Three years after losing singer Reg Presley, and about fifty years after last gracing our shores, The Troggs are coming back to Australia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their song, ‘Wild Thing’.
The Troggs were a part of the '60s wave of rock & roll: another young, loud-mouthed, big-teethed band of the British Revival. They were full of cheeky songs like ‘Strange Movie’ and ‘I Can’t Control Myself’ (also ‘Walking The Dog’ is great, it’s like someone gave Bon Scott a harmonica), but they are are also the band behind Richard Curtis’ favourite song, ‘Love Is All Around’: go figure that one out.
Sitting comfortably on either side of the spectrum, The Troggs were, and remain, important for a lot of people. They were a band who decided to stay on the relatively straight and narrow when everyone else was jumping on the psychedelia bandwagon. They knew they already had a groovy thing going on, and lil’ baby James Newell Osterberg Jr. (Iggy Pop) seemed to think so too; and that guy is not often wrong.
With an extensive stretch of dates throughout Europe earlier this year, they are on a plane, and coming for us (maybe even right now, hi you guys, up in the sky). Now consisting of a line-up that contains only guitarist Chris Britton as an original member, The Troggs continue to draw crowds, and seem just as keen as ever to be playing their back catalogue, no matter how old it is.
At least, that’s what Chris says. “The thing is, it’s not the song [‘Wild Thing’] that gives us a buzz, I don't play it for pleasure at home or anything. But to play it to an audience, we can have fun with it, and the audience gives back, it’s just nice to see their reaction. It’s a fun song to play, and I enjoy playing it still.
“Our audiences are a very wide spectrum now, but we are always nostalgic now, I suppose… There’s so much competition out there with all these hot, new bands, it’s only fair they have the limelight and try and get on with it, get the radio play and all that stuff... we don’t want to intrude, and that’s why we haven’t released any new stuff and probably won’t ever again.
“It’s hard enough for new bands to get exposure and get out there without people like us gettin’ in the way as well. Partly that, but also we’re gettin’ old, we’re gettin’ lazy. Every generation, they have a new revolution, and if the older generation like what they’re doing, then they’re doing something wrong.
“The older generation has to think, 'oh, I don’t know about that', and that’s when you’ve put your stamp on something. There’s stuff that I listen to and think, my goodness, I can’t quite get on board with that.”
Let me assure you though, if my YouTube trawl is enough research to go by, The Troggs are in no way getting old nor lazy with their live shows. With singer Chris Allen joining the band after Presley’s death in 2013, The Troggs have continued to play shows pretty consistently throughout the past few years, and sometimes they wear leather waistcoats.
Chris also had time to talk about the Trogg Tapes, a reel of recording that was leaked without their knowing by their sound engineer, and showcases the band in the midst of a discussion. Worth a listen if you’d enjoy the lines: “You’ve gotta put a little bit of fuckin’ fairy dust over the bastard.”; “Well, we’ll put some fairy dust over it – I’ll piss over the tape.” - done in Hampshire accents.
According to Chris, the tape itself was distributed to other studios in London to calm down nervier young bands. “Whenever they got a young band in the studio who was a bit nervous and weren’t quite letting go, they’d play them that record and say: ‘This is how the professionals do it’, and off they’d go and they’d play. And we didn’t even know it’d been recorded."
Written by Eva Phillips
The Troggs Shows
Thu 3 Nov - Beach House (Hervey Bay)Fri 4 Nov - Hamilton Hotel (Brisbane)
Sat 5 Nov - Caloundra RSL (Sunshine Coast)
Mon 14 Nov - Brass Monkey (Sydney)
Tue 15 Nov - The Basement (Sydney)
Wed 16 Nov – Lizzotte's (Newcastle)
Thu 17 Nov - Blue Mountains Theatre (Springwood)
Fri 18 Nov - Entrance Leagues Club (Central Coast)
Sat 19 Nov - Revesby Workers Club (Sydney)
Sun 20 Nov - The Bridge Hotel (Sydney)
Thu 24 Nov - Factory Theatre (Sydney)
Fri 25 Nov - The Tote (Melbourne)
Sat 26 Nov - The Palms at Crown (Melbourne)
Sun 27 Nov - The Gov (Adelaide)
Mon 28 Nov - Brass Monkey (Sydney)
Tue 29 Nov - Lizotte’s (Newcastle)
Wed 30 Nov - Cherry Bar (Melbourne)
Thu 1 Dec - Caravan Music Club (Melbourne)
Fri 2 Dec - Karova Lounge (Ballarat)
Sat 3 Dec - Barwon Club (Geelong)
