AC/DC

Sydney 1973 - present

 [BIOGRAPHY] [DISCOGRAPHY] [REFERENCES] [LINKS] [FEEDBACK]


"It's so hard to get good help these days"
AC/DC 1975-77
L-R: Bon Scott, Phil Rudd, Angus Young, Mark Evans, Malcolm Young


AC/DC 1977-80
L-R: Malcolm, Phil, Angus, Cliff Williams (top), Bon Scott

Personnel

AC/DC lineups 1973-80

November '73 - February '74

February - April '74

Colin Burgess [drums]
Dave Evans [vocals]
Larry Van Kriedt [bass, sax]
Angus Young [guitar]
George Young [bass, drums]
(recording & one gig only)
Malcolm Young [guitar, bass]

Dave Evans [vocals]
Neil Smith [bass]
Noel Taylor [drums]
Angus Young [guitar]
Malcolm Young [guitar]

April - September '74

September '74 - January '75

Rob Bailey [bass]
Peter Clack [drums]
Dave Evans [vocals]
Dennis Laughlin [vocals] - occasional
Angus Young [guitar)]
Malcolm Young [guitar]

Rob Bailey [bass]
Peter Clack [drums]
Tony Currenti [drums] - recording only
Bon Scott [vocals]
Angus Young [guitar]
George Young (bass) - recording only
Malcolm Young [guitar]

January '75

January - March '75

Phil Rudd [drums]
Bon Scott [vocals]
Larry Van Kriedt [bass]
Angus Young [guitar]
Malcolm Young [guitar]

Phil Rudd [drums]
Bon Scott [vocals]
Angus Young [guitar]
George Young [bass, vocals] - occasional
Malcolm Young [bass, guitar]

March '75 - May '77

June '77 - February '80

Mark Evans [bass]
Phil Rudd [drums]
Bon Scott [vocals]
Angus Young [guitar]
Malcolm Young [guitar]

Phil Rudd [drums]
Bon Scott [vocals]
Cliff Williams [bass]
Angus Young [guitar]
Malcolm Young [guitar]

Biography

AC/DC - "Acca Dacca", as Aussie fans fondly refer to them -- are prime contenders for the title of Australia's greatest rock group. They are without doubt the best known and best selling Australian rock act internationally, and they're also one of the longest lasting - still going strong after more than 25 years, surviving many lineup changes, and the tragic death of lead singer Bon Scott in 1980.

From humble beginnings in Sydney, AC/DC have become hugely popular throughout the world, they have been cited as a seminal influence by many of the most famous hard rock and heavy metal bands of the last twenty years, and they were recently the subject of a cover story by respected UK magazine MOJO. Their albums have sold in colossal numbers, approaching an incredible 100 million copies worldwide. According Howlspace, the Recording Industry Association of America recently upgraded their sales figures, increasing their cumulative US sales from 46.5 million to 63 million, making them the fifth-best-selling band in U.S. music history, behind the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Eagles!

Family connections played a crucial part in the formation and development of AC/DC. Given their background, it was more or less inevitable that the core members of AC/DC, brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, would go into a career in music. They are, of course, the younger brothers of the legendary George Young, rhythm guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer with Australian '60s pop legends The Easybeats.

As youngsters, Malcolm and Angus had a first-hand introduction to the excesses of "Easyfever" in 1965, and little Angus was even trampled by a pack of young female fans who invaded the Young's family home in the Sydney suburb of Burwood, after a fan magazine published their address. Like those other famous rock siblings, Ray and Dave Davies, of The Kinks, the relationship between Malcolm and Angus has sometimes been a stormy one (Malcolm in fact left the band at one stage in the mid-80s) and they've come to blows on more than one occasion. Still, it's the glue which has bound the group together through good and bad times. Their older brother George and his partner Harry Vanda played a central role as mentors to the band in its early career, and the famed Vanda & Young partnership produced their first six albums, all of which are now regarded as rock classics.

