HISTOR OF AC DC

Brothers Malcolm, Angus, and George Young were born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved
to Sydney with most of their family in 1963. George was the first to learn to play
the guitar. He became a member of the Easybeats, one of Australia's most successful
bands of the 1960s. In 1966, they became the first local rock act to have an
international hit, with the song "Friday on My Mind".[13] Malcolm followed in
George's footsteps by playing with a Newcastle, New South Wales, band called the
Velvet Underground (not to be confused with the New York–based Velvet
Underground).Their oldest brother Alex Young chose to remain in Britain to pursue
musical interests. In 1967, Alexander formed and played bass in the London-based
band Grapefruit—initially called "The Grapefruit"—with three former members of Tony
Rivers and the Castaways, John Perry, Geoff Swettenham, and Pete Swettenham.

The band's logo was designed in 1977 by Bob Defrin, who was the art director at
Atlantic Records during the 1970s. It first appeared on the international version
of Let There Be Rock.
Malcolm and Angus Young developed the idea for the band's name after their sister,
Margaret Young, saw the initials "AC/DC" on a sewing machine. "AC/DC" is an
abbreviation meaning "alternating current/direct current" electricity. The brothers
felt that this name symbolised the band's raw energy, power-driven performances of
their music. "AC/DC" is pronounced one letter at a time, though the band are
colloquially known as "Acca Dacca" in Australia.

Early years (the Dave Evans era, 1973–1974)

In November 1973 Malcolm and Angus Young formed AC/DC and recruited bassist Larry
Van Kriedt, vocalist Dave Evans, and Colin Burgess, ex-Masters Apprentices drummer.
[19] Pushing hard for the band's success were Australia's legendary roadie Ray
Arnold and his partner Alan Kissack. The two men convinced Chequers entertainment
manager Gene Pierson to let the band play at the popular Sydney nightclub on New
Year's Eve, 1973. The band was so loud that management complained. Pierson however
took an interest, and booked them into the Bondi Lifesaver and other venues where
they further developed their stage show.[citation needed] The early line-up of the
band changed often; Colin Burgess was the first member fired, and several bassists
and drummers passed through the band during the next year.

By this time, Angus Young had adopted his characteristic school-uniform stage
outfit. The idea was his sister Margaret's. Angus had tried other costumes: Spider-
Man, Zorro, a gorilla, and a parody of Superman, named Super-Ang.In its early days,
most members of the band dressed in some form of glam or satin outfit but this
approach was abandoned seeing as Melbourne band Skyhooks had already adopted this
approach to their stage presentation.

The Young brothers decided that Evans was not a suitable frontman for the group
because they felt he was more of a glam rocker like Gary Glitter.[21] On stage,
Evans was occasionally replaced by the band's first manager, Dennis Laughlin, who
was the original lead singer with Sherbet prior to Daryl Braithwaite joining the
band. Evans did not get along with Laughlin, which also contributed to the band's
ill feeling toward Evans.

Gene Pierson brokered the arrangement for Bon Scott from Fraternity to join as lead
singer. He was also instrumental in getting personal friend Ted Albert of Albert
Productions to listen to AC/DC and arrange with programme manager Rod Muir of
Australia's biggest rock station 2SM to have them on the bill for one of their
school holiday concerts at Chequers which helped launch AC/DC's career and led to
their being signed to the EMI-distributed Albert Productions label for Australia
and New Zealand.

The Bon Scott era (1974–1980)

The journey begins (1974–77)
In September 1974 Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott, an experienced vocalist and friend of
George Young, replaced Dave Evans. Like the Young brothers, Scott had been born in
Scotland before emigrating to Australia in his childhood. The band had recorded
only one single with Evans, "Can I Sit Next To You, Girl" / "Rockin' in the
Parlour"; eventually, the song was re-written and re-recorded with Bon Scott as
"Can I Sit Next To You Girl" [Track 7 on the Australian album T.N.T. (1975), and
Track 6 on the international release of High Voltage (1976)].

By October 1974, the Australia-only album High Voltage had been recorded. It took
only ten days[and was based on instrumental songs written by the Young brothers,
with lyrics added by Scott. Within a few months, the band's line-up had stabilised,
featuring Scott, the Young brothers, bassist Mark Evans and drummer Phil Rudd.
Later that year they released the single "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna
Rock 'n' Roll)", which became their perennial rock anthem.It was included on their
second album, T.N.T. (1975), which was also released only in Australia and New
Zealand. T.N.T. featured the song "High Voltage", which was the first song written
and recorded for the album. Because "High Voltage" was released as a single before
T.N.T. was released, some people thought it was the title track to AC/DC's debut
album.

