BON SCOTT DOCUMENTRY ....part 1

Bon sings It's A Long Way To The Top

Voice Over...while most of us remember him leading ac/dc, it was a long way to the top for Bon Scott. He first served a long apprenticeship with a number of very different bands and was 28 years old when he joined Malcolm and Angus Young on what was to be the final stop on his musical journey.
Reporters Voice....Bon Scott the vocalist for Australian band ac/dc has died over night in London, he was found unconscious in a parked car around 8pm but was prounced dead.......

Fifa Riccobono {Albert music}....Bon died on tour, he died in the UK and i got a call from the UK saying he'd died and i found it incredibly hard to believe that he um he wasn't, i had to hear it from 3 people to believe it.

Maria {Bon's ex girlfriend}...I'd spoken to him not that long ago when he'd rung me from America, i knew where he was going at that particular time i knew what was happening to him, we'd talked and ah it was just so surreal

Johnny Young.....when Bon died it was the talk of the music industry for days you know i think everybody was in shock.

Maria....i just slid to the floor and cried and cried and cried

Brian Cadd....it really hit me hard and i hadn't seen him for a long time but I'd known him well when i knew him and it was a shock

Brian Gannon {guitarist with the Spectors}....i was devastated the fact that um he'd paid the dues got there and ah yeah it was so sad.

Johnny Young.....you know just the loneliness of how he died was just, just a real tragedy, it really made me so awfully sad with all that incredible success and to die so alone .

Ted Holloway { guitarist with the Valentines}....i was surprised not shocked so much but surprised that he had allowed that to happen to himself

Di Bailey {ex girlfriend of ac/dc guitarist Rob Bailey}...he got caught out in the end which was a real shame you know...and i don't think there's been any other band in the history that i can remember who has been able to replace such a person as Bon and still continue so , good on them really.

Voice Over.....When Bon Scott died he left behind a volume of work that for many AC/DC fans stand among the bands finest releases. The first 5 albums were produced by former Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young, the brother of Angus and Malcolm. Over 15 million copies of Bon Scotts final studio album with AC/DC, 1979's Highway To Hell have been sold to date.

After 5 years as a side drummer with WA's Sciottish Pipe band, 18 year old Bon Scott formed his first group in 1964, The Spectors with singer John Collins, guitarist Wim Neilson and bass player Brian Gannon

Brian....it was the first band all of us had been in so we needed a lot of rehearsing, it was all new to us ,all of us

Paul Gadenne {former DJ}.....the sort of material that they did was by and large very bluesy very Eric Burton and the Animals, maybe a bit of Rolling Stones umm pretty raunchy sort of rock n roll blues

Brian.... John'd sing a few tunes, Bon'd drum and then they'd do a change around, Bon'd get up and sing and John'd get up on the drum kit, so it was unique in a way.

Bon sings Gloria

Maria....they were growing together, they were building a band, they were sort of starting at gigs with 5 people and ending up with gigs of 5,000 people or more. They started at small venues ended up on the Fremantle Oval with so many screaming teenagers it was just fantastic, for all of them it was a wonderful experience within the growth of their musical careers so to speak.

Voice Over....Bon Scott and 18 year old Maria Short were an item soon after they met at a Spectors gig in 1965. He was absolutely besotted from the start and remained in touch long after they went their separate ways. Short still regularly recieved his letters when he was a globe trotting rock star with AC/DC.

Maria.....when i first got connected with Bon here in Fremantle he had no money in fact anything and he had arranged with my father to take this present down for me and what he'd done was a year before a whole 12 months before we'd walked past this store and there was this amazing big yellow teddy bear, big and i said to him you know one day i'd really like to have something like that and he had put it on lay by and paid it off at i think 2 shillings a week and it had taken him all year to pay it off and he even had to borrow money to do the final payment, and sent that present down to the farm with my father so when i got up on xmas morning there was this giant teddy sitting in the chair, it was just gorgeous.

Voice Over...one of the best known singers in the Perth music scene was Johnny Young.As well as leading his band Johnny Young and the Strangers, he also hosted the local music show called Club 17

{Johnny.... and here's their drummer Bon Scott, hi Bon, Bon's from Liverpool, sounds like it anyway...from where ?