The other important family influence was their sister Margaret - her passionate interest in music and her collection of original rock & roll and R&B records was pivotal in shaping the tastes of all her younger brothers. It was she who came up with both the band name, and the image which became Angus' trademark: his schoolboy stage outfit.

When The Easybeats split at the end of 1969, after their desultory Australian farewell tour, Harry and George returned to England and spent most of the next three years working as freelance producer/songwriters (and paying off a large debt incurred in the final years of the Easybeats). They released singles in their own name, and under a variety of pseudonyms - Paintbox, Haffy's Whisky Sour, and The Marcus Hook Roll Band. They came back to Australia in late 1973 and set up shop at the Albert's studio complex in Pyrmont - a move made possible because, in the early days of The Easybeats, they had wisely taken a share in Albert Productions instead of cash payments. One of their first efforts was the album Tales of Old Grand-Daddy, issued under the Marcus Hook Roll Band moniker; this was reportedly also the first studio outing for Angus and Malcolm. This set the stage for their close involvement with AC/DC over the next six years.

Vanda & Young's influence on AC/DC shouldn't be underestimated, and comparisons to the Easybeats are worthwhile. Like the Easys, AC/DC was founded on the two essentials - great songs and great performances. Just like the 'Easys', the band was built around a powerful, rock-solid rhythm section, highlighted by a red-hot lead guitarist and fronted by one of the most dynamic vocalists of the day. Vanda & Young's presence also ensured that AC/DC stayed tightly focussed on their rock'n'roll roots and maintained a consistent stylistic direction - a lesson the pair had learned to their costs in the 60s. When the Easybeats hit England in late 1966, they lost the guidance of their original producer and mentor, Ted Albert, and this was probably the single biggest factor in nobbling their chances of lasting overseas success. After a brief moment in the sun with Friday On My Mind, they were left floundering, vainly experimenting with a new style or fad on each successive release, in hopes of finding the right formula. By the time Vanda & Young had found their direction, and returned to the no-frills, rock'n'roll that was closest to their hearts, the band was all but finished - although their last single, St Louis, gave a strong hint of the direction AC/DC would take a few years later.

Although Angus is very much the "face" of AC/DC, it's actually brother Malcolm's band. Before AC/DC, Malcolm Young had spent about two years as a member of Newcastle's Velvet Underground, which also included future TMG drummer Herman Kovacs. It was Malcolm who put first the first AC/DC lineup together in November 1973, just prior to the release of Tales of Old Grand-Daddy. The original members were bassist Larry Van Kriedt and former Masters Apprentices drummer Colin Burgess. Next to join was lead singer Dave Evans, another ex-Velvet Underground member, who answered Malcolm's ad for a singer in the Sydney Morning Herald; completing the original group was brother Angus. Coincidentally, Angus'latest group Tantrum had jsut broken up, so instrument who had just broken up his own group Kentuckee, and was brought in at Malcolm's behest. Their first manager was Dennis Laughlin, who had been the original lead singer in Sherbet.

At Margaret Young's suggestion, they adopted the name AC/DC - reputedly taken from the electrical warning plate on her sewing machine (although the recent Mojo profile says it was a vacuum cleaner). Another famous piece of AC/DC apocrypha is that, despite their original glam-rock image, they were unaware of the bisexual connotation of the term "AC/DC" until well after the name had been chosen. They rehearsed during December in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown, and their first official gig as AC/DC was at Chequers nightclub in Sydney on New Years Eve 1973-74. At first they played mostly covers - Beatles, Stones, Chuck Berry and blues standards - gradually introducing original material over the next few months, including a few early originals which have never been recorded.

 

1974

The new band gigged around Sydney during January, and at this stage Larry also played sax on some songs, with Malcolm swapping to bass for those numbers, but this first version of AC/DC lasted less than four months, and there were to be many more personnel changes before the band finally settled into its first stable lineup.

