With their incredible new album Power Up, AC/DC could well deliver the blockbuster LP of 2020. And, given all they’ve been through in recent years, few could have anticipated it. Music Week joins Angus Young, Brian Johnson and Sony execs to find out about a record turning tragedy into triumph…
The two voices on the phone are unmistakable. The first belongs to Brian Johnson. With his thick Geordie accent – still charmingly undiluted by decades of globe-trotting – AC/DC’s vocalist is the personification of Northern affability, his initial greetings littered with remarks like, “I’m doin’ smashin’, cheers mate!” He’s in the middle of regaling Music Week with how “crackers” Miami airport is when another voice emerges on the line.
The rich Australian twang certainly suggests it’s Angus Young, yet it’s still hard to believe this soft-spoken person is AC/DC’s charismatic, school uniform-sporting lead guitarist – his disposition the polar opposite of the man whose hyperactivity and duck-walking on stage would send even the most reliable pedometer into meltdown. He’s endearingly polite, too, especially when he feels he’s been speaking for too long.
“I better let Brian talk,” he says at one point, worried he’s hogging the limelight.
“You go ahead,” Brian responds. “I’m enjoying it, mate!”
Welcome to the extraordinary ordinariness at the epicentre of AC/DC: where rockstar ego is AWOL and being down to earth is a moral imperative. Yet it’s worth stating the obvious: there’s nothing remotely ordinary about their band. AC/DC may not have invented rock‘n’roll, but that’s about the only thing they haven’t done. A band who have indoctrinated countless generations into the genre, since forming in 1973 they have sold over 200 million albums, 71.5m of which were in the US. Indeed, their blockbuster seventh studio album Back In Black has moved 50 million copies alone, and is claimed to be the third best-selling album ever and the biggest-selling studio record by any band ever.
Despite all of this accumulated glory, the past several years have offered precious few reasons to celebrate since they released their gold-selling 16th studio album Rock Or Bust in 2014 (295,280 copies sold to date, according to Official Charts Company data, with 245k of them physical). Yes, it lit up charts all across the world, but it was also their first full-length without the band’s rhythm guitarist and driving force: Angus’ brother Malcolm Young, who retired as he continued to suffer from dementia. Malcolm’s nephew Stevie Young joined the ranks for the record and its subsequent world tour, but other problems emerged. Despite playing on Rock Or Bust, drummer Phil Rudd missed the tour to appear in court on charges revolving around the “procurement of murder”, which were eventually downgraded to threatening to kill and drugs possession, and resulted in eight months of home detention. Bassist Cliff Williams, meanwhile, struggled with vertigo, and confirmed his retirement at the end of the tour.
All of this is without mentioning the personal odyssey of Brian Johnson. During the initial run of the Rock Or Bust tour, AC/DC’s frontman began experiencing such terrible hearing loss he elected – at the behest of his doctors – to step down in 2016 with Guns N’Roses’ Axl Rose stepping in to help the band finish the tour. Nor was this the end of the gathering dark clouds. In October 2017, Angus and Mal’s brother George Young – who co-produced AC/DC’s early albums – died. Sadly, just weeks later, Malcolm Young passed away, aged 64.
The image of Angus holding his brother’s guitar at Malcolm’s funeral was a heartbreaking one. Even for a band who had weathered tragedy before – lest we forget Back In Black, Brian Johnson’s first album with the group, was released mere months after their livewire vocalist Bon Scott died – a horrible sense of finality seemed to loom over AC/DC.
Fast-forward three years to the present day, however, and things have changed. First, the band’s social media profile picture changed to a neon version of its lightning bolt logo. A sign boasting the words PWR UP materialised outside of Angus and Malcolm’s alma mater Ashfield Boys’ High School in Sydney. On the other side of the world, four familiar glowing red letters bisected by the aforementioned lightning bolt lit up London’s Thames-side gloom. Soon other London landmarks including St Paul’s Cathedral and Marble Arch were illuminated with the words AC/DC.
All of this was a mere precursor to the announcement of Power Up – a stunning brand new 12-track studio album produced by former collaborator Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen), due for release on November 13 via Columbia. Boasting a line-up as close to AC/DC’s classic Black In Black one as is now possible, it sees Angus reunited with Cliff Williams on bass, Phil Rudd on drums, Stevie Young on rhythm guitar and, most spectacularly, Brian Johnson. Who is singing. Not just singing, but belting words out like that troubled 2016 tour never happened.
