Classic Rock

148 Pages·2017·32.131 MB·English

AC/DC
Classic Rock
Future Publishing Limited
1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY
Web: www.classicrockmagazine.com
Letters: [email protected]
Compiled by
Editor In Chief Scott Rowley
[email protected]
Senior Art Editor Brad Merrett
[email protected]
Original stories by
Johnny Black, George Bidmead, Malcolm Dome, Paul Elliott,
Brooke Ellis, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing, Jon Hotten, Howard
Johnson, Myles Kennedy, Dave Ling, Peter Makowski, Alan
Niven, BP Perry, Scott Rowley, Rob Shirland, Sleazegrinder,
Mick Wall, Philip Wilding
Cover image
Getty Images
Original photography by
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Mark Weiss, Photoshot/Avalon, Frank White, , Gene Kirkland.
Advertising
Media packs are available on request A
Commercial Director Clare Dove
[email protected]
Group Advertising Director Mark Wright
[email protected] re AC/DC the greatest rock band of all time? They just might be.
Advertising Manager Kate Colgan
[email protected] They’re certainly the band that brings the Classic Rock office together
Account Director Anastasia Meldrum
[email protected] – the one band we all agree on. For some people, Led Zeppelin are too
Account Director Lee Mann
[email protected] poncey – too trendy and celebrated. To others, Deep Purple are too artless,
International
Classic Rock is available for licensing. Contact the International Guns N’ Roses overrated, Black Sabbath too inconsistent, The Who too
department to discuss partnership opportunities
International Licensing Director Matt Ellis mod, Iron Maiden too juvenile, Metallica too puerile, blah blah blah… Hey, you can’t please
[email protected]
Print Subscriptions & Back Issues everyone. Unless, of course, you’re AC/DC.
Web www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
Email enquiries [email protected] AC/DC bring people together. Exciting, heavy, groovy, funny, unpretentious, timeless,
UK orderline & enquiries 0344 848 2852
Overseas order line and enquiries [phone] they were the cover stars of Classic Rock’s best-selling issue ever (CR125 in November 2008),
Circulation
Circulation Director Darren Pearce which came out just as the band returned with Black Ice. For another cover (CR115), Art
01202 586200
Production Director Brad Merrett spent an unhealthy amount of time looking at the bulge in Bon
Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance
Production Project Manager Clare Scott Scott’s trousers – and Photoshopping it out (it was so pronounced, our publisher feared that
Advertising Production Manager Joanne Crosby
Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson WH Smith might take us off the shelves. If you’re up there, Bon, please forgive us).
Production Controller Keely Miller
Management Over the years, we’ve covered Bon’s death – a story that gets a brief update here – and the
ESdeintoiorr- IAn-rCt Ehdieitfo Sr cBortat dR Mowerlereytt band’s resurrection with Back In Black, and everything in between. Some of our writers got
Creative Director Aaron Asadi
Art & Design Director Ross Andrews drunk with Bon (the late Harry Doherty, for one, whose drunken day out with Bon is
Classic Rock
Editor Siân Llewellyn recounted here), and were there at their first UK gigs. Prog magazine Editor Jerry Ewing – an
Art Editor Darrell Mayhew
Features Editor Polly Glass Aussie by birth – saw them in Australia when he was 10. When the band announced that
Reviews Editor Ian Fortnam
Production Editor Paul Henderson Brian Johnson had left and was to be replaced by Axl Rose, we were there for their first
Online Editor Fraser Lewry
Printed by European shows with him.
William Gibbons & Sons Ltd on behalf of Future
What next for AC/DC? Who knows. Rumours abound about a new album with Axl to be
Distributed by
Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU recorded next year when he’s finished with the Guns N’ Roses tour. But when it comes to
www.marketforce.co.uk Tel: [phone]
We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from AC/DC - as you’ll see – rumours are always rife.
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paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed
forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. Until then, join us as we celebrate the greatest rock band of them all. Brace yourselves
The manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)
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for four decades of dirty deeds, riff raff and rock’n’roll damnation. If you want blood,
Disclaimer
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ISSN 0955-1190
Scott Rowley,
Editor In Chief
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 3
4 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Features
6 The Ballad Of 86 Bring Out The Big Guns
Bon Scott The pitfalls of playing on stage with firing cannons.