In February '74 they cut their first recordings, Can I Sit Next To You Girl and Rockin' In The Parlour along with an early version of "Rock 'N' Roll Singer at EMI Studio 301 in Sydney. Vanda and Young produced and George also played bass. But these would be the only recordings by the original lineup -- at a Chequers gig a week after the sessions, drummer Colin Burgess collapsed on stage, and he was fired on the spot. George Young (who was proficient on many instruments) filled in for the second set. Not long after, Larry Van Kriedt was also asked to leave. Looking for replacements, Malcolm sat in on guitar with Sydney band Jasper, and as a result he asked bass player Neil Smith (ex-Rockery) and drummer Noel Taylor to join AC/DC.

This new lineup was even shorter-lived; in April, Smith and Taylor were sacked after only six weeks in the band, and Malcolm recruited a new rhythm section of Rob Bailey on bass and Peter Clack on drums (both ex-Flake). Although this lineup never recorded, it did survive long enough to appear in the film-clip made to promote Can I Sit Next To You Girl. Bailey and Clack also played at an outdoor gig in Sydney's Victoria Park in April, where Angus wore his now-famous schoolboy uniform for the first time. The original version was apparently Angus' actual uniform from his old Sydney secondary school, Ashfield Boys' High. By this time, the band had shed the 'regulation' jeans-and t-shirt and taken on a more "glam" image. As photos from the period will attest, it wasn't exactly their best look, and fortunately they later ditched the glam trimmings and got back to basics.

On May 26 AC/DC were support at an historic outdoor concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, headlined by Stevie Wright, who was riding high on the success of his 'comeback' album Hard Road and his epic three-part hit Evie, both produced by Vanda & Young. 25,000 people attended, with another 10,000 reportedly turned away. Stevie's band for the occasion included George Young and Harry Vanda - this was the the first time the three had performed onstage together since the split of the Easybeats in 1969.

With Vanda & Young behind them, a recording contract was a foregone conclusion, and they officially signed to Albert Productions in June 1974, with distribution through EMI. The first single Can I Sit Next To You Girl? / Rockin' In The Parlour, was released on July 22, and also released in New Zealand on Polydor. It sold moderately well, and charted in Perth, but didn't make the national Top 40.

Like Skyhooks, the real turning point for AC/DC was a change of lead singer. During July and August they had their first major audience exposure outside Sydney. They played a small national tour in July, to promote the new single, and in August they were chosen (probably on the basis of their faux bisexual/glam image) as support act for Lou Reed on his Rock'n'Roll Animal tour. It was on this tour that singer Bon Scott saw AC/DC for the first time, in Adelaide, and after the show he was introduced to the group by his former Valentines bandmate Vince Lovegrove, who was then working as a booking agent in Adealaide. It was perfect timing for both parties. Bon was at a losse end -- had left his former band, Fraternity, and while recovering from a serious motorbike accident, he had been working as a driver, writing, and taping demos with the Adelaide group The Mount Lofty Rangers. AC/DC, for their part, were on the verge of ditching Dave Evans. They arranged an audition with Bon and offered him the job as lead singer -- although he didn't accept at first.

At the end of the Reed tour, they scored a six-week residency at Perth's Beethoven Disco, supporting famous Les Girls transvestite performer Carlotta, with manager Dennis Laughlin occasionally replacing the oft-absent Evans. In September 1974 AC/DC repeated their offer to Bon Scott, and this time he accepted, joining the band for an impromptu jam at the Pooraka Hotel. After a final gig in Melbourne later in the month, Dave Evans was asked to leave. He later joined Rabbit, in 1976) and towards the end of the month, Bon played his first official concert with at the Brighton-Le-Sands Masonic Hall in Sydney.

