‘You’re drinking too much’: Bon Scott’s brother speaks for the first time about the rocker’s alcoholism

Bon Scott’s family and friends share insights about the troubled AC/DC frontman’s final months in a new doco.

Bon Scott’s family tried to talk to the legendary rocker about his drinking before his tragic death in 1980 but the AC/DC frontman wouldn’t face his demons, according to his younger brother Derek.

The singer’s sibling reveals their mother Isa Scott called out Bon’s heavy drinking before his untimely death at the age of 33 from acute alcohol poisoning.

In his first recorded interview about his brother, Derek Scott tells Australian Story on Monday the rocker “never worried about tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.”

Bon Scott, Angus Young, George Young, Harry Vanda and Ted Albert in Albert Studio 1, King Street, Sydney. Picture: Supplied

“My mother always told him off, ‘You’re drinking too much, you’re drinking too much.’ But you could only say it once, maybe twice. After that, he argued,”

In the On The Brink: Bon Scott documentary, Bruce Howe who was the revered singer’s housemate for five years, said he observed Scott’s personality darken in the months before his death.

The pair, who played together in the rock band Fraternity before Scott joined AC/DC in 1974, crossed paths for the final time in late 1979, just months before the singer’s death.

Bon Scott performs on stage with AC/DC, UK, 1976. Picture: Getty

“He wasn’t bubbly and laughing. Maybe he’d come to the state where he’d achieved his dream, he found his holy grail, but found that his holy grail might have looked like an empty goblet,” Howe says.

Perhaps the wildest scene in the upcoming doco, among Jimmy Barnes, Johnny Young and the singer’s friends involves the driver of the car involved in the 1974 road accident with Scott, when the drunk rocker had sped off on his motorcycle after a fight at an Adelaide pub.

“The rider came halfway through the windscreen and his helmet hit the roof of the vehicle,”

says the driver, who the ABC have not identified ahead of the broadcast.

“About 36 hours later we opened the newspaper and we learnt that it was Bon Scott.”

Scott would spend three days in a coma and another 18 days in hospital and after his recovery, was introduced to AC/DC who were looking for a new singer.

On The Brink – Bon Scott, which is introduced by Brian Johnson, the singer who replaced him in 1980, screens at 8pm on Monday on ABC.

Originally published as ‘You’re drinking too much’: Bon Scott’s brother speaks for the first time about the rocker’s alcoholism