Between 1974 and 1977, aided by regular appearances on Molly Meldrum's Countdown,
the ABC's nationally broadcast pop-music television show, AC/DC became one of the
most popular and successful acts in Australia. Their performance on 3 April 1977
was their last live TV appearance for more than 20 years.

International success (1976–80)

Former vocalist Bon Scott(centre) pictured with guitaristAngus Young (left) and
bassistCliff Williams (back), performing at the Ulster Hall in August 1979
In 1976, the band signed an international deal with Atlantic Records and toured
extensively throughout Europe, including their first UK tour sponsored by Sounds
magazine, called the 'Lock Up Your Daughters Summer Tour'. They gained invaluable
experience of the stadium circuit, supporting leading rock acts such as Black
Sabbath, Aerosmith, Kiss, Styx, UFO, and Blue Öyster Cult, and co-headlined with
Cheap Trick.

The first AC/DC album to gain worldwide distribution was a 1976 compilation of
tracks taken from the High Voltage and T.N.T. LPs. Also titledHigh Voltage, and
released on the Atlantic Records label, the album, which has to date sold three
million copies worldwide, gained the band a following among the then-substantial
British punk audience.The track selection was heavily weighted toward the more
recent T.N.T., and included only two songs from their first LP. The band's next
album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, was released in the same year in both
Australian and international versions, like its predecessor. Track listings varied
worldwide, and the international version of the album also featured the T.N.T.
track "Rocker", which had previously never been released internationally. The
original Australian version included "Jailbreak" (now more readily available on the
1984 compilation EP '74 Jailbreak or as a live version on the 1992 Live album).
Dirty Deeds was not released in the US until 1981, by which time the band were at
the peak of their popularity.

Following the 1977 recording Let There Be Rock, bassist Mark Evans was sacked
because of personal differences with Angus Young. He was replaced by Cliff
Williams. Neither of the Young brothers has elaborated on the departure of Evans,
though Richard Griffiths, the CEO of Epic Records and a booking agent for AC/DC in
the mid-1970s, later commented, "You knew Mark wasn't going to last, he was just
too much of a nice guy." Mark Evans' autobiography, DIRTY DEEDS: My Life
Inside/Outside of AC/DC, released in 2011, predominantly dealt with his time in
AC/DC, including being fired.

AC/DC were a somewhat formative influence on New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands
who emerged in the late 1970s, such as Saxon and Iron Maiden, in part as a reaction
to the decline of traditional early 1970s hard rock bands. In 2007, critics noted
that AC/DC, along with Thin Lizzy, UFO, Scorpions and Judas Priest, were among "the
second generation of rising stars ready to step into the breach as the old guard
waned."

AC/DC's first American exposure was through the Michigan radio station AM 600 WTAC
in 1977. The station's manager, Peter C. Cavanaugh, booked the band to play at
Flint's Capitol Theater. The supporting act was MC5, who had just briefly reunited
and agreed to play at the event. The band opened with their popular song "Live
Wire" and closed with "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)".

AC/DC came to be identified with the punk rock movement by the British press. Their
reputation, however, managed to survive the punk upheavals of the late 1970s, and
they maintained a cult following in the UK throughout this time. Angus Young gained
notoriety formooning the audience during live performances.

The 1978 release of Powerage marked the debut of bassist Cliff Williams, and with
its harder riffs, followed the blueprint set by Let There Be Rock.Only one single
was released from Powerage, "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation/Sin City", and it became
AC/DC's best-performing single at the time, reaching No. 24.[citation needed] Eddie
Van Halen notes this to be his favourite AC/DC record, along with Highway to
Hell.An appearance at the Apollo Theatre, Glasgow during the Powerage tour was
recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got It, featuring such songs as
"Whole Lotta Rosie", "Problem Child", and "Let There Be Rock", as well as lesser-
known album tracks like "Riff Raff". Powerage was the last album produced by Harry
Vanda and George Young that had lead vocals by Bon Scott, and is claimed to be
AC/DC's most under-rated album

The major breakthrough in the band's career came in their collaboration with
producer "Mutt" Lange on the album Highway to Hell, released in 1979. It became the
first AC/DC LP to break into the US top 100, eventually reaching No. 17, and it
propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts. Highway to Hell had lyrics
that shifted away from flippant and comical toward more central rock themes,
putting increased emphasis on backing vocals but still featured AC/DC's signature
sound: loud, simple, pounding riffs and grooving backbeats. The final track, "Night
Prowler", has two breaths in quick succession at the start of the song, intended to
create a tone of fear and loathing.

