ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON OCT. 28, 1983
By Steve Newton
The day before their October 11 concert at the Pacific Coliseum I journeyed downtown to the posh Four Seasons Hotel to meet with three of the five members of AC/DC–the loudest, raunchiest, and most popular heavy-metal band in the world.
Now I wasn’t too sure just what to expect. I had heard their songs “Hell’s Bells”, “Highway to Hell”, and “Rock and Roll Damnation”, but I didn’t suppose the door to their hotel room would open to a fiery inferno and suck me into a tortured eternity of nasty-sounding guitar riffs and howling, hellish vocals.
Then again, neither had I anticipated the sight that did confront me. For there, seated in a congenial semi-circle by a sunny window that looked out to the mountains and sea were three contributors to a sound that has surely raised the ire of many a protective mother.
And they were sipping tea, god-dammit!
With a hearty wave Brian Johnson–the steel-throated screamer who replaced Bon Scott after he drank himself to death–welcomed me into the room. So where was the raving lunatic that prowled the stage in a wooly tam and black Harley-Davidson t-shirt while crazed schoolboy Angus Young dealt brutal chords from atop his broad shoulders? All I could see was a cheerful, albeit slightly shy bloke with a craggy face and sepulchral voice layered thick with Geordie accent.
And what of Malcolm Young, the man responsible for AC/DC’s shattering rhythm guitarwork? He’s a dead ringer for one of his own fans, teenage thin and gaunt.
But if there is one thing that I noticed to be consistent with AC/DC’s badboy image, it is their attitude. Whether sipping tea or Jack Daniels, these guys are on a constant party. They were forever laughing and ribbing each other (and me) during our interview. One gets the impression that, whether they were selling millions of albums or not, AC/DC would still be churning out the rowdy type of music they love. And for that, I give them credit.
In the following conversation, Young, Johnson and new drummer Simon Wright (who remained mostly silent) talk of post-Bon Scott AC/DC, their fans, and their loathing for groups like the Bee Gees.
Why did Phil Rudd quit the band?
YOUNG: Ah, I think he’d sort of grown out of it a bit. Got a bit mature [laughs].
Get married or something?
YOUNG: Noooo.
How did you happen to join AC/DC, Simon?
WRIGHT: I answered an advert in a music paper in London called Sounds. And I didn’t know it was for AC/DC, I just went along.
Did Angus ever really have to wear that schoolboy outfit he does in concert? Did he go to a private school?
Na, na–it was just something to do to get a bit of excitement. We started off in the sort of Sydney club/pub circuit, and it was a bit like the redneck syndrome. Nobody would pay attention to anything that was going on until you kicked them right in the teeth with it.
And that caused a bit of a controversy, to say the word. We just got more gigs through it and what have you.
Do fans ever come to your concerts wearing those schoolboy outfits?
Yeah, we haven’t had a lot of it, but you always get the fanatics. We like the birds coming along with the short pants [laughs].
Do many birds come to your concerts? Or is it mostly a male audience?
No, sometime we get quite a few . We’ve got a good looking bass player you know [laughter all round].
I wanted to ask you about a song from the new album, “Bedlam in Belgium”. Was that written about a particular incident?
Yeah it was. It was quite a few years back. We had always wanted to say something about Belgium without really slagging it off, you know, which is hard to do. That was one of the memories that stuck with the band for a long time.
Well what happened at that gig?
It was just like a curfew scene. There was a lot of drinking and violence going on, so they decided to put curfews on the kids. Nine o’clock curfews at night, which is really silly.
And the cops just came in and started arresting kids right in front of us. We played to about 900 kids–and I think 300 of them like disappeared in front of our eyes while we were playing. We didn’t know what was goin’ on, and the next thing, we looked around and there were cops onstage with machine guns telling us to get off.
Machine guns?
Yeah! Really heavy scene. So one thing led to another, and it was pretty hard to stop the band from playing.
Has there been much violence at other gig? Do you find that your rowdy style of music incites it?
Not really. We sort of find that music tames the beast, you know. Sometimes at the beginning of a show you might think it’s gonna be a lot of trouble, but once the band gets going they seem to get into the band and forget about the violence.
What sort of guitar is that you play, the big one?
That’s a Gretsch, an early sixties model.
You don’t see too many of those around in rock bands.
No. I think they’re like an old country-and-western guitar [laughs].
Has Angus always used an SG?
Yeah, since day one.
Do you guys use any foot pedals?
Simon does! [laughter all around].
You don’t use any effects though.
Naah.
You guys have Marshalls don’t you?
