The Making of AC/DC!

0:00Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan on News Talk. I'm gonna bang your covers, tell them that I'm number one, we're the pulling on the power plan, guess I am, in the plan, we're the gear, they got the custody of me for me. Alan Bookley from the Irish Rock and Roll museum experiences with me in studio this Thursday to tell us about the making of ACDC. Back in black. Yeah, higher things. Oh, mixed feelings. Oh, I just imagine that you're a massive ACDC fan. No, you see, no, you're just pigeonholing me into that. Love a good generalisation, Alan. But my mixed feelings are because as I was researching this, I was away recently in South India and I realised when I started researching this that the day I flew out, was my friend Collins birthday and I completely forgot about that. So I would like to dedicate this episode to my friend Collins. My self and Collins have been to see ACDC on more than one okay.

1:00Right. So Collins, I'm sorry, this is for you. Tell me about the band. They have been around a while, so early 70s. Interestingly, we can definitely describe them as an Australian band, but with strong Celtic roots because the youngs, Malcolm and Angus who are the main driving force behind the band were born in Scotland and their family moved to Australia. So and then equally, they're first, well, second lead singer, Bonscott, we'll come to him. He was also born in Scotland. So there's a, you know, it's a kind of a what you might call an ex-pass, this part of the world was raised in Australia. And they have been around since 1973 and they are still going. Still going. How many, how many, sorry, make up the band? Well, we recently covered the water boys, not as many as that, but there would be kind of a general core of about five, but they've had so many line-up changes.

2:04So there's a few that we really need to talk about. Yeah, and I suppose one of those being lead singer and that was a defining moment. Yes, defining, defining moment. So they actually do begin with a guy called Dave Evans, who was actually born in Wales, but grew up in Australia. Dave Evans is still not going around and he was in other bands, but they do release their first single with Dave Evans and then he is very quickly replaced by, and I think most old school ACD-V fans, Hark back to the time of Bonscott. And there's very few hard rock singers who can also play the bagpipes, but Bonscott could. And he was this incredibly charismatic frontman. And some circles, some people have voted him the greatest frontman of any rock band ever. But he was a live wire and hit their first seven albums are with Bonscott, but in 1980 he was February 19th, I think it was. Bons had too much to drink.

3:05And like people like Amy Winehouse and John Bonsom from Led Zeppelin, acute alcohol poisoning took him. And he was a young man, he was 33 years of age. They have had massive success. Their album Highway to Hell was the one that put them on the map. And I think we're actually going to hear a little bit of Bons next because that sound and his voice is early ACD-C. Well, these easy remembered title Highway to Hell. But this is the great sound. It's a buyer. And it's from the album of the same name. And I won't say they weren't unsuccessful before this album. But this is the one that takes them out of Australia and to the global world.

4:07So we're talking about one particular album today, are we? No, no, no, no, no, sorry. Definitely not because it would be impossible. And they have been through so many incarnations. But this is the one that launches them in 1979 to the global audience. And you know what you're looking for in 1979 and that is a US hit. So this is huge hit. There's another song called Money Talks. Also a huge hit. This is the one that announces them. And this is the ultimate tragedy of what happens. They have plowed around the music scene in Australia. They finally made it. It is 1979. I think this was about September 1979. And then your lead singer and main iconic figure at the front of the band tragically dies. What do you do? Do you say, well, we had to go to Ron, but there's no way of replacing him. Bandscott before he died had said to other members of the band, there's this lad. He's English. He's from Newcastle. His name is Brian Johnson. He's in a very sort of mediocre kind of band.

5:10I don't think he put it like that, but Jordy was the name of the band and they weren't really going anywhere. They'd had a couple of hits, but they just never took off. What he said to Angus and Malcolm Young, this guy gets rock and roll. He sings like little Richard. And I don't know if that just planted a seed. Brian Johnson was gone, nowhere in music. He had had his run and he was now selling vinyl roofs and cars. And by the way, listeners, if everyone to read one of the best rock by our phrase that isn't just the pure sex drugs and rock and roll, but a guy who didn't think he was going to make it and then caught called in for an audition for ACDC. The lives of Brian, it's called, it's an amazing book. So he gets called in and then is that when they reach their peak then? So yeah, this is like, it all happens very quickly. You might even say a little bit too quickly following him. Yeah. But Brian Johnson quickly finds himself in the Bahamas a couple of months later, recording an album called Back in Black.

