Angus Young explains his approach to the guitar: “You’ve got to try and compensate”
AC/DC might be thought of as monsters of rock and titans of the stadium stage. Still, for lead guitarist Angus Young and his late brother and rhythm guitarist Malcolm, their physical reality was different from that of imposing genre greats such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townshend. While their reputation is enormous, their shadow dwarfs in comparison.
Despite the monstrous sound of their humbuckers and stacks of amps, unlike the other most prominent axemen of their era, the Young brothers are of slight height. While you wouldn’t necessarily know this given their band’s thunderous din and world-famous prestige, Angus and his younger sibling—who passed away in 2017—were always different from the other heroes of the fretboard due to their size. It wasn’t all because they were the sole Australian band making it in the Western major leagues.
This point brings a whole new dimension to Angus Young’s iconic schoolboy attire he wears when strutting his stuff on stage, affording a more realistic essence to the cartoonish energy and jester-like character he has sported for years. It’s also somewhat comical that for a band that plays to legions of brawny beer guzzlers, the man serving their favourite meaty riffs is a little merryman, with the Young brothers akin to hard rock’s version of Tolkien’s Merry and Pippin. Unlike the pair of mischievous hobbits, though, he’s not one for beer, instead preferring a sip of chocolate milk to get going.
In the most exemplary ways, the Young brothers never let their height stop them. While being of short stature undeniably brings obstacles, including reaching for food on the fridge’s top shelf or being able to see properly at concerts, it also produced snags regarding the guitar. However, they knew their dream of producing good-time rock ‘n’ roll in the vein of the 1950s pioneers was not to be stopped because of such physical impediments.
Despite the Youngs and AC/DC rising to the top of rock’s summit and sonically competing with their physically giant counterparts, Angus has been open about how his influential approach to the guitar emerged due to his size.
He revealed it all once when appearing on The Guitar Show. He said that because he and Malcolm are “little fellas”, they would struggle when learning due to the size of their fingers and the guitar neck when making big chords and have to really stretch to hit the notes. He then used the example of the tall Eric Clapton’s technique as opposed to his own.
Young said: “You see some guys ‘coz they’ve got big long fingers like an Eric Clapton or something, they’ve got this big finger stretch. When you’re a little guy, you’ve got to try and compensate. Well, I suppose people of an average-medium height, when they bend it, they just bend the string. But with me, I’ve got to sort of go…,” he then bent his string with all his might, using all four fingers, as opposed to the traditional two.
“You have to lean into it,” Young concluded. “When you’re playing on stage, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, there’s a lot of movement’, but it’s actually me trying to get around the fretboard.”
It all makes sense now. Of course, Young has ample energy, but there’s much more to his iconic writhing around the fretboard. It’s not just an affected aesthetic but him wrestling with the strings and the fretboard. This struggle adds an extra layer of grit to AC/DC’s sound.