Yeah, the old Marshall amps. They’re good amps.
Do you ever get the urge to step out and play lead, Malcolm?
Yeah! [laughter all around]. They’ve got this big hook umbrella and they just pull me back in.
JOHNSON: “That’s enough Young. Four chords a second and that’s it.”
But you don’t play much lead.
Aw, I just tinkle. I mean you can’t outdo Angus, you know. It’s a bit of a difficult one.
Brian, does your vocal style–full force all the time–ever give you trouble? Do you ever lose your voice?
JOHNSON: [Whispers] No. [Laughs]. Aw, just at the start of the tour, if you haven’t been doing anything for a long time and you get in with the lads and rehearse for five or six hours a day. Then you feel it for the first time. It’s not so much your voice–it’s your lungs that hurt. It’s like training for another season; you’ve got to get back into it. And that’s all, touch wood.
Do you do anything to keep your vocal chords in shape?
Not really. I’ve heard all these stories about these singers that have got these new neck vibrators that they put on before the gigs. And they go and see nodule specialists to show them their throats and all this shit.
Naw, I think the worst thing I’ve ever had done was take honey before six or seven gigs.
What sort of a band was Geordie?
It was just a little rock band, ya know, very basic. Just a little four-piece ya know, and we just had a little bit o’ luck, and that was it. And then we didn’t have any more [laughs]. Just sort of faded to obscurity.
At the volume you guys play at, do you ever fear for your hearing?
Huh? [looks at his watch]. Quarter past eleven [laughter].
Do your ears ring after the concerts? I know mine do.
YOUNG: For a little while. Nothing serious. You see the audience is in front of the P.A. system–that’s where most of the volume is. We’re behind that. Everything we hear comes from our own stage sound, which you adjust to your own range anyway.
Brian, how did you feel about joining AC/DC after the tragic death of Bon Scott? Was there a lot of pressure going into such a popular band?
JOHNSON: I was going through the same as like what Simon’s going through now. Not pressure in the sense of real pressure. You felt it, and that was it. But you just do it, you know. It’s hard to explain.
How did you come to join the band? Did they just come up and ask you?
I think at the time it was just word of mouth, ’cause the boys weren’t sure themselves what was happening yet. It was a couple of weeks after Bon’s death, and they just put a few feelers out to see what would happen. And I just went down, had a sing with the lads, and it worked out allright.
I thought Back in Black was a really good album. What was it like for you, Malcolm, to make that first album without Bon?
YOUNG: It was different. But that material, we were working on it for Bon at the time. So that was the weirdest part. And when Brian stepped in he stepped in right on that album, having not even gone on the road or anything. It was a bit strange, but it was good because we really had to work hard on it.
JOHNSON: I think I was a bit luckier than Simon to actually go into the studio, work with the lads first, and then go on the road. Cause I had the chance to know them better and live with them for a few weeks, so I was lucky in that respect.
It seems to me that most of the Australian bands doing well these days–groups like Split Enz, Men at Work, Mental as Anything–are more pop than anything else. Is there much of a heavy metal scene Down Under there?
YOUNG: Well, really there’s no Australians in the band. I mean Phil Rudd was the only real Australian guy in the band. And we’ve been out of that country for seven, eight years now. And when we go back it’s basically just me that goes because I’ve got parents there. So we’re really not in touch with that place at all. Why do you think we worked so hard to get out of there? [laughs].
So you and Angus weren’t raised in Australia?
No, we were born in Scotland, left Scotland at ten, so second half of school.
JOHNSON: I think you’ll find that with most Australian bands. You’ll go up to an Australian band and say, “How ya doin'” and you’ll get a big thick Scottish accent or an English accent back.
I interviewed the singer for Men at Work a couple of weeks ago and he was born in Scotland too.
YOUNG: Yeah, you’ll find that with lots of them. Even the Bee Gees. They were all born in the Isle of Man, wasn’t it?
WRIGHT: Manchester.
JOHNSON: Yeah, Simon knows. They’re his cousins.
The Bee Gees are your cousins?
YOUNG: No way! Do you think we’d have got Simon in the band with a reputation of having fuckin’ Bee Gees for cousins? [laughs]
JOHNSON: I’d chop his medallion off [more laughter]. Do you want a cuppa tea or anything?
No thanks.
You sure?
Yeah. Can I bum a smoke off you though, Simon?
WRIGHT: Yeah, sure.
So how do you guys like Vancouver?
YOUNG: I like it. Nice harbour.
JOHNSON: Beautiful city. It always reminds me of San Francisco, and Perth in Australia. Same kinda cities with natural waterways and mountains and all that.
