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| Angus Young of AC/DC From Wikipedia.org |
More than three decades into a career that shows no signs of slowing down or letting up, AC/DC, like electricity itself, provides the world with an essential source of power and energy. Since forming in 1973, AC/DC's high voltage rock 'n' roll has flowed out into the world via consistently sold-out concert tours and global sales totaling more than 150 million albums and counting.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment's #1 best-selling catalog act worldwide, AC/DC has sold nearly 70 million albums in the U.S. alone, making AC/DC one of the five top-selling bands in American music history. One of the group's best-loved works, the enormously successful and influential Back In Black, has achieved RIAA "Double Diamond" status, for sales in excess of 22 million copies in the United States, and is the U.S.'s fifth largest-selling album ever.
But the roots of AC/DC lie back in Australia, and before that Glasgow, Scotland, where Angus and Malcolm Young, the musical core of the band (and still the most formidable guitar team in rock history), were born (in 1958 and 1953, respectively). In 1963, the Young family migrated to Sydney, Australia, where music would make its mark on the brothers. (As a member of the Easybeats, Angus and Malcolm's older sibling, George Young, was responsible for one of Australia's first international hits, "Friday On My Mind," in 1966. From 1974 through 2000, George and musical collaborator, Harry Vanda, produced a number of AC/DC albums including High Voltage, T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, If You Want Blood You've Got It, Powerage, '74 Jailbreak, Who Made Who, Blow Up Your Video, and Stiff Upper Lip.)
Taking a cue and encouragement from their older brother's musical success, Angus and Malcolm Young formed their own rock 'n' roll combo and premiered their inimitable interlocking guitar sound on December 31, 1973 at a New Year's Eve gig at Sydney's Chequers Club.
Calling their new rock band AC/DC (from the back of a sewing machine owned by their sister, Margaret), Angus and Malcolm moved from Sydney to Melbourne and began plowing through numerous line-ups searching for a solid rhythm section and a lead singer whose voice could match the manic assault of the Young brothers' guitars. The newly-christened AC/DC found its spiritual sparkplug in Bon Scott, a hard-living, hard-loving, hard-playing wild-eyed rabble-rousing singer who'd once "auditioned" for the band when he'd worked for them as a roadie and driver back in Sydney. With Bon Scott, another born Scotsman who'd relocated to Australia as a lad, in place as co-frontman to Angus' trademark raffish schoolboy-in-knickers, AC/DC was ready to electrify the world.
Quickly signed by George Young to the Albert Records label in Australia, AC/DC kicked out its first Australian album releases, 1974's High Voltage (a somewhat different album from the US High Voltage) and 1975's T.N.T. With each album achieving silver, gold, and platinum status in Australia, AC/DC embarked on a regime of relentless touring that would become one of the most enduring hallmarks of the band's career.
In 1976, having conquered their very first continent, AC/DC set off for Great Britain. When the band's no-holds-barred double-barrel rock 'n' roll landed them a residency at the prestigious Marquee Club, AC/DC promptly broke the venue's all-time house attendance record. AC/DC's days in clubland would not last much longer. Within a year, Let There Be Rock, the band's first simultaneous world release and first to use the unmistakable AC/DC logo—raised metallic Gothic lettering separated by Zeus's own lightning bolt—would catapult them into the stadium strata. AC/DC was ready to take on America.
The summer of 1977 found AC/DC performing a dizzying crisscross of American gigs, ranging from clubs like the Palladium and CBGB in New York and the Whiskey in Los Angeles to sprawling venues like the Jacksonville Coliseum. By 1978, AC/DC was one of the hottest concert attractions in the world. For the group's next studio album, they teamed up with producer Mutt Lange to create the undeniable hard rock masterpiece, 1979's Highway To Hell, the first AC/DC album to break into the US Top 100 and the first to go gold in America. In November of that year, the band went to Paris to film the monumental Let The Be Rock concert film, a quintessential document of a golden moment in the band's rise to world fame.
On February 19, 1980, with the band finding genuine success around the world, lead singer Bon Scott died in London at the age of 33. Reeling from the shock of the loss of their boisterous soulful lead singer, the surviving members of AC/DC decided there was only one way to pay proper tribute to Bon Scott: carry on and create the music he'd want them to make.
The group found an incredibly simpatico new lead singer and frontman in Brian Johnson, a Newcastle native who'd sung in a band Bon Scott raved about called Geordie. Returning to the studio with Mutt Lange, AC/DC and the group's new vocalist created Back In Black, one of the best-selling albums, in any musical genre, of all-time. Powered by the title track and the anthemic "You Shook Me All Night Long," "Back In Black" hit #1 in the UK and #4 in the US, where it has gone on to achieve 22x platinum (double Diamond plus) status.
