Ronnie Bond died on November 13, 1992, in Winchester, England. As The Troggs’ drummer, he played on “Wild Thing,” “With a Girl Like You” and “Love Is All Around.” The first two came out of the same brief studio visit, with Bond and his bandmates turning a little spare recording time into hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
Born Ronald James Bullis in Andover, Hampshire, on May 4, 1940, Bond worked with singer Reg Presley, guitarist Chris Britton and bassist Pete Staples in the band’s breakthrough lineup. It was a group still balancing music with ordinary employment as success arrived. In an interview published by Basingstoke music-history site Razrazzle, Staples recalled that Bond was a carpenter and that the musicians still had day jobs when “Wild Thing” began climbing the charts.
The session behind that breakthrough depended on an opening in manager Larry Page’s schedule. Britton told The Upside News in 2016 that Page had passed the band a batch of demos, including Chip Taylor’s acoustic version of “Wild Thing.” They liked what they could do with it, and Presley already had “With a Girl Like You” ready. Page invited them to come in at the end of an orchestral session, provided there was time left. Britton remembered unloading their equipment and recording both songs virtually live in ten or fifteen minutes. In another 2016 interview, with 100% ROCK Magazine, he said he believed Page and engineer Keith Grant had done substantial work on the equalization and mixing afterward.
That hurried session produced two different chart-toppers in 1966. “Wild Thing” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while “With a Girl Like You” spent two weeks at No. 1 in Britain. Bond and Staples supplied the rhythm section beneath Presley’s vocals and Britton’s guitar.
The group’s catalog also gave Bond space as a writer. His “When Will the Rain Come” appeared on the reverse of “Love Is All Around” in 1967 and on the album Cellophane that year. For listeners who bought the hit single, turning it over brought them to a Bond composition. His contribution was there in the songwriting credit as well as the drumming.
Staples remembered another side of his bandmate’s musicianship. On his own website, he described Bond as a “good heavy drummer” and praised his singing, suggesting that he might have had the best voice in the group.
Bond put that voice on a record under his own name in 1969, pairing “Anything for You” with “Carolyn” on Page One. Record Mirror reviewed the single in its March 15 issue, identifying it as the Troggs drummer’s solo debut and responding warmly to the ballad and his singing. Alongside the band’s hits and his writing on Cellophane, that single preserves Bond taking the lead himself.