Angus:"He was hanging out at our shows going 'I'm a drummer, come on, let me bash the drums, for you.' and we'd go 'No, we've got a drummer.' So he started being our driver and roadie. Then one night our singer wouldn't go on -- and Bon volunteered. We knew he had a good voice. He said 'What do you want me to sound like?' because he'd been in these bands who wanted him to copy whatever was hip at the time. He couldn't believe it when we said 'Just sounds like you sound,'. He downed two bottles of bourbon, with some coke and speed and says 'Right, I'm ready'. Next thing we know he was running around with his wife's knickers on and yelling at the audience."

Malcolm: "Of course our manager didn't like him - 'We can't have this guy: chicks don't dig him, he's old and he's got a shark's tooth hanging off his ear' -- this was when it was all Bay City Rollers and Sweet. But we said 'Screw that!' With Bon, that's when the band became a band. With Bon we had a real character in the band with his opwn style and his own idea for lyrics."
[MOJO]

Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott was already a veteran performer, and a minor star in his own right. Born in Kirrimur, Scotland (the Young's were also Scots migrants, from Glasgow) he migrated to Australia as a child with his parents in te early 1950s, and settled in Perth. As a teenager he played drums and pipes in the Fremantle Pipe Band. He joined his first professional band, The Spektors, in 1965, and in 1966 he became co-lead vocalist with Vince Lovegrove in The Valentines. They achieved considerable national popularity during 1968-70, and although they were typically pigeonholed as a "bubblegum" group, there was a tougher side to The Valentines; their stage act was tight and strong, their off-stage carousing was legendary and they gained a degree of infamy in 1969 by being the first major Australian band to be busted for drugs.

Bon was already known to Vanda & Young via The Valentines, who had developed a friendship with The Easybeats after meeting them on tour during 1966. Three of their singles were written for them by Vanda & Young, including their breakthrough 1969 hit My Old Man's A Groovy Old Man, and The Valentines also supported The Easys on their final Australian tour in late 1969; by this time the Easys had returned to their roots and were delivering a powerhouse set of no-frills rock'n'roll (as evidenced by their last single St Louis, and the experience was a considerable influence on Bon, according to Glenn A. Baker.

Immediately after the split of The Valentines in 1970, Bon changed tack and joined the Adelaide-based progressive outfit Fraternity (which included ex-Sherbet keyboard player Sam See). Bon sang on their classic 1971 single Seasons Of Change, written for them by Blackfeather's John Robinson and Neale Johns. It was a minor hit for Fraternity, but Blackfeather released their own excellent version a few months later (on which Bon played recorder) and they had an even bigger hit with it, although the Fraternity version is reckoned by many to be the better of the two. (The complete Fraternity recordings were released by Raven on CD in 1997.)

Rock historian Noel McGrath was right on the money when he described Bon as being "...the spark AC/DC needed to set the rock scene on fire". He was a truly great rock frontman, an extraordinary singer and performer, who found the perfect outlet for his considerable talents in AC/DC. His high, rasping voice was powerful, dramatic and finely controlled -- exactly what was required to cut through the heavy sound of the band, and he effortlessly adapted his vocal style to their driving hard rock sound when he joined AC/DC. Bon quickly became the archetypal rocker, and his image as a fast-living, hard-drinking bad boy was no hype. He lived it to the hilt, and it eventually killed him. Nevertheless, there was a gentler side to Bon, as historian Glenn A. Baker noted:

I encountered Bon Scott a number of times during the 70's and each meeting served to increase my incredulity that performer's public image could be so at odds with his real personality. Bon really was a sweet man. He was warm, friendly and uncommonly funny. He did not breathe fire, pluck wings off flies or eat children whole. And while his daunting stage persona of lascivious leers and blood curdling howls was by no means fraudulent, it was most certainly a professional cloak that could be worn at convenient moments.

Surprisingly, the wild ways of Bon and other AC/DC members contrasted sharply with Angus, who was already thoroughly conversant with the hazards of the rock life, thanks to the misadventures of The Easybeats - especially their lead singer Stevie Wright, who by then was in the grip of heroin addiction. Mindful of these cautionary examples, Angus was reputedly a "straight-edge" who doesn't take drugs or drink (although he apparently does smoke cigarettes). His favoured on-stage tipple is, famously, a cup of tea.

