17 June 2009

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



16 June 2009

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

15 June 2009

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.

14 June 2009

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.