Bon’s brief tenure in folksters Mount Lofty Rangers prior to joining 88 Rock’N’Roll Damnation
AC/DC and a near-fatal premature ending…
Dealing with inter-band conflict, surviving the vagaries of music
10 The First Gig! fashion, censorship in the USA… and a serial killer .
The original line-up recall seeing in the new year of ’74 with a bang. 90 In The Badlands
14 TNT How Flick Of The Switch and Fly On The Wall saw AC/DC falter in the
decade that saw pop overcome rock.
The explosive Australia-only release of their second album.
92 Going Into Overdrive
18 First Steps
Drawing inspiration from an unlikely source, AC/DC revitalise their
Growing up down under: aggro in the arvo. career with Who Made Who and Blow Up Your Video.
22 Let There Be Rock! 94 High Voltage
The band’s first proper album release confirms their status as a The resurgence of the band and the cleaning-up of their act.
definitive force in rock’n’roll.
100 Malcolm Young
32 Riff Raff
The older brother interviewed in 1992, following the release of The
Laying waste to the UK: on tour in ’77 with Bon leading the charge. Razor’s Edge and Ballbreaker albums.
38 Bad Boy Boogie 104 Rock Your Heart Out
During the last few years of the 70s, AC/DC consolidated their name as Back to basics: the making of Razor’s Edge, Ballbreaker and into the
the ultimate good time rock’n’roll band – both on record and on stage. new millennium with Stiff Upper Lip.
42 Shot Down 106 Dog Eat Dog
Working towards the peak career of the band’s Bon Scott era, AC/DC The insular and withdrawn world of being in AC/DC.
recruited new album producer Mutt Lange.
108 Can’t Stop Rock’N’Roll
44 Highway To Hell
The renaissance of AC/DC: how the band thrived in the new millennium
The full story behind the making of the band’s most well-known and by outliving their peers from the 70s.
enduring album.
112 Black Ice
48 A Touch Too Much
For almost a decade with no new music, the band exploded back onto
The tragic passing of the AC/DC frontman and how his death passed the scene with a “comeback” …then went supernova.
into legend – and conspiracy.
116 Train Kept A-Rollin’
57 The Death Of Bon Scott
Revisiting Black Ice and Rock Or Bust – the band’s latest (or final?) –
The mystery surrounding the story of Bon Scott’s death and the two albums that brought the band’s career full circle.
mysterious character of Alistair Kinnear.
118 Is This The End?
58 The 80s
With Malcolm’s deteriorating health forcing retirerment, Axl Rose
The exit of Bon and the entrance of Brian ‘Beano’ Johnson: how AC/DC replaces Beano in a shock controversial move.
rose again to reach even greater success.
122 It’s A Long Way
60 Back In Black
To The Top…
Beano’s debut: the iconic album that saw AC/DC break new ground
whilst remaining true to their roots. He’s not bitter: Brian Johnson’s career in full and how he successfully
filled the big shoes of Bon Scott.
65 Hell’s Bells
Exactly how did Back In Black become such a classic album? Geoff 132 Axl: terrible idea
Barton of Classic Rock explores its longevity. A counterpoint argument considering the appointment of AC/DC’s
third lead singer. First, the case for the prosecution…
74 For Whom The
Bell Tolls 134 Axl: brilliant idea
How the band built on their success with new guy Beano out front. …and then the case for the defence. Is the Guns N’Roses voclaist the
ideal replacement or an in--advised act of desperation?
77 Every Home Should
136 Axl: First Review
Have One
The only way to be sure: just how well did Mr Rose perform?
Buckcherry frontman Josh Todd on why Back In Black was such an
important album for him – and his career. 138 The 30 Greatest Songs
M
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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 5
P
NF eter Head refers to himself as the
O
OAD Mount Lofty Rangers’ “musical
L director”. More a collective of like-
L
BBA minded musicians than a band, some
HE 240 members passed through between
T
1974 and 1979, among them future
Cold Chisel frontman and Little River
Band vocalist Glenn Shorrock. But Bon Scott is
their most famous old boy.
The Rangers came together after Head’s
previous band, progressive blues rockers
HeadBand, split at the start of 1974. The latter
shared management with Fraternity – “We had the
same tour bus, we did the same gigs together,”
67-year-old Head recalls – and he became good
friends with Scott. Head formed the Rangers to
stave off boredom and starvation. Bon was one of
several singers they had, most of whom played
instruments. “We were all sitting around broke,
T and I thought the easiest way to get by was to
T throw together a country rock band,” recalls
O Head, who has called Sydney home for the past
C 30 years. “We could do a few dozen three-chord
S
country songs, have a bit of fun and throw it
together quickly.”