AC/DC continued releasing best-selling albums through the 1980s and 1990s accompanied by strings of sold-out tours and major headlining concert and festival performances—including attendance-record-smashing concerts on the "Monsters of Rock," Castle Donington, "Rock In Rio," and 1991's "Rock Around The Bloc" festival at Tushino Airfield in Moscow, a free concert attended by close to one million fans.
On September 15, 2000, AC/DC was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame and had their hands imprinted in the cement in front of the Guitar Center on Hollywood Boulevard.
On March 10, 2003, AC/DC was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Aerosmith's Steve Tyler performed the induction, sang "You Shook Me All Night Long" with AC/DC during the ceremony and described the group's signature power chords and timelessly enduring rock 'n' roll as "...the thunder from Down Under that gives you the second-most-powerful surge that can flow through your body."
AC/DC's most recent record, Black Ice, was released in October 2008 on Columbia Records.
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| Live audience |
This column comes from Angus Young's classic magazine column, "Let There Be Rock." Interview by Nick Bowcott.
AC/DC are more than just a great rock band, they're an institution. Trends may come and go, but their unique brand of rhythm 'n bruise has proven to be timeless. Angus Young, the band's lead playing livewire, has also deservedly attained a legendary standing in the business. In fact, one of modern rock's leading lights, Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains recently refered to him as "the absolute god of blues-rock guitar."
In the first of a series of exclusive lessons with Guitar World, Angus talks about his unique playing style ... "Style? I didn't think I had any!" laughs Angus. "I just plug in and hit the thing really hard. That's my style ... or lack of one! That's why I use extra-heavy Fender picks-there's a lot of plastic in 'em so it takes longer to wear 'em out! Actually, because I'm so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left and when I play an open G chord I go right. That's how hard I play, and that's how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar takes me."
GUITAR WORLD: Did you play that hard from the moment you started or is it something that evolved?
ANGUS YOUNG: I've always liked to really hit the strings. I grew up with Mal [Mal is Angus' nickname for his brother Malcolm, AC/DC's rhythm guitarist/riff-writer-GW Ed.), who, besides having a great right [picking] hand, really understands how to get the most out of a guitar. He would always tell me, "don't tickle it, hit the bugger!"
The funny thing is, when you learn to play really hard you also learn the instrument's limitations. I honestly believe that you have to be able to play the gu itar hard if you want to be able to get the whole spectrum of tones out of it. Since I normally play so hard, when I start picking a bit softer my tone changes completely, and t hat's really useful sometimes for creating a more laid-back feel.
The verse of "Sin City" [Powerage] is a good example of this being put into action.
Yeah, we belt out the main riff pretty hard during the intra and the chorus, but when the vocal comes in we ease back on it a bit. Doing that adds a bit of color and dynamics to the song. You can't always be going for the throat, mate! You need some relief from time to time.
Do you ever reach for your guitar's volume pot and turn it down a tad when you're easing back on the intensity?
Yeah, I'll roll it back just a hair for that kinda part sometimes. It depends if I think I'm being cool-which is pretty friggin ' rare, actually! [laughs] Normally, I'm too lazy to do that, so I just pick a little lighter instead. Or, sometimes I might even sit out for a while, like I do at the start of "Livewire" [High Voltage]. Mal starts the thing off with the chords and then I just jump in when the rest of the band comes in. That's the beauty of having another guitarist there, I can nip off for a quick smoke and leave Mal to it! [laughs)
Do you ever switch to your neck pickup to create a different tonal vibe?
I used to do that a lot; I'd be fiddling about with the [pickup slector] switch all the time. I still hunt back and forth sometimes now, but only if I'm in a diddly mood.
On stage though, I rarely do it. Hell, you can do a lot to alter your tone just by changing where you pick the strings -- you don't even have to flick that switch! If you pick near the bridge you get more top and as you move further away from it your sound gets more bassy.
Another thing I' ll do to add a bit of color to a part is pick it with my fingers. I do that quite a bit, and so does Mal.
Like at the start of "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" [Back in Black] for example...
Exactly. I kick the thing off by picking out the riff using my pick and my fingers together [a technique known as hybrid picking]. Then, when the band comes in, I just hammer it out to get a more dynamic thing happening.
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| Electric guitarist |
It’s been nearly four decades since Malcolm Young invited his kid brother, Angus, to join a new band he was putting together. Who could have imagined, at that time, that all these years later AC/DC would still be churning out some of the world’s greatest riff-rock?