By the time he joined AC/DC, Bon had long since jettisoned the clean-cut pop image of his Valentines days. Bon's look was in sharp contrast to the well-groomed hair and satin jumpsuits of the mid-70s. His gap-toothed grin was a legacy of the broken jaw he suffered in his bike crash. Long-haired, slim, wiry, tattooed, typically clad in skin-tight jeans and t-shirt (or just as often bare-chested), Bon was an electric performer who possessed tremendous visual presence and had a total command of the stage. His persona - brash, swaggering, tough, lewd, leering, suggestive - was leavened with an irresistible cheekiness and larrikin humour. On stage, he was perfectly complemented by Angus - the demented, headbanging, duckwalking rock-brat who roamed the stage in his school uniform, ripping out blistering solos on his trademark Gibson SG guitar. Like The Rolling Stones, their dynamic 'Mick-and-Keef' double-act was foregrounded by the stolid presence of the rest of the band, and this strong visual component proved to be a critical factor in their breakthrough.

AC/DC were also fortunate in coming to prominence at the very beginning of the music video era in Australia, and they were certainly tailor-made for the emerging genre. Bon was the perfect lead singer for this medium -- though not conventionally good-looking, the camera loved him, and he loved it back. He possessed an innate sense of what 'worked' on TV or in a film-clip, and his style was much imitated by later singers (Angry Anderson being one who clearly studied Bon's moves very closely). In spite of their rough image they were almost immediately picked up by national pop TV show Countdown, and this helped propel them to the top all over Australia in very short order. Their video clips (which remain classics, largely due to the terrific performances by Bon and Angus) won them legions of new fans around the country. Their appearances on Countdown are legendary - probably their best-remembered was Bon's infamous first appearance dressed as a schoolgirl. And whatever its shortcomings, it has to be said that 'Molly' Meldrum and Countdown unstintingly championed AC/DC from the outset, and this played a tremendously important role in their Australian success.

With Bon out front, AC/DC were almost immediately propelled to a new level and they soon jelled into one of the tightest and most commanding bands in the country. They had long since chucked out the glam image and were reborn as a tough, uncompromising, full-tilt boogie'n'blues street outfit who could blow just about any rival off the stage. Skyhooks might have been the naughty boys of Oz Rock, but AC/DC were indisputably "mad, bad and dangerous to know", and they revelled in the image. Most importantly, under the guidance of Vanda & Young, Angus, Malcolm & Bon very quickly developed into a world-class rock songwriting partnership.

In November '74, Michael Browning, manager of Melbourne's Hard Rock Cafe, took over as manager. They relocated to Melbourne and move into a share house in St Kilda where, according to legend, scenes of "pure debauchery" were commonplace and the local prostitutes were regular guests. It was was here, not surprisingly, that they penned both The Jack and Whole Lotta Rosie, Bon's ode to a 20-stone Tasmanian Their first album High Voltage was cut with session drummer Tony Currenti in only ten days at Albert Studios in Sydney, between gigs. Vanda & Young produced, with George again playing bass on some tracks.

 

1975

This was the year that really established AC/DC in Australia, but it got off to a typically tumultuous start. Early in the New Year Bailey and Clack were both sacked. When drummer Phil Rudd heard about the vacancy and immediately asked to join, and was accepted. (Phil was a former member of Buster Brown, whose lead singer, Kevin "Angry" Anderson would go on to head another of Vanda & Young's hard rock proteges, Rose Tattoo.) Rudd's recruitment was another important move - his solid, big-hitting style was perfect for the band and he became the engine of AC/DC for the next ten years. Still needing a bass player, the erstwhile Larry Van Kriedt was invited back, but he lasted only days before being sacked again, and for the next few weeks the band played either as a four-piece, with Malcolm on bass, or as a five-piece with George sitting in.

