Frank Zappa wanted to take AC/DC under his wing: “They’re rock-solid”
Lou Reed hated Frank Zappa. The New York poet and punk felt that Zappa’s weird and wonderful approach to art was the result of an overwhelming lack of talent, which seems harsh.
“He’s probably the single most untalented person I’ve heard in my life,” he said, “He’s a two-bit pretentious academic, and he can’t play his way out of anything […] He can’t play rock ‘n’ roll because he’s a loser. And that’s why he dresses up funny. He’s not happy with himself, and I think he’s right.”
Lou Reed is obviously entitled to his opinion, but fans of Zappa will know that this assessment is way off. There was only one thing and one thing only that Frank Zappa looked for in music, be it what he made or what he listened to, and that was authenticity. Frank Zappa was authentically an artistic weirdo whose brain worked at a million miles an hour, and therefore, the work he produced was artsy, weird, and created in abundance.
When it came to what he liked to listen to, Zappa also looked predominantly for authenticity, even if the actual style of the music didn’t align with what he was so commonly associated with. This means that he was a fan of bands that might take you by surprise, and this hard rock outfit is certainly one of them. Arguably the complete antithesis of Zappa’s style of music, but equally a band our favourite artsy weirdo found himself drawn to, the legends which are AC/DC.
Compare Zappa’s complicated, jazz-infused and layered music with the simplistic, three-chord rock structure that AC/DC so proudly flaunted, and you’ll find they are the sonic polar opposites of one another. Regardless, Zappa was a big fan because he saw the band for who they were, which was a hard rock band, skilled musicians and lovers of everything they did. What was there not to like?
“When we first travelled to Australia [in the early ‘70s] he tried to sign them,” said Zappa’s son, Dweezil, when recounting his father’s love for the Aussie rockers, “They ended up signing to Atlantic but he wanted them for his own label because he thought they were great.”
He continued, “I think he saw what everybody saw: they could play, they had a ton of energy and they were authentic. It was blues-based and it had an attitude. The thing about AC/DC is they’ve carved a massive career out of playing one style that’s changed very, very little. That’s what people love – that consistency. They’re rock-solid and they have a great sound.”
They certainly did carve out their own sound. Angus Young recalled the moment the band realised that they were going to be the greatest hard rock band in the world, or they were going to go bust trying to be. When they started making their album, Let There Be Rock, music was changing, as new wave and other genres started topping the charts. AC/DC, as a collective, agreed that they wouldn’t give in to what was trending, and instead would continue making the kind of music they adored. There’s that authenticity that Zappa was so drawn to.
“Let There Be Rock, for me, is the album,” said Young, “My brother, George, [asked] me and Malcolm… ‘What sort of album do you wanna do this time?’ And Malcolm just looked at me, and he said, ‘We just want an album that’s just gonna be pure hard rock guitar’.”
