Quotes
ANGUS YOUNG
"The only rehearsal we had was just sitting around an hour before the gig, pulling out every rock 'n' roll song we knew. When we finally got out there Bon downed about two bottles of Bourbon with dope, coke, speed, and says, "Right I'm ready!" And he was too. There was this immediate transformation and he was running around with his wife's knickers on yelling at the audience. It was a magic moment. He said it made him feel young again."
"Bon joined us pretty late in his life, but that guy had more youth in him than people half his age."
"I think we do what we do well, whatever it is that we do, do."
" Malcolm would always tell me, don't tickle it, hit the bugger."
"We aern't the prettiest thing in the world. With AC/DC it's not like we're out to steal you wife and your girlfriend and your daughter. We may borrow them but..."
"Most bands have ups and downs. With us things just stay the same."
"We've never thought of ourselves as a heavy metal band. We've always regarded ourselves as a rock band. The big difference, we've always thought we had a lot more feel for rock. We always went for songs, not riffs or hevy, heavy sounds. But every now and then it does come on like a sledgehammer."
"The headmaster used to call me up every second day or so and say, "Well Young, what have you been up to this time?"
"You mean an undrugged album?"--Angus being asked if AC/DC would ever do an unplugged album.
"I was annoyed that Bon wasn't given the respect due when he was alive."
"We've got the basic things kids want. They want to rock, and that's it."
"We used to think of ourselves as an Australian band, but we're beginning to doubt that now. The fuckers won't even let us play here."--Angus 1977
"We're not black magic satanists. I dont drink blood. I may wear black underpants now and again, but that's it."
"When we started we didn't care about gettin on the radio; and we didnt care what people said about us...We just went out and played rock music."
"The only image we've ever had is what we really are. We never cover up anything."
"We can't sit on our arses and say the world owes us a living because we've paid our dues. Me, I think if I fluff a note I'm robbing the kids. You're gonna pour it all on until you drop, so even if they hate you they can still say, "At least they tried."
"Retire? Never. This is the same rumour again. We like our job and we have a lot of fun recording and on stage. I'd like to die playing a chord..."
"High Voltage was actually recorded in ten days in between gigs, working through the night after we came offstage and then through the day. I suppose it was fun at the time, but there was no thought put into it; somebody picked up a guitar and went, 'That's a riff!' and away we'd go. There was a lot of that and a lot of magic moments came out of it. But that was youthful energy."
"The title If You Want Blood...came from a gig we did in America, the Day on the Green Festival. 80,000 people turned up. We were on at 10:30 in the morning, and most of us hadn't even been to bed! This guy from a film crew got a hold of me and Bon and asked what kind of a show it was gonna be. Bon said, " You remember when the Christians went to the lions? Well, we're the Christians." The he asked me and I said, ' If they want blood they're gonna get it.'"
"Obviously we called the album Back in Black because of Bon. We didn't want to just say, "Dedicated to Bon," because the guy had been with us for five years, and so we all decided that it was a far better tribute to him to design the whole album to rather than to have just one title line on the back of the sleeve."
Have you got any kids? "My wife says I'm the only one."
"I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. When in fact, we've mad 12 albums that sound exactly the same!"
"I'm not going bald. My head's just getting higher.''
Do you have any sympathy for punk bands? Angus: None Bon: What's a punk band? Hey, who's got beer?
"When I'm on stage the savage in me is released. It's like going back to being a cave man. It takes me six hours to come down after a show."
"We're a rock group. We're noisy, rowdy, sensational, and weird."
"I've seen Bon drink three bottles of Bourbon straight off... even though he did like to drink and have a good time, he was always there when you needed him to do his job."
"We saw more of Bon than his family did, especially us three. It was always me, Bon, and Malcolm. We hung out together. Go to clubs together, get thrown out of clubs together..."
"One second he was there, you could see him in the booth, then the next second he was down! The guys doing the recording kept asking Bon to do the line one more time, and every time he kept givin his all, but in between takes you could hear him drinkin down whiskey. If you listen really close you can even hear it on the album! It was like: With a bullet in his back, guzzle, guzzle, guzzle....With a bullet in his back, guzzle,guzzle,guzzle. And finally on the last one he just gave it everything he had and passed out. We all kinda went around and just seen him there on the floor."
"Oh we've had our share of hotels bein smashed and all, but that was a long time ago. You get lousy room service....I mean there's no use throwin a tv set out the window just for the sake of throwin a TV set out the window. But if you get a bad picture, then you have an excuse."
Angus: I have been a reforming influence on Bon. You should have seen the man when I first met him. He couldn't even speak English. It was all 'fuck,cunt.piss,shit.' I introduced him to a new side of life. Sent him home with a dictionary. Bon: Yeah, he taught me to say 'Please fuck' and 'Thank you' after!
"Often he would trail off with fans that came backstage after a show and go off with them to a party or something. He judged people as they were, and if they invited him; and he was in the right mood to go, he went. We used to call him Bon the Likeable.''
"We could be somewhere where you could never expect anyone to know him and someone would walk up and say, 'Bon Scott!' and always have a beer for him."
"I think after Bon died I felt horribly grown up in a way. When you're young you always think you're immortal, and that time really spun me round."
"His first words when he got ouit of the car were. "I'm Bon." Then he loked down and went, 'Ah, I've pt on my wife's underwear.' That was his first introduction with the band."
"In those days the girls were only interested in...well, not us."
"Style! I didn't think we had any! I just plug in and hit the thing really hard. That's my style... or lack of one!"
