STACK #194 Dec 2020

MUSIC FEATURE

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I n the golden ‘70s, when AC/DC were touring the world off the back of their already hallowed catalogue, Angus Young enjoyed ambling into the local record store of whichever city the band happened to be camped in. These jaunts occasionally included some typically impish behaviour from then- vocalist, the late Bon Scott. “You’d go into a shop and there’d be an AC/DC record, and [Scott] would move it to the front of everything else,” grins Young. “So if you were looking for Led Zeppelin, tough shit – he’d moved it. He got caught a few times, too. Someone would go, ‘Bon Scott !’ and he’d go, ‘I’m just buying some records for my uncle.’” The air of those early years has returned to bear in a way that’s more than just nostalgic: a big deal has been made about the fact AC/ DC’s new album PWR/UP began when Young plumbed the band’s archives, searching abysses of unreleased stuff across the last few decades to pluck out the best lost ideas. This method is in fact why Angus’s beloved, late brother MalcolmYoung is credited as a songwriter on the record – the first AC/DC release since his death in 2017. But that sort of retro-construction doesn’t make these songs any less immediate, or even less ‘new’; when you think about it, no music is created in a vacuum. When you invent something, you’re still standing on the shoulders of your own experiences – you have still, consciously or not, rifled through your own brain-files for inspiration. Sometimes it’s intangible like that, and sometimes the rifling is literal. For Young, it is surely both, but he’s more vocal on the latter. “Yeah, whatever [medium] I had those demo ideas on, you know – everything from cassettes to CDs to... what do you call them?” Maybe MiniDiscs, or iPods – but whatever they were, it’s clear the AC/ DC demo archive is almost, I suggest, like a timeline of hardware. “A history of technology! Yeah, that’s right!” Young laughs. “Because you blink and they have another new thing. It got a little bit confusing after a while. You’d [be] explaining in a shop: ‘Well, what happened to those other little things you had, [that] you were nobbling around

Bon Scott and AngusYoung in '78 (Atlanta) and '79 (Glasgow)

with for years?’ They’re looking at me going, ‘There’s always a crazy in here.’” The lead guitarist and co-founder (along with rhythm guitarist Malcolm) of AC/DC has said that PWR/UP is a dedication to his brother, in the same way that Back In Black (1980) was a tribute to Scott. And what a reunion Young has assembled: drummer Phil Rudd, lead singer Brian Johnson, and bassist Cliff Williams have all returned to the fold, having each left the band (respectively) prior to, during, and after the 17-month tour for previous album Rock Or Bust (2014). You can head to JB yourself to see the range of physical versions of the album available, but let it be known that vinyl is absolutely the primo way to listen to any music, according to Young. “Yeah, that’s my era,” he smiles, recalling those afore- mentioned record store safaris, during international touring days. “Usually I would just buy another copy of an album I had at home, because I went, ‘That’s a great album, I can’t leave it here.’” The one title he could never leave lonely was Are You Experienced? by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. “Yep – whenever I saw that, I’d go, ‘Just in case – I’ll get another copy.’” On to the present: the face-melting new material was recorded at Bryan Adams’ Warehouse Studio in British Columbia, where AC/DC recorded their three previous albums. It’s a building

I'm good for the grunts and groans, if you need a bit of a gremlin about it. I do things like – 'T-N-T!

with a fascinating history, having variously been a wholesale grocer, a City Hall, a jail and even a

Malcolm and AngusYoung, date unknown

14 DECEMBER 2020

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