George Young was with them when they made their infamous appearance on the last day of the final Sunbury rock festival, held over the Australia Day long weekend. Like The Easybeats before them, AC/DC didn't take crap from anyone, and when headliners Deep Purple refused to let the AC/DC follow their performance, a fist-fight erupted on stage, with AC/DC, their roadies and George Young shaping up against Deep Purple's entourage. AC/DC eventually left without playing. Sadly, the fight was only the most visible symptom of the disastrous end to the Sunbury era, which had begun with such promise in 1972: the event was rained out, only 16,000 people attended (compared to over 200,000 in 1972) and festival organisers Odessa Promotions took a massive loss, forcing them into liquidation immediately afterwards. Almost all the local bands went unpaid, while Deep Purple's exclusive performance netted them a staggering $60,000 - equivalent to about one hundred times the average fee for an Australian act at that time.

From here, the band leaped from success to success. If it looked easy, it was because they and their production team drew on several decades of combined experience, because they were quite simply one of the best groups in the country, and because they worked their arses off, paying up to six gigs per day! Their debut LP, High Voltage, released in Feb. 1975, became the second biggest-selling Australian album of the year and stayed on the charts for a remarkable twenty-five weeks. In March, their second single (the first with Bon) was released. The A-side, an original Love Song (Oh Jene), was backed by a hard-rocking cover of Baby, Please Don't Go, the Big Bill Broonzy standard which had been made famous by Them. It was the B-side that radio picked up, and this gave them their first hit, quickly rising to #10 on the national charts the following month. Just before the single was released, Melbourne musician Mark Evans heard about the bass vacancy and auditioned. He was accepted and officially joined after the launch party for the single at the Hard Rock Cafe, cementing the first 'classic' AC/DC lineup.

In April, with Baby, Please Don't Go hitting the Top Ten, AC/DC made their legendary first live appearance on Countdown, Australia's national pop show. They were an instant hit, thanks in large measure to Bon, who provoked an storm of complaints from viewers about his outrageously camp performance, where he appeared dressed as a schoolgirl. Over the next two months the group quickly became one of the biggest acts on the Melbourne scene, rivalling the current pop darlings, Skyhooks, and solid support from Countdown had them known all over the country. Their follow-up single, High Voltage was released in June and did even better than the previous single, reaching #7 in July; it also also marked the debut of the Young-Scott-Young writing team; from this point all their hits were original compositions. Also in June they headlined at Melbourne's Festival Hall, but this time the roles were reversed - Stevie Wright and John Paul Young were now supporting them. (The concert was filmed and the footage was later used for the High Voltage video). Topping off a big month, the High Voltage LP was certified gold in Australia.

In July they recorded the tracks for their second LP T.N.T. at Albert's Studios in Sydney, and performed regular gigs at the Bondi Lifesaver. In September, Phil Rudd broke his thumb in a fight at the Matthew Flinders Hotel in Melbourne, so for the next few weeks he was replaced by Colin Burgess; around this time the band also made their second appearance on Countdown, performing High Voltage, after which they set out on their first major national tour as headliners.

By year's end it was obvious that AC/DC were destined for big things. On December 8, they released their fourth single, which immediately became a classic of Australian rock. It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll) is true street poetry -- a tough, unsentimental, warts-and-all account of the pitfalls and hardships of life as a rock musician. It immediately became AC/DC's signature tune and a genuine rock anthem, mostly because it was was so true - it encapsulated the experiences of the group, of Vanda & Young, and indeed of every band who has ever tried their luck on the road. Released in December 1975, it was the highest-charting Australian single of their career. The arrangement was given a unique twist by Bon's inventive use of bagpipes (harking back to his Fremantle days), and Bon's cool tribute to his Scots heritage is also probably the only hard rock hit to ever feature a bagpipe solo. The accompanying film clip, made for them by the Countdown film crew, is a classic in its own right; often imitated since, but never bettered, it featured the group rocking their way through the streets of Melbourne, playing live on the back of a flatbed truck. At the end of the year they were firmly established as one of Australia's biggest groups, confirmed by the award to High Voltage of triple gold album status.