“We’re so excited about AC/DC’s return,” Columbia UK president Ferdy Unger-Hamilton tells Music Week. “The new record has them sounding on the form of their lives. It’s exactly what we all need to get through 2020.”
Indeed, it’s an album primed to make everyone feel good in a year that has felt anything but…
“Ah, thank you,” says Young. “We had a ball making it so it’s good that people are digging it.”
Digging it may be underselling things. You need only consult a recent AC/DC retweet of a young boy – whose guitar is almost as big as he is – ripping through the album’s lead single Shot In The Dark for proof. Johnson’s voice lights up as he recites reports from US guitar shops that a new generation are learning their comeback track.
“It’s wonderful, they were straight on it!” he beams. “I hope this whole album generates a new bunch of kids that want to pick up a guitar and make rock‘n’roll so it becomes, not mainstream, but at least played more on radio than it is, let’s put it that way. That would be great.”
It’s not just guitar players losing their minds over Shot In The Dark, either. Jenifer Mallory, EVP/general manager at Columbia Records in the States, says the response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming.
“DSPs across the board have shown incredible support,” she tells Music Week. “From Spotify putting them on six playlist covers to Amazon creating a custom voice feature where Angus himself introduces the song before it plays.”
Shot In The Dark has already been featured in over 250 editorial playlists across Spotify, Apple and Amazon, and the story is just as glowing on radio.
“In just over a week in the market, the song attained No.1 audience status at both active and classic rock,” adds Mallory. “Overseas, SITD is already garnering them some of the best airplay of their career with adds around the world like BBC Radio 2 and Absolute in the UK!”
People assumed AC/DC were powering down; instead this rock behemoth has found a way to Power Up.
“It’s a fantastic thing,” says Johnson. “Honestly, four years ago, the way things were left with Cliff retiring, Phil being in a little trouble, and me having to stop…”
Johnson momentarily trails off, seemingly reflecting on the sheer number of obstacles they have faced. And the person that kept AC/DC’s pilot light on.
“Angus can’t sit still for nothing,” he says. “He does one thing: he writes songs. Malcolm wasn’t there, but at least they had a big box of stuff that he and Angus had…”
Johnson stops himself again.
“I don’t know if I should be telling this story,” he chuckles. “Angus, do you want to take it up from there,
me son?”
Angus is ready to oblige with a story of unfinished business, sheer belief, technological wonder and, above all else, brotherly love…
Malcolm Young was more than just a guitarist.
“Mal was the beginning of the band,” explains Angus Young. “He started it all. He was the one that guided us all the way through. His baby was AC/DC, and he lived for that. And he was still that way up until he could not function anymore; he was always saying to me, ‘Hey, if I get it together, I’ll be there with you.’”
It was, to say the least, an unenviable position that Angus Young found himself in during the aftermath of the Rock Or Bust world tour. A drummer who had been on trial. A retired bassist. A singer who could no longer participate. And the loss of a brother who was the engine of the band. It was while decompressing after the tour that something his two brothers used to say came back to him: “Sometimes the best therapy is doing something”. The sentiment not only resonated with Angus Young, it galvanised him.
“Malcolm always said, ‘OK, Ang, let’s me and you go sit and make some music,’” the guitarist recalls. “And so that’s what I did. I got my guitar out and started strumming away. Then I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll just go through a lot of those tracks that Mal and myself had worked on and see what I want to do.’”
The songs in question were from the recording of their 2008 album Black Ice. Not only was it a No.1 on both sides of the Atlantic (selling 500,692 to date according to OCC data), it was also a period of rich creativity. So much so, the resulting album was only the tip of the Black Ice-berg when it came to the surfeit of ideas they had ready. Young recalls how Brendan O’Brien only had to work through the first CD or two of riffs and, before they knew it, the album was done. This myriad of unrecorded ideas has now become the musical spine of Power Up.
“There was so, so much stuff that we had at that time,” Young tells Music Week. “What went on Black Ice was just really the beginning of what we had. Malcolm kept saying to me all the time, ‘Ang, we have to get this material [out]’. He put so much effort into them, but we never got to put them down at the time, and it stuck with me. That’s really what got me to this point.”