That initial brief became more colourful as
members came and went. “There were bizarre gigs
where we’d have a violinist from a symphony
orchestra, a guitar player from Fraternity, a piano
accordion or a sitar player,” says Head. “It was such
an amalgamation of bizarre instruments and
people. We played everything from jazz to rock to
Indian music.” The original line-up featured
members of Fraternity and HeadBand and had
their first jam in a garage in the suburbs of Adelaide
in January, 1974. Rehearsals would often spill out
onto the driveway and morph into street parties.
“I think we had a ten-piece version,” Head says
of that first gathering, “but Bon’s voice cut through
the guitars and drums. You could tell there was
something special when he sang. With the Rangers
he was singing mainly country music; we did a lot
of really fast bluegrass country, which Bon loved.
Before he joined AC/DC,
He also liked jazz and blues, not only the stuff he
Bon Scott was in country rockers the was famous for. That’s what I like to show in the
Mount Lofty Rangers, until a near-fatal crash. old recordings, that there’s another side to Bon
apart from the AC/DC side everybody knows.”
The two tracks they recorded were long lost – until now.
But the wildcat side to the singer’s personality
was still there. Head recalls walking through the
Words: Rod Yates
centre of Adelaide with Bon one night to their
B
on Scott rarely missed a gig, but on May keyboardist, Peter Head. “I remember saying, ‘Bon, favourite drinking hole, the Largs Pier Hotel. As
3, 1974, even he knew he was too pissed don’t go off, you’re too drunk, you can’t drive,’ but they neared their destination, three men emerged
to pull it off. Fresh from a drunken fight because he was pissed he didn’t listen to any of us. from the shadows. It turned out that their
with then-wife Irene, the singer got on This,” he sighs, “was nothing unusual.” An hour girlfriends each had a thing for the singer – not
his Triumph motorbike and sped later, Head received a call. After tearing off on his uncommon at the time, despite Scott’s wiry frame
halfway across Adelaide to where his Triumph, Bon had collided head on with a car. He and hard-knock looks – and they were none too
bandmates in country-rock outfit survived, but only just – beaten, battered and near pleased about it. “Bon was up there in a flash. He
Mount Lofty Rangers were rehearsing. He planned death, the singer spent three days in a coma. It stood these guys down,” chuckles Head today.
to tell them he’d not be joining them at the Old would take him a long, long time to recover. “They saw how ready he was to fight and they
Lion Hotel that night – driving under the influence “We didn’t go and see him for a few days ’cos pissed off. He made them back down.”
was one thing, but Scott wouldn’t get on stage he was in intensive care and they didn’t know On another occasion, the Mount Lofty Rangers
unless he could do the job. if he was going to live,” says Head. “When we performed in Adelaide’s notorious Yatala Jail,
During his short visit, Scott got in a fight with did go he looked terrible – he’d lost all his teeth, where Head had been teaching guitar. After
Rangers bassist Bruce Howe. The two had clashed he was a total mess, he was covered in bruises learning of Johnny Cash’s gig at San Quentin, he
before – they’d both been members of hard- and scratches.” went to the prison authorities and suggested the
drinking hippy rockers Fraternity, and came to The crash brought an end to Scott’s four-month, Rangers do a show. That many of them had been
blows during one of that band’s fraught jams – but 12-gig career with the Mount Lofty Rangers. By incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes – a drug
tonight it didn’t take much to test Scott’s temper. October 1974, following months of recuperation, Head and Scott made no secret of enjoying – gave
No one can remember what set him off, but after he’d left Adelaide for Sydney and a career with band and inmates more in common than a love of
the resulting bust-up he stormed off, drunkenly AC/DC. But tantalisingly, he’d left behind music, and the Rangers were treated like heroes.
walking into the door three times on his way out. recordings of two songs that are only now getting “When we finished, we had a distance to go from
“We tried to stop him,” recalls Rangers a proper airing, 40 years after the event. the stage inside the jail to the gates, and it (cid:201)
6CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
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MAGES: VYTAS SERELIS
ALL I
CLCALSASSICSRICORCOKCMKAMGAAGZAINZIEN.CEO.CMOM 7 57
“THE FILM
IS GOING
TO HAPPEN”
In 2014 it’s looking extremely likely that
Bon Scott will be everywhere.