Most importantly, they signed an international contract with Atlantic Records, paving the way for future international success.

 

1976-80

AC/DC started the year big and ended it even bigger By 1977 they had established themselves at the top of the Australian rock scene, with five Top 40 singles and three Top 10 albums to their credit in less than two years. During 1976 they scored four consecutive Top 40 Australian singles - It's A Long Way To The Top (#2, January), TNT (#11, March), Jailbreak (#5, June) and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (#21, October). Their second album, TNT, was another smash - released in February, it entered the album charts at #2 and was triple gold within two months.

At the end of March they made their first trip to England, after a farewell concert at Sydney's Bondi Lifesaver on the 27th, an event which has now passed into legend as the occasion when Angus first dropped his pants onstage and 'mooned' the audience. Although they made frequent trips back home, from this point on the group was effectively based in England. Over the next few months they played club dates around England, and gained valuable exposure supporting top acts including Black Sabbath and Richie Blackmore's Rainbow on tours through the UK and Europe; before long they were headlining their own tours, which quickly earned them notoriety due to Angus' "mooning" act.

"Their acceptance in the UK was almost immediate. They seemed to be the right band at the right time, having a punk image but displaying good musicianship. By July, they were selling records there, playing to enthusiastic crowds and getting publicity in music papers like Sounds and New Musical Express. Much of their publicity centred around Angus' outrageous stage antics which included a gradual strip climaxing in a full nude rear view. Although the routine was a sensation with audiences, it caused some close brushes with the police. However, Angus managed to escape any prosecution."
Noel McGrath

Although AC/DC were quick to refute the "punk" tag, the buzz they built up in London snowballed fast. It's A Long Way To The Top was released in the UK in April, followed by the UK version of High Voltage, which combined tracks from the first two Australian LPs. They made their first UK tour in June, supporting Back Street Crawler -- a tour, originally scheduled for April, which had to be postponed after the death of lead guitarist Paul Kossoff). The same month, Angus appeared on the cover of Sounds magazine; in July they made their first UK television appearance and during July/August they had a residency at London's hallowed Marquee, where they were soon breaking attendance records, regularly packing crowds of almost 1500 people into the tiny club.

Back home, the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap LP, released in September, was #4 by October. In November they headlined a 16-date UK tour which saw them followed from town to town by vice squad police, who threatened Angus with arrest if he dropped his pants on stage. They returned to Australia during December 1976 / January 1977 for their "A Giant Dose Of Rock & Roll!" Australian tour. These would be the last official concerts they played in Australia with Bon, and several dates were cancelled by local authorities because of concerns about the "obscene" image of the band being played up in the media. They headed back to the UK in February, touring Europe with Black Sabbath, although this gig came to an abrupt end in Sweden when Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler pulled a flick knife on Malcolm. Young responded in classic AC/DC style - he punched Butler in the face, resulting in AC/DC being thrown off the tour.

In May 1977, Mark Evans was sacked. Although announced as the old standby, 'musical differences', it was apparently because of Evans' continuing personality clashes with Angus. The band held auditions for a replacement and settled on Cliff Williams, formerly of English groups Home and Bandit, who officially joined on May 27. The fourth album, Let There Be Rock, was released in May '77 and in June the band returned to Australia to rehearse for their first American tour. While in Sydney for the recording, Cliff Williams made his live debut with the band at two secret gigs at the Lifesaver, where they were billed as "The Seedies" and "Dirty Deeds". This was the last time Bon and AC/DC would play in Australia.