While Malcolm Young’s actual playing does not appear on Power Up – Angus electing not to splice up his late brother’s guitar parts – he is credited as a writer.
“I knew Malcolm had a special few favourites that we never got to get down, and he had said, ‘Oh, well, maybe we can get to them later,’” says Young. “But as it is, it went the route with him passing, so it was basically left to me. I got the ones that I knew Malcolm especially loved and I said, ‘I’ve got to get these recorded’.”
But recorded with who?
The answer started to reveal itself at Malcolm’s funeral when AC/DC were all in the same space again. It’s hard not to look at it romantically: even in death, Malcolm Young was finding a way to drive them forward…
“They all came out for Mal’s funeral,” Young recalls. “It was really great, everyone was there talking away.”
The pieces fell into place. Malcolm Young’s nephew Stevie had already acquitted himself brilliantly both in the studio and on stage. He was on board. Cliff Williams, meanwhile, had told Angus when he was retiring that, should AC/DC ever reconvene, he definitely wanted to be in the loop. Phil Rudd, meanwhile, had resolved his legal issues and was attending therapy (“Last time I’d seen him he’d been in great condition” reflects Young).
The biggest question mark was AC/DC’s singer. The way Brian Johnson tells it, the hearing loss he endured during the Rock Or Bust tour was an agonising experience. He could last about 40 minutes on stage…
“And then guitars would lose the tune, it was basically almost a crackling sound, my ear drums couldn’t take them anymore,” he sighs. “It was confidence shattering. I couldn’t put out 100% and you can’t do that: you let the band down, you let your audience down. That’s when you have to man up. You can’t last forever, nobody lasts forever.”
Axl Rose had, of course, stepped in to assist AC/DC in completing the last 23 dates of the Rock Or Bust tour – “He gave us a good help out,” hails Young. During that time, Johnson had to discover who he was outside of the band…
“It’s just…” he starts, then suddenly stops. “Something gets taken away from you that you’re so used to, ie a family. It’s almost like you’re not there anymore. It was hard, but I didn’t dwell on it. I’ve been so lucky to have such a great life and it wasn’t terminal. Some people are so unlucky, sick and ill, so you’ve got to put it in perspective, you know? There wasn’t anything wrong that was really bad, so you’ve just got to get on with it and build yourself up again…”
A burst of laughter erupts, all but distorting the line.
“…With the help of a bottle of whiskey!” he quips.
The road towards Brian Johnson being able to sing on Power Up seems fantastical to the point of almost being the germ of a sci-fi novel. While he is unable to share the classified specifics of the process, details have trickled out referring to a device using his skull’s bone structure as an audio receiver. In short: he hooked up with “an inventor” – the result is that Brian Johnson was able to sing.
Recording between August and September 2018 in Vancouver’s Warehouse Studios, the band worked up 12 tracks with Brendan O’Brien. There is no confirmed second single from Power Up yet, but a clear candidate – not to mention the record’s emotional centrepiece – is Through The Mists Of Time. More pensive than you may expect from the group, it’s an instant AC/DC classic.
“Agreed!” chimes Johnson. “It was my favourite right from the start, and I love all the songs on this album so I hate saying ‘favourite’. But it’s the most memorable one for me. When I first heard it, I just thought of Malcolm
and I don’t know why, it doesn’t mention his name, but it was such a special song. I still get goosebumps when I listen to it.”
This may be the first AC/DC album to be released since the passing of Malcolm Young, but his absence is really just a matter of perspective.
“Well, for me personally, he’s always with me,” says Angus Young. “Especially when I was doing this. He’s always there. I know he’s there. It’s just about nearly every night I go out and I’ll sit outside and have a smoke and there I am talking away to him. Him and my other brother. And I still do it now, I think of funny things like, ‘Mal would love this.’”
Yes, Power Up is a most remarkable – if not miraculous – return, but to its creators it is much more than that.
“It really is a tribute to Mal,” says Young. “That was the whole idea. We wanted to make sure that it was special and that we really concentrated on the tracks we knew he loved. That was the good part for me, I’m happy about that. Next, we handed it over to our record company and they were all excited about it.”
