Pranked By Townshend & Slapped By Jagger: Vintage Trouble's Ty Taylor Has Stories

"You've got me at a really good time," Vintage Trouble's effervescent lead singer, Ty Taylor, enthuses. "My friend just walked in – she's my friend from college – and I'm making dinner for she and my other good friend right now. I've made my own cakes from scratch and I made some Indian food from scratch and as soon as I hang up the phone with you, I'm about to celebrate life with two of my favourite women, so you're gettin' me at a goooooood time. How are you doing? What are you up to? Where in the world are you?" 

When Taylor learns this scribe is Melbourne based, he admits of Victoria's capital city, "Oh, my favourite!" before explaining, "Whenever I think of Melbourne - and people don't think about me with this, but I was in a band before and the first time I came to Melbourne it was for Hey Hey It's Saturday... I was in a band called Dakota Moon and we were on Elektra Records, and we actually played that show twice." Taylor goes on to describe Melbourne as "like Silver Lake in Los Angeles became 20 years later". "Melbourne's just not pretending to be cool, not pretending to be stylish, not pretending to make good food – it just is all those things; that's what I like about Melbourne."

On whether he freaked it when Dickie Knee or Ossie Ostrich popped up during his former band's Hey Hey It's Saturday appearances, Taylor chuckles, "Yes, that was so funny! I think a lot of people didn't do research, but I was a big fan of the show ahead of time – for some odd reason – and so I knew what was gonna happen. I think my face would've looked more crazy if they didn't pop up, like, they would've been saying, 'Thank you,' and walking me off the stage and I would've been going, 'Where the fuck is Ossie?' Ha ha." 

Vintage Trouble are managed by legendary music manager Doc McGhee – best known for working with KISS, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi – and Taylor reveals McGhee actually also wanted to manage his previous band, Dakota Moon, adding, "So I'd known 'im for a long time. Many things had gone by, I'd done this television — also a big Australian show, Rockstar: INXS. You saw that show, right? You're about to freak out, girl: I'm the black guy with the mohawk! 

"So I'd just done Rockstar: INXS and I'd finished that show, and I was sending stuff around to different managers in town and it had been my first reason to get in touch with Doc and I felt, at some level, that he would answer a call – not that he wouldn't have anyway, but, you know, sometimes our egos don't allow us to do things. So I called 'im and he was like, 'I'll send someone down to see the band,' and he just came himself to see the band Vintage Trouble; we were playing at a place called Harvelle's and The Tar Pit at the time, small little places in LA. He saw the band and then he asked me to call him on Monday. I called him on Monday and he was like, 'Brother, you know, I'm sorry, this is not gonna work; I'm not really into it,' and it got silent. And then he was like, 'I'm just joking, I LOVE IT! I wanna take the band, bring 'em in,' and I was like, 'Muthafucker!' And I was like, 'Oh my god, I can't believe I just called you "muthafucker"!'" he laughs. 

During recording sessions for Vintage Trouble's first studio album The Bomb Shelter Sessions, Taylor recalls his band "was really into [the idea of] going to England, you know, like Stax [Records] and the 1967 Volt tour when they took their rhythm 'n blues over to England". He credits McGhee ("because he's Doc McGhee") with getting the group on Later... With Jools Holland, the appearance that launched their career. 

"Well, it's electrifying 'cause here's the deal: the song was supposed to be about ten beats per minute slower than that, but because we were so nervous it was fast and that worked in our favour, you know? Also, I hadn't even planned on doin' those spins that I did at the top of the show, but something told me to just go ahead and spin. I'd never done it before with Vintage Trouble and I just started spinning – I didn't know if I was gonna be too dizzy. It was this live TV show, the biggest one we'd ever been on; I don't even know what made me think, 'Try and do some spins,' I coulda busted my ass, but it worked really good!"

Had Taylor wiped out, the clip would've gone viral for a completely different reason. "For a completely different reason, exactly," he laughs, "but I might've sold more records!" When asked how immediate the response was on social media, Taylor offers, 

Prior to being under the management of McGhee, Taylor stresses, "We did our own thing, we sold [records] though CD Baby." Following the band's appearance on Later... With Jools Holland, Taylor marvels, "Our website shut down, the people from CD Baby called us and said, 'Who the fuck are you? What happened?' Our album went to number one on Amazon and all this kinda stuff, and every day we were Iicking envelopes and carrying packs of our CDs that we made for under a thousand dollars – each of us had a sack over our shoulders like Santa Claus and we were going to the post office, and it just never stopped from there.

"And it's a Cinderella kinda story although we were older at the time so, for me, it's the best kinda Cinderella story you can have. You know, I think part of the reason why I feel so excited in my life right now is because eight years ago I felt like I got to start living again, and living at a higher level than I'd ever done before, you know? So it was cool: from Doc McGhee to Jools Holland to [supporting] Brian May to Bon Jovi to The Who, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz – it's just been non-stop."

Having toured extensively supporting AC/DC, Taylor now considers the band members friends and believes not having grown up worshiping them meant they were able to have "real conversations". Same goes for the other huge bands Vintage Trouble have warmed up stages for. "I was able to sit down and have real conversations with Brian – and real conversations about music – and talk to them and ask them about how they held this up for so long, and about lyric choices and about guitar riff choices, and I think maybe if I was a teen that listened to them non-stop I might not have been able to get into their brains or show them who I am as well. So I actually feel lucky that I didn't grow up listening to 'em as much."

When asked to share some of his favourite memories, Taylor obliges: "I tell you what, the guys from AC/DC were sitting backstage and jamming with us, I sang a cappella spirituals in the hallway with Brian Johnson. Pete Townshend made his entire production crew give us every piece of light and production on that stage 'cause we became such good friends. [Townshend] would try and play pranks on us, like, we should be opening up – it was time for us to be on stage – and he would talk to us in the hallway and see whether we would keep talking to him or go make our stage time [laughs]. Mick Jagger slapped me on the arse. I feel like I might not have got any of this if I was a little too googly about them."