"Once you're on stage you can't go back. Even when things go wrong, people expect you to stay there and entertain them. When all else fails, you've got to try tap dancing."
"I've always wanted an SG. I think the cutaway horns reminded me a bit of myself."
QUOTE OF ALL TIME: While making an appearance on MTV's Totla Request Live, ANgus and Brian were asked who they thought would be number one this week, Backstreet Boys or N SYNC. Angus's response: WHO CARES?
MALCOLM YOUNG
"People can go out and hear R.E.M. if they want deep lyrics; but at the end of the night they want to go home and get fucked! That's where AC/DC comes into it."
"I like the bell cause it makes a brilliant sound, and it was fitting for the time we went through after Bon's death and Back in Black and so on. It was part of the situation at the time. Those cannons I'm not sure about. If it was a real cannon out there and we could blow everyone's brains out, then that would be great!"
"I don't think any bastard knows who I am anyway, so I never have any trouble getting mobbed off stage. And look at Brian. Do you know what some hotel cleaner said to him the other day? She asked him if he was Neil Diamond or his twin brother!"
"We were a scandal in Australia. They love scandal there. Mums tugging their kids away from us on the street.: "Oooh! Look at them!!"
BRIAN JOHNSON
"We're never going to win any Grammy awards. We're never gonna win any respect from the squeaky-clean mob and Rollong Stone or everybody like that because we don't give any messages that they think are important."
"Punk and all that was just an image that ripped people off. Johnny Rotten's a wanker and that's all there is too it."
"We just go out and don't give a fuck about critics. We play what we play and that's that."
"I'm an out and out basic man and AC/DC are one of the best rock 'n' roll bands in the world, doing things just to the basics, you know."
"That was the final bleedin' insult. Kevin Keegan I wouldn't have minded, but bloody Neil Diamond!"
"I'm lucky enough never to have to stand and queue or pay to see this band, cause I really enjoy listening to them. That's no bullshit, I'm really serious!"
"I was dead pleased with For Those About to Rock because on this album, unlike Back in Black, which was composed in such a rush, Angus and Malcolm really took their time. We'd toured constantly for nearly a year and a half, and everybody just wanted a rest. Malcolm and Angus got the riffs together, and we spent about three weeks rehearsing in Paris. And then Mutt came over and we went to the studios. But then we suffered a setback. We just couldn't get the sound we wanted. So we moved to another studio, just as we had to go to Donnington. In the end we just reverted to using the old factory that we'd rehearsed in, and it was a great sound there. Angus and Malcolm wanted to try some real power chords on this album, and I think it came off real brilliant. There are some really classic tracks on there."
"I love America. I live here now, and it's the greatest country in the world as far as I'm concerned. But unfortunately, you have some of the biggest looney-tunes, meanin the religious rite. They're just nutcakes, and if they can get advertising for themselves, they'll pick on something people are enjoying just becasue they're enjoying it. And of course they never listened to our lyrics because there's nothing satanic in there. Like Highway to Hell, which we explained was about a three-day drive across a desert in Australia. Which was hot ya know? Like hell. But these people, they've got so many gullible followers down in that Bible belt. They'd say if you play the record backwards you can hear evil things, like 'Grrr!' And I would think, 'Jeez, I didn't think the devil sounded like that. I thought he was coherent like the rest of us."
BON SCOTT
"I am the peot with this band."
"We'd been drinking in the airport bar for about ten minutes when I says, 'Don't you think it's time we caught our plane?' And she says; 'What do you mean our plane? I'm staying here.' I runs back and the fuckin plane's gone. Anyway, she takes me to this black bar and she's Mexican; and I starts drinking and playing pool. I had a good night, beatin every bastard. After about two hours playing this big-titted black chick and beating her too, I happen to look and the bar's goin, 'Grrr!' I think 'Uh oh Bon.' I gives her another game and lose nine to one. 'Anyone else want to beat me?' I says. So I escapes with me life, only barely, and I made it to the gig in Austin."
"All the songs we do are basically about one of three things: booze, sex, or rock 'n' roll."
"I'm 33...Before AC/DC I've played with lots of bands in Australia. You're neevr too old for rock 'n' roll.
"I've never had a message for anyone in my entire life. Except maybe to give out my room number."
"It keeps you fit--the alcohol, nasty women, sweat on stage, bad food--it's all very good for you!"
"The story is, we all had a house together in Melbourne. And we had about twenty chicks who would come around and service the band, the whole thing. So the whole band got the jack. And so Malcolm said one day: "Why don't we do a song about it?" So we wrote it that afternoon and played it that night. And during the quiet part in the middle, I went and pointed out all the girls, you know 'She's got the jack and she's got the jack' and so on. And all these chicks are makin a mad dash for the door. It was quite funny actually."
"My new schoolmates threatened to kick the shit out of me when they heard my Scottish accent. I had one week to learn to speak like them if I wanted to remain intact. 'Course I didn't take any notice. No one railroads me, and it made me all the more determined to speak my own way. That's how I got my name. The Bonny Scot, see?"
"I've been on the road for fifteen years and I have no intent to stop. We meet a lot of people, we drink lots of stuff, and have lots of fun."
"I'd like to do a whole string of concerts headlining as big as this one today. The more people they can give us up front, the harder we play."
Bon on ex-wife Irene: "I was married at the time when I first joined the band and my wife said. 'Why don't you do a song about me?' So I wrote She's Got Balls. Then she divorced me."
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