Bon ....Kirrimuir

Johnny .... Kirrimuir ?

Bon...... that's right

Johnny ..... where's that

Bon....Scotland

Johnny....ah he's a scots man} johnny young was a dick !

Johnny.....Johnny and the Strangers played at the Broadway every saturday night and if Bon wasnt playing with the Spectors somewhere he might come along to our dance and hop on stage and sing a couple of songs and he'd get a terrific reception as a singer because he was basically known as a drummer but thats how i got to know Bon by him jumping up and singing some songs with my band

Ted....i thought the Spectors worked better with Bon as the lead vocalist with all due respect to John Collins. Bon was a great little drummer at the time but he added more to the band when he was out front, as far as the Spectors were concerned.

Maria.....Bon was with the Spectors, he had a group of guys that he obviously built a career with and so they became very important for Bon because they were the people who kind of knew where he started from, where his roots were in music they knew everything about each other actually and so over the years they stayed very close and whenever Bon was away and returned home for any reason he always went to see them because they were the group of people who knew the heart of Bon and his passion for wanting to be a success

Voice Over .....in 1966 Bon Scott and Wim Neilson of the Spectors were invited to form a new band with singer Vince Lovegrove and guitarist Ted Holloway of Perth out fit The Winstons. Featuring Bon Scott and Lovegrove sharing lead vocals the group was called the Valentines.

Glenn A Baker.....i think you had to have lived in Perth to have known of the Spectors um but all of Australia became aware of the Valentines, the pop scene was pretty tight and close in Australia and a new pop sensation spread across the land .

Lyn Gannon.....the Valentines was a more bubble gum type band with 2 singers who dressed up in pretty clothes so they were more of a show act i think than rather a pop band.

Ted.....Bon always struck me as someone who didnt want to be playing the drums as he was with the Spectors he ahh struck me as someone who wanted to be out the front controlling the situation. { the valentines sing Everyday i Have to Cry Some}

Maria....i'll never forget the first night and they were gonna play Broadway and he was getting dressed to go and he was almost shaking and i dont know if it was because he was going to play with the Valentines for the first time or because he had to tell me that i wasnt allowed to come to the gig, he sat me down and said look i dont think this is good this is a bubble gum group its probably not good if they know ive got a girlfriend, as time goes on i'm sure it will be fine but right now you cant come, umm i think it was another 3 gigs before i was allowed to go. Bon was 21 and the band decided they had to go to live in Melbourne.

THE STORY OF BACK IN BLACK ....part 3

ANGUS....you know that openin intro, the little guitar jangles, it was really that and the chorusy riff, we were fiddling about with those 2 riffs

BRIAN....you shook me all night long, i'd written the words and all that, i went into sing it and all that and the boys werent in and i was singin it " she was a fast machine she kept her motor clean she was the best damn woman that i ever seen " and Mutt said, you Brian there's too many words in it and i said oh..what do you mean, and he said i think it should go like this {mal sings} she was a fast machine.......she kept her motor clean...she had the sight for size

BRIAN....i did it like that and then Mal heard it and said stuff it, what the fuck is this

ANGUS....sounded kind of folky didnt it Mal ? folk rock

MALCOLM....yeah and at the same time it wasnt really lyrics

BRIAN....he said nah nah do it back the old way, it rocks the old way

Brian sings You Shook Me All Night Long

THE STORY OF BACK IN BLACK.....part 2

PHIL....well we had open auditions for anybody who thought they could give it a crack.

ANGUS.....there was a few different people come down, they kind of made you feel urgh and especially because Bon was big shoes larger than life so..

BRIAN....Mutt Lange who had produced Highway to Hell had heard my voice and Geordie records and had mentioned my name.