I wanted to ask each of you which were your favourite songs on the new album? Malcolm, which song do you like best?
YOUNG: Well, I actually don’t know, because it takes me about a year before I can put them into the same category as all the other stuff. But just off the top I like “Rising Power” and “Flick Of the Switch”, like instant, but there’s quite a few others.
How about you Brian, any that stand out?
WRIGHT: I like “Badlands”.
Which songs do you like doing the most in concert?
“Sin City”.
“Sin City”, yeah. I really like that Powerage album, I got that on the red vinyl.
YOUNG: Really, most of the songs that go down well with the kids, like “Rosie”, “Let There Be Rock”, “Highway to Hell”, and “Back in Black”. It’s more like the kids thing; it’s what they want that we really go for–what gets the most reaction.
What was the biggest crowd you ever played to? You play any of those big outdoor concerts?
Yeah, we’ve done a lot of outdoors, we’ve done 80,000. As a support act in the early days we’d be doing 200 in a club and then the next minute you’re going on stage in front of 80,000 kids at 11 o’clock in the mornin’ in San Francisco. Our own level, I think we’ve done 60,000 in cities in Europe with bands like the Who and that.
Which countries do you find the kids are most crazy about the heavy metal type music.
I think you’ll find the fanatics are the same everywhere; that’s about where it lies, you know.
Which groups do you like to listen to in your spare time?
WRIGHT: I like a lot of different ones. ZZ Top.
JOHNSON: I like ZZ Top. I’ve listened to them for years. I just like their attitude and all, you know, they don’t give a fuck. And their new song is good, “Sharp Dressed Man”. I just saw the video for it the other night.
You guys have any videos out?
YOUNG: We just did one in L.A. Not an epic or anything like that. We’ve got this type of thing where if our audience saw us looking a little bit cabaret–that’s what we call it–I don’t think we’d be around much longer. So we just keep it very raw and basic.
Which song did you do a video for?
We did a few. I think we did four tracks. “Rising Power”. “Flick of the Switch”.
Are they gonna be on MTV?
Yeah, but I think we’re gonna try and make sure that they don’t play the ass off it, ’cause that can do you a lot of damage.
What do you think of the new music coming out of Britain with all the synthesizer and keyboard stuff. Do you get off on that at all?
Naw, it’s a bit like the Bee Gees isn’t it.
JOHNSON: The first time it was done it was good, back in 1978 I saw it when it was first done. Now they’re just diggin’ and diggin’ on it.
YOUNG: But that band, Kraftwerk, I was watching it last night. They’ve been doin’ it for fucking centuries, and all of a sudden they put a few pop lyrics on top of it and away you go. But I mean it’s healthy because it cleans out a lot of the riff raff in the business, when something like that does come in–that’s how we look at it.
Who were your biggest influences, starting out with Angus there?
Ah, it was just the old rockers, you know, Yardbirds, and the early Stones and early Who. And of course I like the blues, stuff like Clapton and guys like that, in the early days, when he was with the Bluesbreakers.
Where are you guys off to after tomorrow’s gig?
Seattle. And then Portland.
And then you work your way across the States there?
Yeah, we’re gonna go down south, like down the West Coast and then down through Texas and come up through the midwest again and work our way across the east.
Tomorrow is your first show on the Flick of the Switch tour, is it?
Yeah, very first, first with Simon.
WRIGHT: I’m ready.
YOUNG: We’re doing a lot of rehearsing for it, we want to try and make sure that the kids don’t suffer for us being off of gigs for a few months.
Do you have any new tricks up your sleeve for the live show?
There’s lights and things like that, but nothing to go around and write to mom about you know. We try and keep it basic. It’s just like everybody. You can get carried away with that type of thing, and eventually, where you gonna stop? And it all comes back to the music, so we really try to keep ourselves on that line, even though it’s nice to have a few effects. But like what we’ve got we try to incorporate within the music anyway. We use cannons as an instrument, rather than just an effect, you know. It plays its part in the song, and the same with the bell, you know.
Oh yeah–for “Hell’s Bells”?
Yeah.
Do you have a cannon that you bring out?
Yeah, we got a coupla big cannons. But again we save them up like towards the end, right, it’s not like to get things rolling. That’s why we don’t like really talkin’ about them, we’d rather get the music through, you know.
I guess, Brian, you still carry Angus around on your shoulders there. Is he getting heavy?
JOHNSON: Light as a feather. And every group in the world does it now. Every group in the world seems to pick up their guitarist on their shoulders.
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