Angus Young names his “biggest” guitar inspiration
AC/DC may be the ultimate example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Even though the band may get detractors from time to time, claiming that they play the same type of music on every album, the Young brothers perfected the art of making songs about the wonders of being in a rock and roll outfit. Although it’s impossible to duplicate what the group has done over the years, Angus Young considered one guitarist the start of his entire career.
When looking at the group’s repertoire, most of it circles back to the blues. As evidenced by their chord progressions and the tasty solos that Young has played across every album, there are influences left over from before rock and roll even existed, with Young doing his homework on giants like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.
While artists like The Rolling Stones would make the blues their ethos for the rest of their careers, AC/DC weren’t looking to make lowdown and dirty songs for the rest of their lives. By the time they got Bon Scott behind the microphone, the band knew they had found their calling in rock and roll, wanting nothing more than to crank the volume as loud as they could and play abrasive music wherever they went.
Then again, that mentality wasn’t all that different from what the early rock and rollers had pioneered. Before The Beatles crash-landed on the scene, artists like Little Richard and Elvis Presley sculpted their entire persona off of the outlandish music they were making, with Presley whipping young women into a frenzy when he wiggled his hips.
Out of all the greatest stars that had come before him, Young was most knocked out when he heard Chuck Berry for the first time. Known as one of the forefathers of rock guitar, Berry took the sounds of blues and jazz that he had loved and brought a persistent backbeat to it, coming up with the guitar licks that would become staples on songs like ‘School Days’ and ‘Johnny B Goode’.
When discussing influences in the book Louder Than Hell, Young would single out Berry as one of the foundations of his sound, recalling, “Rock and roll has always been about that blues element, and we’ve always dabbled in the blues. I loved Keith Richards, but Chuck Berry was the biggest for me. That’s how we always wanted to be. Even from the first album, we’ve done tracks like ‘The Jack’ – they’ve got that blues smell about them.”
The blues influence of Berry wasn’t the only thing that Young got from his idol. When taking to the stage for the first time, Young would adopt Berry’s moves onstage, using his famous duckwalk while dressed in his signature schoolboy uniform. Although Berry’s influence may have extended into the music, no one would mistake AC/DC for anyone else.
Aside from Young’s amazing Berry licks, the vocals of both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson would become essential to the band’s sound, using the same grit and growl that would become synonymous with hard rock. AC/DC had always made music on their own terms, but if it weren’t for Berry laying the groundwork, chances are they would never have existed.