ANGUS.....then Mutt Lange he said I've heard, heard this guy singin

BRIAN...then the boys were well who is this guy and where is he and then a fan from Cleveland had sent a letter to the management office sayin you've gotta listen to Brian Johnson he's the perfect voice for the band ...who by the way i still thank you for that, i got the first telephone call...how old are you ? and i went well why do you wanna know ? and she went, i must know your age if you are too old you ..i said for what ? she said, for an audition with the band ...i said ahh which band ..she's gone, i can not tell you this ..and i said well I'm not comin down to London unless you tell us who it is, it could be anyone, could be the Monkeys and she said..OK i will tell you the initials ...she wasn't too bright this woman, she said it is AC and DC and i said you mean ac/dc ? and she went shyza !

VOICE OVER.....in late march 1980 Brian Johnson singer of the band Geordie was asked to come to London for an audition.

BRIAN ....I just said hey guys how are ya and Malcolm was brilliant he said hey mate here's a bottle of Newcastle brown ale for ya , i said aww mate i could do with this i could kill it and he said what do you wanna do and i said jeez i don't know, do you know Nut Bush City Limits by Tina Turner and he said yeah i think so we'll try it, so we started it and we're rockin and he said do you know Rosie and i said yeah i know Rosie so we did Rosie and it just started...i started to get tingles.

VOICE OVER....on April 1st 1980, six weeks after Bon's death AC/DC made the announcement Brian Johnson was their new singer

PHIL...we had a good feeling straight away, i mean the guy obviously had a very strong work ethic

ANGUS....i liked his voice, it was different to what Bon's voice was.

PHIL...he had the toughness he had the commitment

ANGUS... it just seemed like he had his own character

VOICE OVER....after joining the band for some rehearsals ac/dc set off for the Bahamas to record with Mutt Lange and engineer tony platt at Compass Point studios

ANGUS....and they said you get great guitar sounds, that sold me and Malcolm straight away.

VOICE OVER....there the boys found a tropical paradise, the perfect setting to shed their sorrows and get down to business.

BRIAN....i remember that day, it was miserable, black as the ace of spades and Mutt went uh tell you what....and it just started thundering right at that minute, no lie it went kaboom and he went..ohh rolling thunder...and it started rainin and i went pourin rain...and he went, there you go ................oh that was definitely Mal and Ang they wanted somethin symbolic, for whom the bell tolls or whatever.

MALCOLM......i do remember taking a leak out the back because the toilet was a long way away and we were talkin about the Hell's Bell's intro, it was a really good intro, it was really ominous before anything and we, Angus had the title Hell's Bell's and i was just takin a piss and thought ..hang on why don't we get a big fuckin bell .......Hell's Bell's went down really well

ANGUS....because we had a big bell with us .....and it actually came years later that people went hey that's a cool tune.

MALCOLM.....we were in London at the time and there was a big deal about noise pollution with the clubs around London and everywhere else, they wanted DB meters in there, they wanted to ban them really.

BRIAN......the title it was already written by Malcolm and Angus and i think it was more empiric than anything else

MALCOLM.....we'd gone in with 9 tracks and we needed another song and we'd left it till the end

PRATT....rock and roll ain't noise pollution is interesting because that wasn't actually written much at all when we started recording and we needed the last track.

MALCOLM....Mutt said we need another track so lets work one so we said why don't you all go down the pub, have a few hours and leave me and Angus with it

PRATT.....we actually had a night out that night, we went to a Balinese restaurant

MALCOLM.... we just sat around, Angus had that title, we just put a slow blues feel around it and the chorus, Angus had the cords for the chorus of it and we bobbed it down in about 15 minutes, sat around for awhile, the guys came back, we played it to Mutt, Mutt went that's cool, lets go for that one.

BRIAN.....i said what will i do at the start of this ? and Mutt said ahhh just say somethin and i ahh went ahh just talk ?

MALCOLM....it was at that time the TV evangelist were full on here, late 70's into the 80's

BRIAN....i think Mal and Angus were in there goin oh Johnno just fuck around, and that's basically what i did and it was one take

MALCOLM....i said Brian give em a bit of that bullshit preaching stuff you know ? so he came rappin out with it

BRIAN..... so i just went , hey all you middle men throw away your fancy clothes ....i was takin the Micky out of some old musical or somethin ...and so they said oh great we'll keep that

THE STORY OF BACK IN BLACK....part 1

VOICE OVER....with the buzz surrounding the band reaching a new high, expectations for a follow up to Highway to Hell had the band launching into the stratesphere.

