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.