50 years have passed since the incredible success of The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing’.
Cited as a significant progenitor of punk and garage rock by countless artists, and still very much a lasting influence to this day, the song’s irresistibly simple riff, vocal snarl and ocarina solo (played by founding singer Reg Presley in one of the more left-of-centre moments in pop music history) embodied a burst of rock fizz and energy.
Its somewhat primal delivery and sexual undertones resonated especially with adolescents experiencing their own teenage awakenings, and though its content is hardly overt in a modern context, it still has a booty-shaking power entirely of its own. To celebrate the track’s 50th anniversary, The Troggs are hitting the road to celebrate, making a number of appearances in Australia in November, their first trip to the country in a number of years.
“It all started off with the Rock The Boat trip from Brisbane,” explains original guitarist Chris Britton. “We thought rather than just come over and sit on a boat and fly home again, we might as well play a few shows across Australia. We’ve been over to Australia about four times.
“We didn’t come out in the ’60s, and only managed to get out to Australia in the mid ’70s,” he continues. “We were very glad when we got there eventually though. It’s been about 15 to 20 years since we were last there. There’s still a hell of a lot of the world that we haven’t gotten to yet.”
With founding singer Reg Presley’s initial retirement in 2012 and his sad passing in 2013, the future of the group looked uncertain. But before long, the band had rejigged, and vocalist Chris Allen stepped up to fill in some rather big boots, belting out songs like ‘With a Girl Like You’, ‘Love Is All Around’ and ‘I Can’t Control Myself’.
“We have a new singer now,” Britton explains. “Reg wanted us to carry on [after he retired]. We had a little try at doing it after he retired, but that didn’t work as none of us had the voice to do it. We were so used to having a frontman that we could work with. We happened to bump into Chris Allen and he had a go and it fitted. He’s not a Reg Presley copy in any way, shape or form.
“Reg actually came to see a couple of the shows and gave us his seal of approval,” Britton says. “He gave Chris Allen his ocarina that he played on ‘Wild Thing’, so we still carry a bit of token Reg around with us to the gigs we’re playing now. The older clay ocarinas, hundreds of those might have broken during tours. Chris has now got one, a fibreglass, that an elephant could stand on. Chris has got his own voice too and it sounds good – it works.”
That might even be an understatement. The band is still a thrilling live act, generous and powerful performers. They give everything onstage, making it no surprise that, for Britton, playing shows remains the highlight of the whole experience of being in a band. “The best memories are the stage performances,” Britton says. “Just travelling around meeting lots of people all over the world. It’s more fun doing it with a rock band than it is if you join the army, I’m sure.” He laughs.
It is a testament to the legacy of the group that their audiences remain so varied even to this day, and even Britton is amazed by the diversity of the crowds that attend their shows. “We’re quite lucky actually,” he says. “People do tend to bring their grandchildren and great-grandchildren along to our shows, and young people come of their own volition, and quite a lot of bands come to see us. We get a good cross-section of people still seeing us.”
Although so many legendary bands have difficult relationships with their best-known songs – read: they often bloody hate them – Britton embraces ‘Wild Thing’, and sees it as a matter of principle to play it right. “With ‘Wild Thing’ we tend to stick to the original, keep it that way, because that’s what people want to hear from us,” he says. “That’s what they hear on the record and so on. We’ve always found that people prefer to hear the music they’re familiar with rather than being hit with something completely different or unexpected.”
Half a century on from the release of the archetypal garage single, it’s a bleeding understatement to say the world, let alone the world of music, has changed. Has Britton and his opinion on songwriting changed too? “I just basically go through and listen to the radio as it goes on,” he explains. “As with all things, there is some music I prefer to others. But I think all music is good, in any form. In my mind, there’s no such thing as bad music. Obviously some of it suits different people and they get a buzz out of it.”
There’s only one question left, really: have The Troggs tackled the prospect of writing some new music? Britton takes a moment before he answers. “We haven’t got anything new in the pipeline for The Troggs at the moment – we’re still considering that. It’s difficult to get people interested in new stuff when there’s so many new kids on the block. We might get our act together and push something out though, before we get too long in the tooth.”
The Troggs play The Basement on Tuesday November 15; and the Factory Theatre on November 24.
