‘Malcolm was everywhere’: Angus Young and AC/DC pay tribute to their lost brother with new album
Angus Young has revealed how he is still “communicating” with his late brother, and how he trawled through CDs and cassettes they wrote for their new album.
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Angus Young is “forever communicating” with his brothers Malcolm and George.
“You can call me crazy, but they were calling me that at the beginning,” he says.
There were many crazy enough to declare AC/DC was done when the band’s co-founder and leader Malcolm died in 2017. His death came less than a month after the Young family lost legendary producer and hit maker George, who helped the band craft their signature sound and advised them from their formation in the mid 1970s.
Frontman Brian Johnson, who had replaced Bon Scott after his death in 1980, had been forced off the Rock or Bust world tour in 2016 because of severe damage to his hearing. Chris Slade stepped in for drummer Phil Rudd when he was sentenced to home detention on drug charges. And bassist Cliff Williams had announced his retirement.
Yet those who thought Angus Young would let AC/DC fade into the annals of rock history don’t know the stubborn determination and work ethic of the man. After some months of mourning his brothers, it appears they “communicated” to Angus it was time to get back to work.
The revered guitarist opened the AC/DC “vault” – a collection of boxes which house the cassettes and CDs holding song ideas the Young brothers had written and demo-ed but didn’t make the cut for their previous albums.
“My experience with a laptop is it crashes or something,” he says.
Many of the songs Angus unearthed came from the sessions for their Black Ice record in 2008. It was the final album Malcolm would make with AC/DC, the wiry, steely backbone of the band leaving in 2014 as he battled dementia. Nephew Stevie Young was recruited to take his place on rhythm guitar.
As Angus combed through the songs, he found scrawled notes the brothers had made during their jam sessions – “needs an intro” or “might be an ending”.
He also revisited his “tonnes” of notebooks, and the scraps of paper which fell out of them, for lyrics and song titles like Shot In The Dark, Kick You When You’re Down, Wild Reputation and Witch’s Brew.
“Everything that’s on this album is from material Malcolm and myself had worked on through the years,” Angus says.
“We had so many song ideas and tracks when we came to do Black Ice, we had boxes of stuff and we had so much material left over … that Malcolm and myself said at the time ‘These are all great AC/DC tracks. It could be good at some point to get them out there.”
So Angus got the band back together. He had been keeping tabs on Johnson’s work on restoring his hearing with American audio scientist Stephen Ambrose, who had invented what the British singer calls a “prosthetic ear drum”.
The AC/DC guitarist and now leader of the seminal rock’n’roll band also knew his old mate Rudd had kicked his drug addictions. Retired bassist Williams had already flagged with Angus “if you’re going to do something, just let me know.”
The band members assembled in Vancouver with producer Brendan O’Brien in August 2018 to begin the sessions for their 17th album Power Up.
Grainy photos of the band members shared on social media by a fan who happened to live near the Warehouse studio, where AC/DC has recorded all four albums since Stiff Upper Lip in 2000, appeared to confirm there was a future for the Australian rock heroes.
Johnson, who has fronted the band since they released Back In Black in 1980, was overjoyed to get another chance to sing with AC/DC. Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose finished off the Rock or Bust tour dates in 2016 when Johnson was warned by doctors to quit touring or permanently lose his hearing.
“When we all got to the studio in Vancouver, it was just a joyous thing. It was the first time we’d met since Malcolm’s funeral,” the singer says.
“And straight away I’m thinking, and everybody else is thinking the same thing; it’s Malcolm behind all of this, because he was the leader.
“Malcolm was everywhere. We’re not spiritual folk, let’s get that out of the way, but sometimes there’s things you just can’t explain.
“When you’re shooting for your buddy that’s not there, when you’re just trying to make him proud of what you’ve done, you all pull together as a band because we’ve had that bond for 40 years.”
Johnson said the sessions went at light speed. After a few heart-starting coffees in the morning even though “I love my tea”, Angus and producer O’Brien directed the members in the execution of their parts.
The singer hates studio booths and wearing headphones when laying down his vocals and sets up in a bigger room with the microphone in his hand. While the Young brothers have always been religious about maintaining the AC/DC sound, Johnson “screwed around” with the colours of his bluesy growl on tracks like Demon Fire and Through The Mists Of Time.
“I’d sing it the best way I thought Angus and Malcolm had imagined it when they wrote the song. And I would do a chorus and a verse, and get Ang to check what he thinks of it,” he says.
“And Brendan would take it away and Ang would give us a thumbs up and a ‘yeah!’ and then we would finish song. A ‘yeah’ from Angus is like ‘F … ing brilliant.’”
When the members of AC/DC again regrouped in Amsterdam earlier this year to film the video for the first single Shot In The Dark and the photo shoot for Power Up, they decided to book a rehearsal space to stretch their live muscle.
For Johnson, it would be the first time he could test whether the Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens would work in the loud and exacting conditions of a live AC/DC performance.
The first two songs they busted out were Back In Black and Shoot To Thrill. The technology in Johnson’s ears worked and they kept playing for 15 days.
The success of the rehearsals naturally fuelled discussion about going back on the road and the band and their team began planning shows.
“Not a full tour … just do some shows, have some fun,” Johnson says.
“And this bloody virus thing came in. But thankfully, the record company didn’t stick to the theory of if the album comes out, there must be a tour.
“They thought ‘Let’s put some music out. Here’s AC/DC again. Nothing could beat them – four years ago they were finished in people’s eyes.’
“You can come back. It’s amazing what you can do when you just say ‘Bollocks, I’m doing it.’ So I think it’s all going to be all right, me darlin, it’s just the bloody waiting to get the green light.”
While they’re waiting, fans can savour Power Up.
Johnson can warmly reminisce about that time in 1983 he searched for the Loch Ness monster with Malcolm “four sheets to the wind, up to our knees in water before we realised we were wet and Malcolm setting off these fireworks to see if we could attract the attention of the monster.”
And Angus can ponder the unforgettable night he and his older brother went to meet Keith Richards backstage at the Enmore Theatre in 2003 and ended up on stage with the Rolling Stones playing the bluesy Rock Me Baby.
The 2016 record Blue and Lonesome by the Stones was one of the last albums Angus played to his brother before his death.
There’s also all those cassettes and CDs to trawl for future AC/DC records. Angus will never forget finding the bones of the mighty Back In Black on a tape Malcolm wanted to record over because he was clearing out his collection. That song and album celebrated their 40th anniversary this year.
“He was going to get rid of some of what he thought was rubbish and thought we better run through some of that stuff and see what I thought,” he recalls.
“And he had Back In Black playing away. Sounds a bit heavy, he thought. I said no … to me, it was another piece of Malcolm magic. ‘If you’re going to toss that away, toss it to me. I’ll gladly say I wrote this.’
“It’s got a special place in my heart.”
Power Up is out on November 13.
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