In the wake of the re-release of Round And
Round And Round, more of Bon Scott’s pre-
AC/DC output is set to surface over the next
12 months. Next to have its backing music
re-recorded while preserving Scott’s original
vocal is the ballad Carey Gully – technology
has improved to the point where, despite the
original recording existing only on quarter-
inch tape, Scott’s vocal can be separated
from the music. In addition, the two songs
Peter Head helped Scott finish – Clarissa and
I’ve Been Up In The Hills Too Long – are also Adelaide hillbillies:
set to be re-recorded musically and vocally. the Rangers in
“There’s a lot of big-name rockers that Southern Oz.
will be involved in that whole thing,” says
Damien Reilly, CEO of Blue Pie Records,
although he stops short of naming names.
“bTahnedys’ rine itchoen wico braldn. dWs, hthereey ’arere i ny othue g tooinpg f itfoty “BON SANG
get an opportunity to work on either a Bon
Shciso vtto-cwarli ottne nit ?s”ong or something that’s got COUNTRY
Also in the works is a film about Scott’s
lwifeill parciot ra tso o jnoein oinf gth AeC h/isDtoCr,i cina lw rehsiceha rHcheeadrs . MUSIC. IT
in L“WA aen’vde ab efielmn appropdrouacctihoend c boym ap sacnryip,”t wsaryitse r WED A
Reilly, whose label will help source music for SHO
tahgere feilmm,e “natns,d I wcaen’v tee slli gyonued t hoante m seutc ho.f The DIFFERENT
script has Bon’s friends and former M.”
apsrosovicdiaintge sin opfu tth, ea ntidm teh pereer ihoads 1 b9e6e9n t oan 1 974 a joBby a tth ae fteimrtieli sheer jpoliannetd i nth We Ralalanrgoeors, ,a B foewn had SIDE TO HI
isnccrripetdwibrliete br,o wdyh oo fw raess eaa vrcehry d goonoed b fyri tehned of whoorku.r “sO onuets tiidme eA Id melaeitd hei.m It awnads hbea’cdk b-bereena wkionrgk ing PETER HEAD
Vince Lovegrove. There have been a lot of on the back of a truck lugging around bags of shit
people that have tried to get a film up and for ten hours, which is really hard work,” says
running but just haven’t had the right vibe to
Head. “He came to my place after that particular
it. But this is going to happen.”
day and said: ‘While I’ve been lugging around these drummer John Freeman and future Angels bassist
bags, I’ve had two songs running around in my Chris Bailey. Scott and Head taught the others each
head.’ He asked me to help get them together, song and then recorded it. There was little time to
seemed like just about every prisoner lined up on because he knew about three chords on the guitar finesse what they had done. “On the tapes I can
the side of their cells and rattled their pans and and that’s it. So we sat around for another six hear Bon laughing his head off at the end of a first
screamed out: ‘Hey Bon! Thanks for coming!’ Just hours and worked them out.” take, cos he went for a really high note and didn’t
about the whole jail gave us a standing ovation on The two songs were Clarissa – “A lovely ballad,” quite hit it,” says Head. “He got it right the second
the way out.” recalls Head – and the more rambunctious I’ve Been time. He was quick, he was efficient.”
Up In The Hills Too Long. In return, Scott agreed to It wasn’t the pair’s only experience of working in
F
or all the bravado, Scott was at sing on Head’s demos for two songs he wrote: a studio. “We did some jingles together in 1974 for
a crossroads in his life when he threw piano-boogie rocker Round And Round and the a country radio station, 2ST, and he just churned
in his lot with the Mount Lofty Rangers. pastoral Carey Gully, the latter as far removed from them out,” says Head. “I’ve got a copy of them
Dejected by a decade of missed AC/DC’s three-chord bluster as you can get. somewhere. I don’t think the radio station ever
opportunities with acts such as The Determined to get Head’s songs on tape, they realised they had Bon Scott singing.”