6:13Now, thriller opened with, yes, thriller is the highest selling album of all time. What is the second most successful? Yeah, that's this. It's back in black by ACDC. So to say that his world and the world of ACDC went full circle within literally a couple of months, but this album and we're going to hear a little bit more from that in a little while, that's the one that russed and noun system and the new sound. There it is, Hell's Bells. And as my wife said, words that boys like. All their songs are like this. And you can either kind of take a cynical view and go, it's kind of, it's kind of immature and it's kind of, you know, all boys like stories about the road to Hell

7:14and Hell's Bells and being shook all night long. But it's just fun. Yeah. You just have to dive in and take a big bite of the ACDC sandwich because they will take you on a rock and roll journey. And I have seen them and I think I'm probably right in saying that I probably have been to their last concert in Ireland. I don't think they'll be back. I hope they might be. But last August. I was going to say it's relatively recently. It was a late last August in Crow Park, which was the last night of their European tour. And there was a sort of, is this going to be the last? The plan was always to go and do a few gigs in the United States, which they did. And then maybe they didn't come back to Europe, but they did go back to Scotland and they did play a few gigs. But like Brian Jansen is 78 and he is an iconic voice. He's one of the nicest men in rock and roll. Like he ever see the documentaries he makes where he goes around and meets other musicians.

8:15He's just this jority guy who absolutely loves music, loves a point. And he's just, he's just a fabulous guy. You should be on and on. Yeah, you should be on and on. Rock and double, time on the seduction lawn. She was one of the kinds of judgmental man. There it is. You shook me all night long. And that was the first real song that he was asked to write for ACDC upon arriving in the Bahamas. What a song. He wasn't a songwriter. So he said, well, what do you know about? He's like, I kind of know about cars. So she was a fast machine. She kept her engine clean and I won't complete the rest of that. But he just kind of, he kept with his metaphor of what he liked and what he knew about. And it's a banger. It's one of my favorite live songs. What makes an ACDC song?

9:17ACDC song, so recognizable. Brian Johnson's voice and the incredible talent of Angus Young in his little school uniform, which by the way was his sister Margaret's idea that he wear this uniform. And I'd say he's cursing today that she suggested that because I don't think I'd recognize Angus Young if he wasn't in velvet shorts because he always wears this on stage. But what is funny is a lot of these songs are at the highway to hell and hell's bells and all that. They're famously asked in the 80s, you know, when there was that big reaction, that kind of raganight against music, satanic music. And they said, it's this ACDC. It means something to do with the devil. And he says, Angus Young says, nah, I got it off the back of my sister Margaret's side machine, it said, ACDC. And it's like the myth of the satanic cult of rock and roll. These guys are about the party. Yeah, they're about to choose us. It's that simple. Our final song, Thunderstruck. My final song, researchers at the University of South Australia discovered that playing

10:22the song, Thunderstruck during chemotherapy helps vibrate silicone micro particles to improve drug delivery to cancer cells. Wow. So it isn't just about the music. This song can make you well again. But it is an amazing track. Thunderstruck is the ultimate. It's an unbelievable tune. And this comes up. Is it their highest selling? It isn't quite, but it's the one to put them back on the map because they had a bit of a dip, understandably, after back and back. And this comes from the album, Razor's Edge in 1990, which, as I said, kind of researched them. And this track, huge, huge. By our number one album, Over the Shop in Rockcharts. You just have to, if this doesn't want to make you want to get up and throw your hands in the air, I saw this in Crow Park last year. There was pirate time. I'd say it was mega, was it? Yeah. Your man comes out angus on the guitar and he's the famous riff of the start, the possibly

11:23fast finger action that it requires and the cry of discovery. Yeah. It's just a total banger. ACDC are not to be analyzed. They're to be enjoyed. Well, let's let the listeners do Joe Stas. Alan Buckley from the Irish Rock and Roll Museum experience. Alan, thanks a million for joining us here in Lunchtime Live to tell us about the making of ACDC. The fun of the games. The fun of the games. Join me on the. Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan. Weekdays at midday. On News Talk, Conversation that counts.