Scott's death (1980)

As 1980 began, the band began work on a new album that would eventually become Back
in Black, but Bon Scott would not live to see it finished. On 19 February 1980,
Scott passed out in the car on the way back to friend Alistair Kinnear's house
after a night of heavy drinking at the Music Machine club in London. Upon arrival
at his home, Kinnear was unable to move Scott from the car into his home for the
night, so he left him in the car overnight to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.
Unable to wake Scott late the next morning, Kinnear rushed him to King's College
Hospital in Camberwell, where Scott was pronounced dead on arrival. Pulmonary
aspiration of vomit was the cause of Scott's death,and the official cause was
listed as "acute alcohol poisoning". Scott's family buried him in Fremantle,
Western Australia, the area they emigrated to when he was a boy.

Inconsistencies in the official accounts of Scott's death have been cited in

conspiracy theories, which suggest that Scott died of a heroin overdose, or was
killed by exhaust fumes redirected into the car, or that Kinnear did not exist.[34]
Additionally, Scott was asthmatic, and the temperature was below freezing on the
morning of his death.
AC/DC'S TRAGIC REAL-LIFE STORY

Anyone who knows anything about music knows AC/DC — whether they want to admit it
or not. They're behind some of the most quintessential rock anthems in the world,
songs that have brought entire stadiums to their feet and kept them there. As
biographer Jesse Fink told The Irish Times, "AC/DC's music is the best
antidepressant there is," and it's absolutely true.

He's also said that even though everyone knows them, they're notoriously private
people. There's a huge schism between the on-stage and backstage personas, and even
though the core of the group is one of rock's most successful families, tracking
down the truth is a bit of a challenge.

Malcolm and Angus Young have been the backbone of AC/DC from the beginning, and
they — along with fellow bandmates — had a life that was far from smooth sailing.
Their music — rough, feral music with riffs that go straight to your soul — spoke
to the everyman in a completely non-pretentious, honest way we can all understand
because they've been on some of the same journeys as their fans. Highway to Hell,
indeed.

TEN POUND POMS

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Brothers Malcolm and Angus Young might be larger-than-life, but in person, it's a
bit of a different story. Older brother Malcolm is the taller of the two, at only
5-foot-3. Angus stands all of 5-foot-2 (via Ultimate Classic Rock), and there's a
pretty heartbreaking reason for their small stature: Lead pipes contaminated the
drinking water on the Glasgow housing estate they lived in.

That's the family's story, says the Sydney Morning Herald, and that's just a peek
into how bleak their childhood in Scotland really was. The brothers — along with
their parents and a pack of siblings — had an early childhood shaped by the
perpetual unemployment of their father and seemingly endless poverty. The Scotsman
says the last straw came in 1963. The winter was the worst in recorded history,
burying the countryside under snow and ice as temperatures plunged into the subzero
range. Sunny Australia started looking pretty good, so the Youngs signed up for a
government program designed to encourage immigration to Oz. For just the price of
two adult, one-way tickets — discounted to just £10 each — they packed up and
headed off.

When they got there, they started at the very, very bottom. The family found
themselves living in the tin shelters of a migrant hostel, and music really did
save them when older brother George and his band, The Easybeats, put out a song
that became Australia's first international rock hit, Friday on My Mind.

THEY WERE 'ASKED TO LEAVE' SCHOOL

1980, Rolling Stone got a glimpse behind the curtain of the band that had a
reputation as being sort of the typical rock-n-roll troublemakers. Instead they
found a few devoted family men, a lot of tea, and a strange sort of introspective
reflection. Unexpected? Absolutely, but the players also say their reputation for
quick tempers and quicker fists isn't just deserved, it went back a long time to a
tragic place.

"That's because we always stick together," Angus told them. "Like us Youngs, we're
all short. We walk into a show now, and we still get people hassling us. We used to
pull up at a show in a car, and the security people wouldn't let us in."
Tempers came from a sort of "us versus them" mentality that started from the time
they were in school. Malcolm remembered his Glasgow school as being a string of
fights, and by the time it was Angus' turn to head to school in Australia, there
was already a reputation attached to his last name. He was caned on his very first
day just to set an example. By the time he was 15, he was told to leave or he was
going to be kicked out. Later, when the New York Post asked him about his trademark
schoolboy outfit, he said, "Yes, I got a kick out of wearing it, and that's funny
because as a kid I was never much a fan of school."