Spektors, The Valentines and Fraternity, booked a session at Adelaide’s Slater Studios, the Head’s ambitions for Round And Round and Carey
he was frightened that, at 27, he was city’s first eight-track recording studio. At AUD$40 Gully were slight. “We hoped we might sell a couple
getting too old to make it as a singer. His frame of for a two-hour session its facilities were beyond the of dozen copies in Adelaide. We didn’t have
mind wasn’t helped by how, as Fraternity limped to reach of many – the average weekly wage in a record company. We did it for the sake of the
an end and played only the occasional gig, he had to Australia in 1974 was around $120 – but for Head music and that’s it. But Bon was very enthusiastic
take menial jobs to make ends meet. It wasn’t the and Scott the thrill of graduating from four-track to about helping and said: ‘I hope something happens
first time – Head worked at an art gallery in the something more professional was such that they with this one day and I hope it works for you.’”
early 70s, and its owner would employ Bon to mow were willing to dig roads for a few days. Bon’s motorbike crash in May 1974 marked the
the lawns and do odd jobs. “We’d often sit there for Head can’t remember the date of the session, end of his tenure in the Mount Lofty Rangers. After
hours and nobody would come in the gallery,” but he does recall it lasting two hours. The pair the accident, Head himself temporarily abandoned
recalls Head. “We’d have a couple of acoustic were joined in the studio by musician mates the Rangers in favour of solo piano-bar gigs, tired
guitars and we’d start to write songs together.” including guitarist Phil Caulson, Fraternity of the responsibility of keeping a band going. He
8 CLAS S ICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
BASIACC F/LDACG
Bon Scott (second “Bon loved country,
left) with the Mount jazz and blues”
Lofty Rangers. – and rock’n’roll.
and Bon still spent time together. At one point
they were employed by local promoter Vince
Lovegrove to put up posters for touring bands –
one of which was AC/DC, for whom Scott ended
up acting as driver and tour guide shortly after he
got out of hospital. But Scott and Head would
never work together again musically. The next time
Scott entered a studio, it was in November 1974 as
a member of AC/DC.
“We thought he was copping out a bit joining
AC/DC, cos they were a pretty simple rock band,”
says Head, “whereas Fraternity were a really
complex, progressive rock’n’roll band on the level
of King Crimson. So we thought Bon was going for
a commercial thing. But nobody blamed him, cos
we all knew how many years he’d spent struggling,
trying to get recognised. We all wished him luck
and said: ‘Hope it works.’ And it did.”
T
he Mount Lofty Rangers story doesn’t
As the sun set on
end with Bon Scott’s departure. While
Mount Lofty Rangers,
the singer went on to great things with
it rose for AC/DC.
AC/DC, Head spent the next few years
playing sporadic MLR gigs with
whichever musicians were available. update it with a brand new backing track. Calling acquired the rights. Bolstered by backing from
In 1977, while working as musical in favours at studios in Sydney, he stripped Scott’s Australian label Blue Pie Records, all three tracks
director at an arts festival in Adelaide, he staged vocals from the two-minute-47-second original have been re-released on iTunes, giving them the
the bushranger tale Lofty, which featured the songs and rebuilt it into a slightly longer version, first by opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Clarissa and I’ve Been Up In The Hills Too Long. (Both re-recording Head’s main piano hook, atop of “It was done with complete love of Bon and his
were finally recorded for a 2011 album of the which musician friends laid down the remaining legacy. That’s what drove us to put this together,”
musical, released on iTunes and credited to Peter instruments. He then fitted Scott’s original vocals says Yanni. “It was about pooling our resources
Head & The Mount Lofty Rangers.) But the two to the music, and the song was renamed Round And and showing there was a Bon before AC/DC. And
tracks Head and Bon laid down back 1974 were Round And Round to reflect the update. AC/DC were very unhappy about that, because
lost in the mists of time. All three songs – Round And Round And Round, they didn’t have rights to the song. Bon did the
At least they were until 1996, when Head ran plus the original versions of Carey Gully (to which recording before he signed their contract.”
into old friend Ted Yanni in a Sydney nightclub. Yanni added strings) and Round And Round itself As for what Scott would make of these songs he
Another face from the Adelaide scene of the late – were released as an EP in 1996 by Head Office recorded 40 years ago finally getting a new lease of
60s/early 70s, Yanni had also been mates with Bon Records. Despite the fact that the songs had never life. “I think he’d be delighted,” says Peter Head.
– his bands the Plastic Tears and Levi Smith’s Clefs been heard, the EP only sold about 5,000 copies “Because the spirit in which he did it was to help
shared stages with The Valentines and Fraternity. worldwide. There was talk in the mid-90s of me, cos I’d helped him. And I’ve never made any
The pair started reminiscing, and Yanni asked trying to get Round And Round And Round onto money out of music, so if I do out of this I can
Head if he had any recordings from back in the day. a film soundtrack, but it never transpired. imagine Bon sitting up there going: ‘Finally!’”
