The new AC/DC album, Rock or Bust, hits stores tomorrow, boasting 11 songs crammed into 35 minutes.
Maybe your all-time favourite AC/DC tune will be among them.
Maybe not.
It’s pretty hard to beat the old AC/DC stuff–just ask Langley’s Mike Fraser, who engineered and mixed Rock or Bust, and has been working with the band since 1990.
When I asked him what his all-time favourite AC/DC song was he first said “the one with bagpipes” before taking a few seconds to remember it’s actual name: “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)”.
That track goes all the way back to 1975’s T.N.T. album, which was only released in Australia.
Pity.
“I really like a lot of the early AC/DC stuff,” Fraser told me in an exclusive interview last week. “I mean, obviously ‘Highway to Hell’ and ‘Back in Black’ were great. And I love Brian-I like Brian or Bon, like ’em both.
“But you know when a band first starts they’re very hungry and lean ‘n’ mean, and sometimes that’s where the better songs come. So I really like the old era.”
When asked to pick his fave track on the new album Fraser chose the first single, “Play Ball”, which was released in early October and, before that, used in a trailer for Major League Baseball on TBS‘s postseason coverage.
“I thought that showed a really good pop side of them,” he explained.
Now that I’ve heard the entire Rock or Bust album myself, I think I might pick “Baptism By Fire” as my own personal fave on the new disc.
Now there’s a riff.