New biography reveals how a teenage Malcolm Young was scouted to join his first rock band
AC/DC legend Malcolm Young had to take his younger brother Angus along to his first gigs when he kicked off his rock’n’roll apprenticeship at 17, writes Jeff Apter in his new book.
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Exclusive extract: One day in late 1970, Angus yelled to (Malcolm) from the front door of their house at 4 Burleigh Street (Burwood): “Some guys are looking for you”.
He had visitors.
Standing in the doorway of their home were some musicians from a Sydney band named Velvet Underground — drummer Herm Kovac, guitarist Les Hall, bassist Steve Crothers and singer Andy Imlah.
The band had been around since 1967, finding steady work on the dance circuit playing the hits of the day. Now they were on the hunt for a new guitarist.
At a recent gig at the Toowoomba Show in Queensland, headliner Stevie Wright had approached the band with a suggestion — and a hot tip.
“You’d be heaps better with another guitarist,” Wright told them.
“And I know just the guy. His brother is George Young from The Easybeats.”
With that he tore a poster off the wall and wrote down Malcolm’s name and address.
The Easybeats may have been done and dusted, but George’s name still carried plenty of weight.
The Youngs didn’t seem to have a phone, so Kovac and the others decided on the direct approach, simply rocking up in the hope that Malcolm would be home.
Yet they almost turned around and ran when they reached 4 Burleigh Street: the door was opened by a pint-sized skinhead, his hair shaved back to the skull, wearing bovver boots and a menacing grin.
His teeth were a curious shade of green.
“Erm, we came to see about a guitarist,” someone stammered, as the others took a few steps backwards.
The visitors were startled: who, or what, the hell was that?
The scary dwarf — aka Angus Young — nodded and disappeared back inside the house, shouting out to his brother.
Calm was restored, however, when Malcolm’s parents, William and Margaret, welcomed the visitors in and immediately made them feel at home.
This was a family home, small but neat and orderly. The gold record for Friday on My Mind was up on the mantelpiece, but that was pretty much it for rock star trappings.
A photo of George and his wife Sandra on their wedding day sat alongside the gold record. Malcolm and Angus shared a bedroom, set off from the living room.
Malcolm’s mother headed into the kitchen to make tea.
Sister Margaret, who lived at the rear of the house with her husband Sam (who had worked as a roadie for The Easybeats) and their ten-year-old Sammy Jr, entered and introduced herself.
Margaret quickly warmed to Kovac, especially when she found out he was a teetotaller who went to Mass every Sunday.
She felt he was mature, a good influence. Margaret christened him ‘Uncle Herm’.
Malcolm then swaggered into the room, wearing his standard uniform of jeans and favourite green T-shirt.
Kovac was impressed by the way that Malcolm carried himself. He looked like he meant business.
“I didn’t know if it was a self-aware thing,” Kovac would later explain, “but … I got to see it hundreds of times over the next 40 years: the look on his face and spring in his step was always the same.”
As they talked, Kovac had a question for Malcolm. “What’s that language you all talk in?” he asked. He couldn’t understand a word any of the Youngs were saying.
The family may have left Scotland, but they’d hung onto their pea-soup-thick accent.
“You’ll have to become a Scot,” Malcolm replied, grinning wryly.
Kovac and the others invited Malcolm up to Mona Vale, where the band lived, for a jam.
The visitors were surprised at how casually Malcolm delivered the news to his mother.
Mona Vale was a good hour’s drive away, maybe more, way over on the northern side of the city.
“Hey, Ma, I’m going ooot,” Malcolm said.
“Be back tomorrow.” And that was that.
But Angus refused to let them leave without displaying his own virtuoso skills.
He enticed the visitors into the room he shared with Malcolm, where he proceeded to run amok on his Gibson SG guitar, leaping from bed to bed, rolling around on the floor, pulling demented faces — essentially, all the antics that would later become his onstage trademarks.
The guys from Velvet Underground were savvy enough to know that he could play, but that didn’t mean Angus was beyond criticism. He was only fifteen, after all — just a kid.
His one-man show over, Angus turned to the gathering and asked, “Well, whaddya reckon?”.
Kovac thought this through for a moment.
“Do you know any chords?” he teased.
The jam in Mona Vale went well, even better than Malcolm or the band could have hoped.
They worked their way through a hefty and reasonably tasty song list: The Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Free’s The Stealer and All Right Now, Dave Edmunds’s I Hear You Knocking, Deep Purple’s Black Night, Gary Wright’s Get on the Right Road and Shocking Blue’s Venus.
Malcolm made it clear that not only was he a rock-steady rhythm guitarist but he could also fire off a solo when necessary, taking the lead on I Hear You Knocking, Venus, Get on the Right Road and Badfinger’s No Matter What.
Les Hall asked if he’d be willing to share lead guitarist duties; Malcolm agreed in a heartbeat.
“Malcolm was a natural musician,” said Kovac.
“He picked up new songs incredibly quickly.”
“Malcolm fitted in without a ripple,” said bass player Steve Crothers.
“The thing about him was he had no ego. He was never in a bad mood, either. He was always up for a laugh and if something displeased him, he just went quiet, and shook his head.”
Crothers figured that there were a lot of things that Malcolm liked about Velvet Underground. “We had long hair. We owned a van. We had a record out. And we had so much work we were full-time.”
Malcolm was still pretty green; how could he not have been impressed?
The record Crothers referred to was a version of Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love.
It had been released by Festival in early 1970 and although it flopped, it was a professional recording.
Back at Burwood, Malcolm broke the news of his recruitment to his family.
His parents were ambivalent; while they encouraged their kids to play music, they weren’t convinced that rock and roll was a reliable career, especially after the dramas George had experienced with The Easybeats.
They were also concerned — with due cause — that this might spell the end of Malcolm Young, apprentice fitter and turner. What if he had nothing to fall back on?
But Angus was thrilled. “Can I come to your gigs?” he asked Malcolm.
Malcolm wasn’t sure this was such a great idea, but then sister Margaret spoke up.
“Only if Uncle Herm keeps an eye on you.”
A deal was struck. Despite being under-age, Angus was allowed to tag along and see his brother play if Kovac watched out for him.
In return, Angus agreed to make Vegemite toast and Ovaltine for the band after every gig. He’d become their caterer, purely by accident.
Edited extract from Malcolm Young by Jeff Apter, published by Allen & Unwin (RRP: $32.99), available now.
Originally published as New biography reveals how a teenage Malcolm Young was scouted to join his first rock band
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