This may well be the understatement of 2020.
“This sits right up there with the best albums they’ve made,” enthuses Mallory. “It’s hard to comprehend that they can sound this good together 40 years into their career!”
And an album as big as Power Up needs a similarly big campaign…
You could say that the global plans Sony have put in place for Power Up resemble a military operation, but most military operations probably fall short of what they are executing. Beyond all the global activity tied into launching Power Up, there is a dazzling array of physical editions [see page 17]. They have been a wee bit popular so far. “We’re on pace to crush their previous pre-order totals of the past decade plus,” says Mallory.
AC/DC have always sold physical albums in huge quantities, but they have also made big strides in the digital realm – especially for a band who previously resisted making their music available for download on iTunes until 2012 and didn’t put their catalogue on streaming until 2015. Indeed, AC/DC have just shy of 22 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Power Up will also be available on all DSPs upon release.
“It’s rare to see an act like this be able to bridge those two spaces,” says Mallory. “New music is a great tool to grow audiences on streaming, but there are so many additional levers we are looking to pull, and each platform has their own unique elements.”
While streaming is a crucial strand of Sony’s master plan, it is by no means the only one. The goal is, basically, to make sure AC/DC are omnipresent.
“Whether they’re reading the paper, watching sports, on a streaming platform, or scrolling through the socials, we want to make sure fans feel the band’s return,” says Mallory. Indeed, what they’ve already achieved to this end is staggering.
“The US Dodge commercial featuring Shot In The Dark, has been viewed nearly four million times in under two weeks on Dodge’s YouTube channel alone,” hails Mallory. “On television, the spot’s set to receive one billion impressions.”
Sport is another piece of the puzzle. There is currently an AC/DC Artist Takeover x NFL Partnership, which Mallory explains is inclusive of in-game coverage throughout Thursday Night Football – including an interview with Young and Johnson on Good Morning Football. There is also WWE primetime coverage on Fox’s Friday Night SmackDown, Major League Baseball coverage across The MLB Network and TBS, with Shot In The Dark featured in multiple placements. Nor is the action just confined to the States, with an Australian sync lined up for the final two games of the NRL season on Fox Sports, plus a major German TV sync with Bundesliga running from now into November.
Mallory says we should anticipate “more stunts and awesome activations” around the globe both on and offline (“Covid-safe, of course,” she assures). The group have even launched a site where fans can make their initials look like the AC/DC logo.
The only thing missing is, of course, live dates. How do you launch an album by one of the greatest live bands of all time without a tour? This, after all, is the only group in the storied history of Donington Park to have had an entire main stage erected exclusively for them when they made a rare headline festival appearance at Download 2010. The exciting prospect is that the desire to tour exists, and some small shows were even considered prior to the pandemic.
“Before we even talked about [shows], we wanted to test these ears in battlefield conditions,” Johnson laughs. “Because being on stage, it’s a different animal, it’s industrial up there. So, we went and did it and it was just a joy. After 15 or 16 days of pounding it out every day, we were having a ball doing songs again and again, not because we needed to, but because we’re still enjoying it after all these years. We were enjoying listening to ourselves!”
The feeling persists that AC/DC are far from done. Which is remarkable when you think about it. So many incredible bands have imploded under the combined weight of fame and the rigours of touring in the space of a few years, let alone decades. AC/DC have weathered all of that while also circumnavigating tragedy. Why have they endured when so many others failed?
“We don’t act like we’re successful, we just act like we’re regular guys,” reasons Johnson. “When I first joined this band, Angus and Malcolm were always at pains to say, ‘Listen, we’re all a band, everybody’s regular.’ It was just the way it was: keep your feet firmly planted, lads, work hard and enjoy what you’re doing. And I know that sounds a bit, you know… But that’s the truth. We try as hard as we did before success came along.”
Their exertions on Power Up will pay dividends. Unfinished business. A comeback for the ages. But above all else, a magnificent tribute to their fallen guitarist. Music Week can’t help but wonder what Malcolm would have made of AC/DC’s latest chapter?
“Well, I think he would have loved it,” concludes Young. “He would’ve loved the fact we’re still doing it. He was always there working until he could work no more. He was ready and willing to do it, that’s how I always saw it. I think he would get a big kick out of it that we’re still here banging away.”
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