The Troggs - "Wild Thing" : The making of...

When The Troggs played their first gig-60 years ago this year-at the Jockey Club in Andover, the audience were too drunk to register what was happening. Andover’s loss, however, was the world’s gain. As the band celebrate their Diamond Jubilee, Pete Staples and Chris Britton, the two surviving Troggs, look back at their defining moment: “Wild Thing”, a primitive evocation of the carnal power of music, captivated everyone from Jimi Hendrix to The Muppets and Oliver Reed. Introduced by a distinctive bent guitar note and followed by a thundering riff and Reg Presley’s growled vocal delivery, “Wild Thing” subsequently proved an inspiration for garage rock and punk.

Astonishingly, the song was written by a man best known for country music: Chip Taylor. Born and raised in New York, Taylor had earned a reputation as a skillful songwriter for artists like Bobby Bare and Chet Atkins, but “Wild Thing” elevated him into the mainstream. A rudimentary guitar player, he came up with “Wild Thing” in an afternoon and recorded a demo before he was even sure how the song should end. “It was great, but now what happens?” he remembers thinking.

The solution came from engineer Ron Johnsen, who happened to blow through his hands in the studio while thinking, making a birdlike sound that Taylor decided to record. Taylor’s demo made its way to the UK via Larry Page, who sent it to The Troggs, who had formed in 1964. They were looking for a follow-up to debut single “Lost Girl”, which went Top 10 in Sweden. Recorded in haste at the end of a session, the crude but catchy “Wild Thing” became a smash hit in the US despite being released on two labels simultaneously - another unique achievement that highlighted the slightly shambolic nature of the whole enterprise.

The Troggs would follow it up with several more hits - “With A Girl Like You”, “I Can’t Control Myself”, “Love Is All Around” and another Chip Taylor number, “Any Way That You Want Me”. But “Wild Thing” was where it all began. “When we rehearsed it, we turned the volume right up,” says bassist Pete Staples. “You can’t do that song quietly. You need to get some balls behind it.”