Head told him about Round And Round and Carey Still, the songs have recently resurfaced. Head
Gully. It got Yanni thinking. By now an established pieced together a film clip for Round And Round And Bon Scott’s Carey Gully appears on this month’s
producer and sound engineer, he decided to Round by cutting together left-over footage of Bon free CD, Sharp Shooters. The Round And
resurrect Scott’s vocal on Round And Round and from a 70s TV special on Fraternity to which he’d Round And Round EP is available on iTunes.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 9
1973 The First Gig!
LET THERE
BE ROCK!
On December 31, 1973, the fledgling AC/DC saw
in the New Year by playing their very first gig at
a bar in Sydney. Forty years on, the members of
that original line-up recall the birth of a legend.
Words: Johnny Black
I
n the early 70s, the Australian Larry Van Kriedt (bass): I was part of the
music scene was limping like circle of friends of both Mal and Angus.
a lame dingo. Slick pop groups Our main interest and point in common
peddling three-part harmonies was guitar playing and music. In 1973, I had
clogged up the charts and the recently bought a bass and they heard this
pub scene. But Glasgow-born, and wanted me to jam. So I went, and kept
Sydney-raised guitarist Malcolm going each night after that. We rehearsed
Young wasn’t going to let such a bunch of Mal’s tunes and a few covers.
trivialities stand in the way of his musical
dreams. The stubborn 20-year-old enlisted Colin Burgess: We rehearsed above an
vocalist Dave Evans, bassist Larry Van office building on the corner of Erskineville
Kriedt, drummer Colin Burgess and his own Road and Wilson Street in Newtown in
15-year-old brother Angus for a new band Sydney. We used to do one Beatles track –
named after a label on a vacuum cleaner. Get Back. Threw it in just so we could say we
On the last day of 1973, the band made did a Beatles track.
their live debut at Chequers, a dilapidated
cabaret bar in Sydney, taking the very first Larry Van Kriedt: We had the same
step to superstardom. room every week on the first floor.
A New Year’s Eve
Good rehearsals, bad rehearsals, creative
Malcolm Young: I got together with moments, sometimes arguments and even
birth… Acid-fried a few guys interested in having a jam, and fights. It was pretty much Malcolm’s vision
thought, “If I can knock a rock’n’roll tune and he was the driving force behind it.
out of them, we’ll get a few gigs and some
lamb… A shopping extra bucks.” Colin Burgess: Dave Evans came along
a little later, and then Angus.
Angus Young: Malcolm had been playing
centre riot…
on the club circuit, and he said the one thing Dave Evans (vocalist): I’d been with
that was missing was a good, one hundred an Australian band called The Velvet
Rucking with Deep per cent hard-rock band. Underground, which I must say was not the
New York band of the same name. So I saw
Colin Burgess (drummer): I had been this ad in the Sydney Morning Herald, a band
Purple… Broken in a very successful Australian band in the looking for a singer in the style of Free
sixties called The Masters Apprentices, and the Rolling Stones, which I was, and
but we broke up in 1972 so I was at a loose when I rang up I found myself speaking to
toilets in a London
end. A chap called Alan Kissack, who was Malcolm Young. We’d never met but we did
involved in putting bands together, called know of each other. He invited me over that
pub… Jamming with me up and told me that Malcolm Young afternoon for a jam, so I went along to this
wanted to form a band. Malcolm was the empty office block; it was being renovated.
younger brother of George Young, who Angus wasn’t in the band yet, so I went
Skynyrd… “Who the had been in The Easybeats, Australia’s most in and introduced myself to Malcolm and
successful band of the 60s, so I said: “Sure, Colin. It was hot, getting towards summer,
let’s have a go.” Even then, Malcolm was and we just jammed on a bunch of songs we
fuck’s Mutt Lange?”
very ambitious. He was a hard businessman, all knew. We only did about five or six songs,
wouldn’t take no for an answer. We formed we were all smiling away, and Malcolm just
the band with Malcolm, myself and Larry looked at the other guys and said: “Well, I’m
Van Kriedt, just a three-piece. Right from happy if you guys are.” Colin and Larry both
the start, it was quite heavy. went “Yep,” and I said: “Wow!” We shook
10 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM