AC DC: Maximum Rock & Roll: The Ultimate Story of the World's Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band

532 Pages·2008·15.45 MB·English

by  Murray Engleheart

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In memory of Peter Wells
— Murray
To Ascar and Sydney
— Arnaud
CONTENTS

Introduction 1
chapter 1

With A Glasgow Kiss 5
chapter 2

The Rhythmatist 19
chapter 3

The Seventh Son 31
chapter 4

In The Beginning 45
Photographic Insert 1
chapter 5

Couldn’t Make A Living As A Maniac 65
chapter 6

It Was Like A Hurricane 83
chapter 7

So You Think That’s Loud? 95
chapter 8

High Voltage 107
chapter 9

TNT 123
chapter 10

Dirty Deeds 141
chapter 11

Anarchy In The UK 149
chapter 12

Trouble At Home 171
Photographic Insert 2
chapter 13

Let There Be Rock 185
chapter 14

The Promised Land 207
chapter 15

Powerage 229
chapter 16

Highway To Hell 255
chapter 17
Too Close To The Sun 285
chapter 18
Not The Most Ambitious Lad 305
Photographic Insert 3
chapter 19
Back In Black 323
chapter 20
For Those About To Rock 353
chapter 21
Flick Of The Switch 365
chapter 22
Fly On The Wall 377
chapter 23
Blow Up Your Video 387
chapter 24
The Razors Edge 395
chapter 25
Ballbreaker 413
chapter 26
Stiff Upper Lip 431
Photographic Insert 4
chapter 27
No Particular Place To Go 449
Discography 457
Acknowledgments 467
Photo Credits 472
Index 474
About the Authors
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
1996
Cliff Williams, Phil Rudd, Brian Johnson, Malcolm Young
and Angus Young — VH1 ‘Uncut’, London.

INTRODUCTION

t
he story goes something like this.
Jerry Lee Lewis knew there was a problem. For reasons he couldn’t
for the life of him understand, whoever was sitting in the royal boxes
of the theatre was attracting more attention than he was.
‘The Killer’ took this disrespect for as long as he could, then stalked
from the stage, showering the audience with a murderous glare. No-
one was more disappointed than the celebrity couple high above it all
— John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They made their way to Lewis’
dressing room, the former Beatle intent on re-establishing the pecking
order of respect. He assumed a worshipful position on his knees before
his hero and declared, ‘Jerry Lee Lewis! The true king of rock and roll!’
Over the past 30 years, Malcolm Young, and manic schoolboy
guitarist brother, Angus, have been unswervingly focused on paying
that same respect to Jerry Lee and the likes of Chuck Berry, Little
Richard and Fats Domino, all channelled through a monstrously
loud sound system.
With that sound, and sales of well over 150 million albums,
AC/DC have helped celebrate the sexual encounters, drunken
adventures, fights, weddings, births, funerals, new cars and new
tattoos of millions of people from Brussels to Brisbane, Montreal to
Manchester and all points between.
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And that makes AC/DC not just a rock band but a global cultural
institution.
From day one, it was all about the near-psychic musical bond
between Malcolm and Angus, their tenacity, self-belief and Swiss-
precision sense of timing and swing.
While their imprint is their endless catalogue of crushing guitar
riffs, which they honed firstly with Bon Scott and then polished with
Brian Johnson, it’s the space — the breather holes if you like —
between those chords that’s become their signature.
As Steve Marriott from The Small Faces and Humble Pie once told
guitarist Chris Turner, later of Rose Tattoo, ‘It’s the gaps what rocks.’
And so it is with AC/DC who, interestingly, originally wanted to
call themselves The Younger Brothers — after the Old West outlaws
who at one point ran with Jesse James — only to find that the name
had already been registered by Turner.
So what’s their secret elixir? What has allowed them to raise rock
and roll to a deceptively simple and utterly pure art form that
additives, preservatives and the musical fashions of any given
moment simply bounce off?
Why have they managed to continue while others have fallen by
the wayside and been able to watch with contempt as the bodies of
their many detractors float past?
What’s really difficult to equate is The Brothers Young simply
don’t look or act the part. As a result, it’s almost like finding that the
puny guy on the bus every morning, with the ill-fitting clothes and
the massive glasses with the three-inch-thick lenses, is actually a
champion boxer who women absolutely adore.
Children have been named in their honour, none more
comprehensively than the kid who is officially registered as Angus
Malcolm George (elder brother, former member of The Easybeats
and the band’s mentor), with Bon tagged on to complete a cramp-
inducing birth certificate entry.
Then there’s the Danish stripper who only works to AC/DC music,
the Melbourne fan who kicked alcoholism by walking around for a
week listening through earphones to the Powerage album on full blast,
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