BON SCOTT'S DEATH

AC/DC came to a major crossroads early in their run with the tragic death of front
man Bon Scott. Thirteen years older than Angus, he had first been hired as the
driver for the original incarnation of the band. When he passed, Angus told Rolling
Stone, "I was sad for Bon. I didn't even think about the band."

Just what happened on the night Scott died — alone, in a Renault 5 parked on a
South London street — is still a bit of a mystery. Classic Rock took an in-depth
look at the circumstances surrounding his death, and says the original cause of
death was given as acute alcohol poisoning. It was only later that would be changed
to asphyxiation, with the official ruling he had choked on his own vomit after an
all-night drinking binge.

That's a horrible way to go, but not everyone is convinced that's what happened.
According to a 2017 biography by Jesse Fink (via Classic Rock), the actual cause of
death was heroin use. Fink says he interviewed a series of people who were with
Scott in the days leading up to his death, but admits they were mostly using heroin
themselves at the time. Was Scott? It's unlikely anyone's going to ever come up
with a definitive answer. What is known is that the rock world lost a legend that
night.

LINKED TO A SERIAL KILLER

AC/DC has always had something of a reputation — as Rolling Stone points out, their
1976 tour was called the Lock Up Your Daughters Tour. That's all in good fun, but
in the mid-1980s things took a very real, very dark turn when an AC/DC hat was
found at the murder site of one Dayle Okazaki. The media ran with it, and suddenly
the band was being connected to something Satanic. Apparently, listening to their
music incited murderous tendencies in their fans, and Ultimate Classic Rock says
that's when some people started claiming AC/DC actually stood for
"Anti-Christ/Devil's Child."

The murderer was eventually caught, and the serial killer known as the Night
Stalker was finally identified as Richard Ramirez. It also didn't help when a
childhood friend of Ramirez's went public with the killer's fondness of the band,
and it definitely didn't look good when the media gave him the Night Stalker
nickname, as it was uncomfortably close to AC/DC's song "Night Prowler."

According to the LA Times, suddenly, AC/DC was no longer selling out shows, and
entire cities rallied to ban them from performing. It remained a hugely dark part
of the band's history for a long time.

MALCOLM YOUNG'S ALCOHOLISM

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AC/DC released Blow Up Your Video in 1988, and a tour followed right on the heels
of the album. But all was not well behind the scenes, and before the tour even
started, Malcolm announced he was going to be stepping out of the spotlight to take
care of a problem that had been steadily becoming worse: his alcohol addiction.
"It caught right up to me and I lost the plot," he said (via The Guardian). "Angus
was going: 'I'm your brother, I don't want to see you dead here. Remember Bon?' So
I took that break and cleaned myself up."

Nephew Stevie Young stepped in to take his uncle's place on the tour, and while he
was back in time for their 1990 album, it's clear Malcolm's addiction — and healing
process — went on to shape the band. It also spoke volumes about just how much of a
family affair AC/DC always was. When Rolling Stone touched on the incident in their
retrospective on Malcolm's life, they quoted his older brother, George: "Malcolm
had a problem. In our family, if we have a problem, we deal with it ourselves." And
deal with it they did. From then on, backstage gatherings were almost strangely
tame. When Megadeth joined them on tour, Dave Mustaine remembered, "Someone said,
'Can I get you a bottle of something?' and someone else said, 'All they do is drink
tea and smoke cigarettes.'"

THE DEADLY CONCERT

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In 1991, an AC/DC concert in Salt Lake City ended in tragedy with the deaths of
three teenage fans: 19-year-old Elizabeth Glausi, along with Jimmie Boyd Jr. and
Curtis White Child, both 14 years old, died when they were crushed by fans surging
forward.

There were about 13,000 people at the show, and according to People, 4,400 of them
were crammed into festival-style seating. That basically means no seating at all, a
setup that had caused 11 deaths at a Who concert in 1979. Witnesses testified about
an insanely horrible scene, where crowds of fans pushed forward, knocked people
over, and buried others under a pile of bodies. Just what happened in the chaos
differs based on the source, but it's not disputed that the pushing and shoving
started right when the concert did. While security says it took about 45 minutes
before someone was able to make it onstage to tell the band what was going on,
AC/DC maintains they only played four songs before Brian Johnson called for a
spotlight on the crowd and an end to the chaos.

