scheduled to play, and there are like hundreds of teens there in the audience. So the girls, they pick up their instruments, and they start playing. And I'm not going to show you much of this because of copyright, but I'm just going to give you a little taste of what they sound like. My pal, foote, foot, oh, always let's move. My pal, foote, foot, foot, now he has no home. Where will foo-p-p-poh? What will foo-foot-to?

Oh, foot-foot, I wish I could find you. Yeah, I mean, they're out of tune, they can't keep rhythm. So this audience of local teens, they can't believe what they're hearing. Like, is this even a real band? And so they start laughing and mocking them. They start booing them and, like, throwing soda cans on the stand. And of course the girls hate this. They're humiliated. They've never wanted to be an band in the first place. But unfortunately, their dad, Austin, has other plans. He's still convinced that his mom's poem reading

prediction is going to come true. So he makes them play the town hall every week from then on, no matter how humiliating it is, no matter how hard they get booed. Oh, and it doesn't get much better from here because in 1969 Austin decides that it's time for the girls to record an album. He books them time in a recording studio.

So they get to the studio and they're all set up and they start playing their instruments and the audio engineer is watching all this and this guy is in shock at how bad it is. The guitars are out of tune and they can't play on beat. And remember this is in the 1960s so recording an album

in a professional recording studio is a big deal because it's so expensive and rare compared to today when we have access to all that stuff. So this audio engineer, he says to Austin something like, Are you sure these girls are ready to record? And he tries to talk Austin out of it because he knows that these girls are going to be laughed at if they record this. But Austin's like, yeah, I got to get them while they're hot. Or whatever that means. And so the girls record a whole ass album called The Shag's Philosophy of the World.

Here's actually the cover for it. And Helen and Dodd and Betty, they think the album is terrible, but Austin, he thinks, this is it. This is what's going to make them famous. The prophecy's about to come true. But it hasn't come true. And six years go by. And it's now 1975. And Helen and Dot and Betty, they're no longer even teenagers anymore.

But they're still living at home and Austin is still forcing them to practice thinking that they're going to be a world famous band. But then something crazy happens. One night, in the middle of the night, Austin has a massive heart attack, and he dies in his sleep. And so, after 10 long years of playing in the band they were held captive in, they're finally free. And they all immediately say, fuck this, and they quit the band. And they move out and they go get regular jobs, and they get married, and they start living completely normal lives as they move on. And so I guess that prophecy's never going to come true. no one will ever hear that album that they recorded.

Until. Until the late 70s, a small Boston radio station gets a hold of their album and starts to play some of their songs on the radio. And little by little, they start to get a following that way. Then members of this band, NRBQ, reaches out to Dot, and they meet up with her, and they want to re-release the Shags' album on their record label.

And so their album actually gets re-released and it kind of blows up because people find it innocent and charming. And like these girls have a very interesting backstory. And later, the album even gets featured in Rolling Stone magazine. And not only that, Kurt Cobain was apparently a big fan of the Shags. Like here's like a famous picture of him wearing the t-shirt with them on it. Not only that, in 2011, there's an off-Broadway musical made about them. And now, even today, some of their original. vinyl records are selling for $10,000 each. So did the shags become a super world famous rock band?

I mean, I don't know about all that. However, some might say that they did get a little fame, so technically, Austin's mom's prophecy, it kind of did come true.