BRIAN.....first time i saw them on television was this program called um, rock goes to college and i remember seein Angus come out with his little napsack and runnin across the stage and i was with me pals and i said what the hell is that ? you know we'd heard it before but we hadnt seen the visual and uh it was like nothin i'd ever seen before but it worked it wasnt corny it wasnt dumb..he really did look like a Tasmanian devil.VOICE OVER....in January 1980 the band returned to their adopted London home and immediately began rehearsing tracks with Highway to Hell producer Mutt Lange.

PHIL....he had a tremendous amount of respect for the boys for what the boys wanted to stick by you know for what they didnt want to move away from as far as production and that sort of thing.

MUTT'S FRIEND....his particular forte is to draw performances out of people

VOICE OVER...guitar riffs, song titles and chorus ideas began to take shape when in the middle of February tragedy struck. ....after a night out drinking in Londons Camden Town a friend drove Bon home, unable to wake the singer he left him in the car to sleep it off, several hours later Bon was found dead in the car, he was 33 years old.

CLIFF....he just said well you know Bon, Bon died last night, so i, my reaction was well where is he ? and he said no no , he's gone ...so that was that.

PHIL.....i found it a little hard to put into perspective because it was all such a shock..i mean the guy had already died a couple of times before anyway so we all expected him to turn up at practice the next day.

MUTT'S FRIEND....mutt got a phone call and he came back into the control room and said ..your never gonna believe this um Bon died last night.

PHIL....things were going so well and everything and it was a big shock

VOICE OVER....AC/DC returned to Australia to bury their friend in his native Perth

CLIFF....obviously you hope that the band would not fall to bits , but we just didnt know what was gonna happen.

ANGUS....we kind of felt ...that was that and the only thing that kept it goin i think was Mal

VOICE OVER....the band returned to London to continue rehearsing as a productive means of therapy

MALCOLM....me and Angus got together and said look we've got a rehearsal room down the road there that we were gonna use, why dont we go down there just to keep our selves sane

VOICE OVER....the songs began to take shape as the band used them to grieve their departed friend

MALCOLM.....we can play guitar and when we do that it takes us away from the reality so we did that for quiet awhile

ANGUS.....we'd get together and we'd write cause thats what we'd been doin and just keep goin and dont think of where its gonna go from there

VOICE OVER.....with the new songs coming together the search for a new singer could not be delayed , the boys began holding auditions.

ROCK N ROLL DAMNATION

They say that you play too loud,
Well, baby, that's tough!
They say that you got too much,
Can't get enough!
They tell you that you look a fool,
And, baby, I'm a fool for you!
They say that your mind's diseased,
Shake your stuff!

And it's a rock 'n' roll damnation!
Ma's own whippin' boy!
Rock 'n' roll damnation!
Take a chance while you still got the choice!

You say that you want respect,
Honey, for what?
For everything that you've done for me,
Thanks a lot!
Get up off your bended knees,
You could set your mind at ease!
My temperature's runnin' hot,
Oh I've been waitin' all night for a bite o' what you got!

And it's a rock 'n' roll damnation!
Ma's own whippin' boy!
Rock 'n' roll damnation!
Take a chance while you still got the choice!

Oh it's a hard life

(Damnation!) They're puttin' you down,
(Damnation!) All over town!
(Damnation!) 'Cause you're way outta reach,
Livin' on the streets, you gotta practice what you preach!

And it's a rock 'n' roll damnation!
Ma's own whippin' boy!
Rock 'n' roll damnation!
Take a chance while you still got the choice!
SOLO
(Damnation!) Left a happy home,
(Damnation!) To live on your own!
(Damnation!) You wanna live in sin,
(Damnation!) It's a rock 'n' roll -
Damnation! Just a bundle of joy,
(Damnation!) You're a toy for a boy!
(Damnation!) You got dollars in your eyes,
(Damnation!) Chasin' that pie in the sky!
(Damnation!) Rock 'n' roll -
Damnation!

Written by Bon Scott, Malcolm Young and Angus Young. Powerage album.