Ten years later, AC/DC returned to play another show at Salt Lake City. Johnson
spoke to Deseret News about the lasting effect it had on them all, saying, "No
matter how long ago it happened, you still think about it. You hope and pray it
never happens again. ... That was an awful incident, and it hit us very hard."

MALCOLM YOUNG'S BATTLE WITH DEMENTIA

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Malcolm Young died on November 18, 2017. When AC/DC announced his passing on
Facebook, Angus wrote, "As his brother it is hard to express in words what he has
meant to me during my life, the bond we had was unique and very special. ...
Malcolm, job well done."

His death came after a long and heartbreaking battle with dementia, one that was
announced in 2014. According to Rolling Stone, they were originally vague about his
health issues, only saying he was going to be taking a break and his nephew, Stevie
Young, would fill in for him again. It wasn't until later that Angus publicly
announced Malcolm had also undergone major operations on his heart and lungs,
saying (via Ultimate Classic Rock), "He seemed to get everything hit him at once,
besides his dementia. So he had quite a lot of things going on."

When Angus talked to The Guardian in 2014, he said Malcolm's dementia had started
during their Black Ice tour. He'd needed to relearn the songs he had written before
getting on stage. "Sometimes you would look and he'd be there, and you'd be,
'Malcolm!' ... And other times, his mind was going. But he still held it together,"
he said.
PHIL RUDD'S LEGAL TROUBLES
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It wasn't long after AC/DC announced Malcolm's retirement that another band member
was making headlines. Drummer Phil Rudd was in court, and according to Rolling
Stone, it was over a strange bit of drama.

Rudd would ultimately get eight months of house arrest after pleading guilty to
drug charges and charges that he had threatened to kill his former security guard.
After the failure of his solo album, Rudd fired most of his staff before making a
phone call to an unnamed associate. According to the hearing, Rudd offered that
associate $200,000 and the choice of a car, a motorcycle, or a house for killing
his former staffer. There were also claims he had threatened not only the security
guard but the man's daughter as well. A warrant for his arrest kicked off a search
that turned up both marijuana and methamphetamine, it was pretty much all downhill
from there.

Rolling Stone also reported that after the charges (and before the hearing), Rudd
went public with claims he was going to be staying with AC/DC and continuing to
perform. But, Billboard said the rest of the band had other ideas and distanced
themselves from it all pretty quickly. Angus went on record as saying there had
been issues between Rudd and the other members before, and that they hadn't been in
contact with him at all.

BRIAN JOHNSON'S HEARING ISSUES

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In 2016, rock fans were treated to a "Wait ... what?!" sort of moment when AC/DC
abruptly announced Brian Johnson was out and Axl Rose was in (via Rolling Stone).
Shortly after, Johnson issued his own statement on what was going on — his doctors
had told him he had only two choices: quit or face complete hearing loss.

"That was the darkest day of my professional life," Johnson said, and went on to
admit that he had been having trouble for some time. His partial hearing loss was
only getting worse due to the sound levels at their concerts, and he said he quit
not necessarily to protect his hearing but because he felt it was compromising his
ability to perform. "Our fans deserve my performance to be at the highest level,
and if for any reason I can't deliver that level of performance I will not
disappoint our fans or embarrass the other members of AC/DC," he explained.

Later, Johnson released a bit of a hopeful statement, saying he'd had some major
success using in-ear technology that acted to absorb some of the most damaging
sounds, like a second eardrum (via Rolling Stone). As of 2018, he was enjoying
retirement, and told The Sunday Times, "The way I look at it, I had a great run."

IT'S ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING

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AC/DC has always had a very specific sort of reputation. They're not taken
seriously, they're condemned by critics as unchanging, one-dimensional, and
controversial for the sake of being controversial. And that's tragic, because what
is music supposed to do? If the point of music is to make you feel, then AC/DC not
only does that, but is unfortunately underestimated and misunderstood.

Brian Johnson said as much to Westword back in 2008, saying they're not about to
change just for the sake of changing because, simply put, they love what they do.
He added that a ton of what's been written and said about them makes it clear that
most people have missed the point. According to him, fans should imagine them as
less rabble-rousing troublemakers and more working-class guys with a Monty Python-
esque sort of humor who loved to use the double entendres because swearing wasn't
allowed in the house when they were growing up.
When asked what he thought about their music being condemned as evil, Johnson had
this to say: "They're just nutcakes, an' if they can get advertisin' for
themselves, they'll pick on somethin' people are enjoyin' just because they're
enjoyin' in." And that pretty much sums up the tragedy that is AC/DC — great music
that's underestimated because it doesn't put on airs. That's worth a salute.