“They wanted bigger and better”: The album that almost lost AC/DC a record deal
While AC/DC were known for larking around and not taking themselves too seriously, they brought a hard work ethic to hard rock throughout the late 1970s, releasing six studio albums between 1975 and 1979. Sure, their music might have lacked a bit of finesse and complexity, but if bullshit-free rock is what you were after, then the Australian group were there to serve you.
They were already a formidable force in rock from the moment they released their debut album, the Australasian-exclusive High Voltage, but their name reached far and wide rapidly after this, which prompted it to get an international reissue a year later. Subsequently, they released a string of albums that saw their stock increase, and following the releases of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock and Powerage, they were ready to ascend to even greater heights.
However, a lot of this ambition was down to external pressures emerging from their record label, who wanted the band to be bigger, brasher and ballsier on their records. It might seem somewhat strange to think that you could make an act like AC/DC even more extreme on all of these fronts, given the nature of their early discography, but the insistence of executives meant that they had to find a way to accomplish this.
In a 2003 interview with Guitar World, guitarist Malcolm Young was questioned about the fact that their 1979 album, Highway to Hell, was produced by Mutt Lange instead of their trusted sidekicks Harry Vanda and George Young, the latter being the elder brother of band members Malcolm and Angus. Booting their sibling from behind the controls must have been a tricky situation to navigate, but Malcolm attested that worse things could have happened to the band if they hadn’t followed the advice.
“Basically,” Malcolm told the magazine, “Atlantic, our record label in America, said, ‘We’re gonna drop you guys unless you get another producer.’ We were selling a couple 100,000 copies every time out, but they wanted bigger and better.” With the primary initiative of major record labels being to make big bucks rather than instinctively follow the preferences of the artists signed to their rosters, it’s understandable that chasing a more polished and professional sound from an experienced producer such as Lange would have been more lucrative from their perspective.
However, the process of dismissing George from his duties alongside Vanda wasn’t as painful as one might think, and no familial ties were severed in the process. Angus Young would also reveal in the interview that both producers had been encouraging them to move onto pastures new, with George stating: “You never know, somebody out there might have something different to offer you guys.” Angus looked back on the scenario humorously: “I suppose it was a bit like how birds do it – you get kicked out and have to learn to fly on your own.”
While Highway to Hell was the most successful AC/DC record to date, they would ultimately usurp it with their next release, Back in Black, despite the death of their original vocalist, Bon Scott. If Vanda and the oldest Young brother had stayed on board, it’s entirely plausible that they would never have reached these heights.