Through the years, legions of guitar players and fans have delved deeply into Angus’ background, perhaps looking for the secrets behind his artful riff-making. Still, we managed to uncover some biographical facts that might have escaped all but the most diehard followers.
He still owns the very first Gibson SG he bought – 41 years ago.
Young purchased a late ’60s Gibson SG from a music shop located within walking distance of his family’s home in Sydney, Australia, when he was just 16 years old. To this day, it remains one of his main go-to guitars. “I think it was the little devil horns [that sold me],” he told the New Zealand Herald, in 2010. “I’ve still got it and it’s still my favorite guitar of them all.”
His main pre-AC/DC job prepared him well for the band’s bawdy lyrical content.
Young left school before his 15th birthday. Not long afterwards, he took a job working as a typesetter at a “men’s” magazine that sported the title, Ribald. Malcolm, incidentally, had by then put in a couple of years doing sewing machine maintenance for a company that manufactured bras.
His older sister, Margaret, suggested something even more important than Angus’ trademark schoolboy uniform.
Most AC/DC fans know that it was the Young brothers’ sister, Margaret, who encouraged Angus to wear his schoolboy get-up on-stage. But fewer fans realize that it was also Margaret who christened her siblings’ band “AC/DC” after noticing the letters on a vacuum cleaner. According to biographer Susan Masino, Angus and Malcolm liked the fact that the letters denoted power and electricity.
He’s a closet fan of jazz great Louis Armstrong.
In a 1992 interview with Guitar magazine, Young hailed Louis Armstrong as “one of the greatest musicians of all time.” He went on to explain: “I went to see [Armstrong] perform when I was a kid, and that’s always stuck with me. It’s amazing to listen to his old records and hear the musicianship and emotion, especially when you consider that technology, in those days, was almost nonexistent. There was an aura about him.”
He regards solos as the easiest part of what he does.
Young once told Guitar Player that, while he couldn’t fill Malcolm’s shoes as a guitarist, Malcolm could likely fill his, at least with regard to solos. “That’s the easy part,” he said. “There’s no great thing in being a soloist. I think the hardest thing is to play together with a lot of people, and do that right. I mean, when four guys hit one note all at once – very few people can do that.”
He was “totally shocked” when Malcolm asked him to join the band.
“In the beginning, we never used to play together, even at home,” Angus told Guitar, in 1992. “Malcolm would be in one room with his tape recorder putting tunes together, and I would be in the other room pretending I was Jimi Hendrix. When I’d walk in to see what he was up to, he’d go, ‘Get out!’ I was amazed when he asked me to come down to a rehearsal and play.”
His riffs helped oust former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega from power.
In 1989, American government officials bombarded Manuel Noriega’s embassy refuge in Panama with “Hells Bells,” “Highway to Hell” and other choice riff-rockers. The tactic worked so well with Noriega, who was known to be an opera lover, that it’s since been employed by U.S. officials in other similar situations.
He’s always been a teetotaler.
Bon Scott was known for his prodigious consumption of alcohol. Through the years, Malcolm Young has imbibed his share of booze as well. Not so with Angus. “Angus was always drinking a big glass of chocolate milk or coffee,” Nantucket guitarist Tommy Redd once recalled, years after touring with AC/DC. “Malcolm, however, used to walk around with Jack Daniels in a bottle that was as big as he was.”
One of his closest friends during the making of the Back in Black album was … ELP’s Keith Emerson.
In the wake of Bon Scott’s death, AC/DC traveled to the Bahamas to recover from the shock, and to record Back in Black. Especially therapeutic were the afternoons when Emerson, Lake and Palmer keyboardist Keith Emerson, who lived in Nassau at the time, took Angus and the other band members out on his fishing boat. “I think it was great excitement for them, and kind of introduced them to my way of the Bahamian life,” Emerson later said. “I think they grew to like it and it [helped them] settle into recording.”
He expects he’ll still be wearing his schoolboy outfit on-stage well into his 60s.
When asked by Guitar if he would still be donning his trademark “get-up” at age 64, Angus described his attire as distinguished and “classic.” “Have you seen what some of the younger [artists] are wearing nowadays?” he asked. “They look like they’ve stolen their mothers’ skirts! If that’s fashionable, then you could say I’ve maintained a distinctively classic look.”Mike's Guitar Talk is committed to providing the best guitar information to you on the web. Subscribe now to receive these articles daily in your inbox and join in the conversation on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mikes-Guitar-Talk/208529755864772.
Have fun and stay tuned!
Mike
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