AC/DC take stock, then rock on
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Rock or bust … Angus Young and his AC/DC bandmates have vowed to keep on rocking.
Source: Supplied
THE AC/DC show must go on. Founder Malcolm Young has retired, forced to lay down his axe by the insidious demon of dementia.
Drummer Phil Rudd appears unlikely to continue his duties with the band as he returns to a New Zealand court today to face charges of threatening to kill and drug possession.
DIAGNOSIS: Malcolm Young in care for dementia
PHIL RUDD: AC/DC break silence on drummer
The future of the Australian hard rock band has been decided by its other founder Angus Young and he decreed there would be another album, Rock Or Bust, and world tour to celebrate their 40 years.
Stevie Young, the son of the eldest brother Stephen, has been enlisted to step in for Malcolm and Angus says the question of who will be behind the kit when AC/DC hit the road next year “is still up in the air”.
AC/DC 2014 … Stevie Young joins to replace his uncle Malcolm, while Phil Rudd’s future with the band remains unclear. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied
“We have got to resolve that … at the moment, it’s still something we have to work out,” Angus says.
When Angus, frontman Brian Johnson and bassist Cliff Williams hit the promo circuit earlier this month ahead of the release of Rock or Bust tomorrow, the inevitable question they face is why go on?
The world’s iconic hard rockers hardly need the superannuation top-up with global sales of more than 200 million records and gazillions of concert tickets over four decades.
Maybe the secret to why AC/DC and the Stones and all those other old blokes are still playing rock music is that it is the fountain of eternal youth, albeit without the Botox.
The Peter Pan properties of rock may also explain why Angus and his band mates naively hoped Malcolm’s condition wouldn’t get worse, even as he valiantly battled memory loss during the Black Ice world tour which finished up in 2010.
Angus admits the decision to forge ahead with the band after his brother could no longer go on was “pretty tough”.
Happier days … Malcolm Young and Phil Rudd with the band during the Black Ice sessions in 2008. Picture: Supplied.
Source: News Corp Australia
“We all kind of hung in there, hoping Malcolm would stay where he was at, he would stabilise,” he says. “Unfortunately with that condition, it’s regressive.
“When Malcolm said he couldn’t do it any longer, we more or less asked ourselves the question ‘Do we want to continue as a band?’
“We all hooked up to see who was on board. And then it was down to putting together new material for the album.”
There is a “vault” somewhere in the world, whether it is a building or a computer or scrapbook or a space in Angus Young’s brain, where the ingredients of Rock Or Bust’s songs were stored. Think of it as a Willy Wonka factory for hard rock fans.
The songwriting guitarist tapped that seemingly inexhaustible cornucopia of riffs, choruses and song titles when the band regrouped to make the album in Vancouver earlier this year.
Angus said remembering some of the ideas that hadn’t made it on to previous records was also down to luck.
Punny guys … Brian Johnson and Angus Young have been sharing laughs launching Rock or Bust. Picture: Mike Coppola / Getty Images
Source: Getty Images
“The process of (songwriting) has never changed,” he says.
“There’s a lot of ideas me and Malcolm had worked up over the years, a lot of riffs and a lot of choruses we had never used before and that’s how we have always done each album … a bit of new, a bit of old.
“I have a lot of the unfinished (stuff), on a computer, yeah and in storage, there’s a lot of stuff in storage. It’s time consuming to go through it all.”
Angus and his band mates, along with new recruit Stevie who played Malcolm’s guitars and amps, teamed again with producer Brendan O’Brien who helmed Black Ice.
“When we worked with him for the first time on Black Ice, we started playing and he yelled out ‘Hey, this sounds like AC/DC’,” Angus says, chuckling.
O’Brien appears to be a safety net for the insular outfit, although he threatened to replace Rudd with another drummer when he was 10 days late for the sessions.
Johnson, who hates singing in studios, was again allowed to record in a studio office, with an old-school mic that “probably came from a museum”.
“I don’t like singing in studios, wearing headphones with a mic that looks like a pair of ladies’ knickers stretched over a ring,” he says.
Angus chimes: “He’s lying. It was his own knickers.”
Still young … Sporting his trademark school uniform, Angus Young honoured his brother’s wishes to keep going. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied
The pair are great chuckle chums, trading the kind of nudge nudge, wink wink jokes and entendres that marry perfectly with their time-capsules, trademarked brand of rock.
Just running down the tracklist confirms AC/DC aren’t messing with the formula on Rock Or Bust, although it is the shortest of their 15 studio albums, coming in under 35 minutes.
Like Black Ice, the word “rock” features in four song titles, while the final track suggests these grown men love a bad pun.
The only other band who could get away with calling a song Emission Control these days would be Steel Panther.
Johnson admits “fun” is often the band’s mission. No one in AC/DC would ever refer to music as “art”.
Sandwich kings … Johnson and Young play old school rock but they are doing new school media for album launch. Picture: Mike Coppola / Getty Images.
Source: Getty Images
The pair laugh themselves into a coughing fit when asked if they would consider allowing Emission Control to be licensed to soundtrack an ad for viagra or similar sexual performance enhancers.
“You never know,” Angus manages after he recovers.
“With the slogan, ‘Keep on, keeping on, right?’”
Re-entering the promo fray with their first record in six years has also put the band members in front of a new generation of fans who want interaction with their idols via online “Town Hall” chats as well as social media.
As such, AC/DC are revealing far more about themselves than the notoriously publicity shy band has ever done. Like their favourite food.
Both the singer and guitarist reveal they love to mischievously demand a chip butty in a “posh restaurant”.
Thanks to their online shout-out to the humble sandwich last week, you can expect chip butty to now feature on all good dude food menus.
“Doesn’t matter where we are, we ask for bread and butter, French fries _ if you ask for chips, you get crisps — and put it all together at the table. It just tastes brilliant,” Johnson says.
Angus adds: “The looks you get! Like we’re an alien life force.”
In the end, the short answer to why AC/DC keep going is because they can, and, more importantly, there is an audience who desperately wants them.
“I think the criteria for AC/DC now is what it was in the beginning. We have always made rock music. We started playing that and have never deviated,” Angus says.
“Everyone who says “Here they again, is it the same album?’ Yeah, but the cover changes!
“It does change, as we bring new songs to the table but it is AC/DC and it’s how we like it.”
Rock or Bust is out Thursday. The world tour is expected to be announced next month.