During 1978-79 the band worked tirelessly to consolidate their success in Europe, and they began their conquest of America in earnest. They chose their targets well, and toured relentlessly, playing supports for many of the major hard-rock stadium acts of the 70s, including Alice Cooper, Rush, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Boston, Cheap Trick, Heart, Scorpions, Molly Hatchet, Ronnie Montrose, Nazareth, UFO, Journey, Foreigner, Van Halen, Styx, Blue Oyster Cult, Alvin Lee, Rainbow, Savoy Brown, REO Speedwagon, The Doobie Brothers, Thin Lizzy and The Who. In England, their tough image enabled them to gain acceptance in the new era of punk and New Wave (while other bands like Sherbet sank without trace), and their rowdy, uncompromising live performances won them legions of fans in the US.

They first cracked the British charts with the Let There Be Rock album, which reached #17 there in May '77, and consolidated that strong start with a string of UK Top 40 albums and singles: Powerage (#26, May 1978), the live album If You Want Blood You Got It (#13, October 1978), and Highway To Hell (#8, October 1979). Both the single and album Highway To Hell were major hits - the single reached #24 in Australia, but more importantly it provided their first US chart breakthrough, reaching #17.

Highway To Hell marked a changing of the guard. Pre-production took place at Albert's with Vanda & Young, but under pressure from Atlantic they shifted to the famous Criteria Studios in Miami in February 1979. They began recording there with former Jimi Hendrix producer and engineer Eddie Kramer, but it was an unhappy match and they fired him after only three weeks, relocating to London's Roundhouse Studios to work with rising English producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange.

As the decade turned, AC/DC stood poised on the brink of the major international success they had worked so long and hard for, but tragedy struck on 19 February 1980. The hard-living rock'n'roll lifestyle had finally caught up with Bon. He had been out in London drinking until 3am with a friend at the Music Machine (now the Camden Palace) and after being driven home in a stupor, the friend covered him with a blanket and left him to sleep it off in his car. When the friend woke and checked on Bon about 15 hours later, he was unable to rouse him. He rushed Bon to hospital, but he had died in his sleep overnight, having choked on his own vomit, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at Kings Hospital on the morning of the 20th.

Bon's body was flown back to Australia and he was buried in his adopted home town of Fremantle, WA, on 1 March. After the funeral, the stunned band were faced with the question of how to proceed. Although some fans felt that it was sacrilege to do so, AC/DC. They realised that the group was more than the sum of its parts, and bravely decided to carry on, encouraged by Bon's father.

Malcolm: "We went to the funeral and saw Bon's parents -- it was a big loss to them, but they'd accepted it more quickly than we had. When we were leaving, Bon's dad said 'You've got to find someone else, you know that,' and we said 'We don't know what we're doing'. He said, 'Well, whatever you do, don't stop"."
[MOJO]

Various names were touted as replacements, including Stevie Wright, Alan Fryer (later of Heaven), Gary Holton (ex-Heavy Metal Kids) and Terry Schlesher (later of Geordie). However it seems that they had their sights set all along on Brian Johnson, former lead singer of UK hard rock band Geordie. He auditioned for them in late March, and on April 8 he was officially announced as the band's new lead singer.

They immediately started rehearsals in London for a new LP, which they recorded at the idyllic Compass Point Studios, Nassau, Bahamas, with Robert John "Mutt" Lange producing once again. Recording was completed in just seven weeks. The appropriately named Back In Black was their most successful album to date and the one that definitively established them in America. It was #1 in the UK and Top 5 in both Australia and in the US, where its cumulative sales have recently been certified by the RIAA at the astounding figure of nineteen million copies, making it America's sixth highest selling album of all time!

Since then, AC/DC have become the godfathers of the heavy rock scene. Their career is well-documented on the many AC/DC sites, and we invite you follow the links below for more information. After a layoff of several years, they returned with a vengeance in 2000 with their latest album, Stiff Upper Lip, and they have just completed another triumphant tour of Australia, including a concert in Bon's Scott's old hometown of Perth, which Bon's mother attended as a special guest of the group.

DK

Discography

For a full and comprehensive AC/DC discography, we recommend Arnaud Durieux's outstanding AC/DC website, Electric Shock which can be found at

www.ac-dc.net

References

 

Links