“It just sickens you”: the dangerous song AC/DC refused to play live
AC/DC were always hitting the stage with full guns blazing, with their thunderous, anthemic, and no bullshit approach making them the fieriest export the Australian rock landscape had ever seen, let alone the world. You wouldn’t think anything would faze the classic performers – after all, hailing from the mean streets of Glasgow and then breaking into the heights of rock and roll is an unquantifiable feat – but it seems that even the most impenetrable personae could be shaken by some truly terrifying circumstances.
Out of all their wide-ranging back catalogue, there was only ever one song that the band flat-out refused to play live. It wasn’t because it was too raunchy or political or difficult to sing – they would never have been afraid of that – but instead, because it took on a whole other petrifying mantle that was within none of AC/DC’s control, nor was what they ever intended.
The tune was ‘Night Prowler’ from their seminal 1979 album Highway to Hell, which assumed a sinister prescience due to some decidedly dark forces at play. But this was not AC/DC’s own doing – it wasn’t anything about the lyrics or the backstory behind the song. Instead, it involved a serial killer and an unfortunately coincidental nickname.
It was some years after the song’s initial release, in the mid-1980s, when infamous American killer Richard Ramirez murdered 14 people in California and also – allegedly – claimed he was a fan of the band. Subsequently gaining the moniker ‘Night Stalker’, eagle-eyed watchers jumped to the conclusion that the Australian rockers had something to do with the heinous case, even though, in reality, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
With the stark murder conspiracy even beginning to threaten their careers, AC/DC understandably refused to ever play ‘Night Prowler’ live due to its wrongful associations with Ramirez, which they just couldn’t seem to shake. “It just sickens you, you know,” Brian Johnson later recalled of the experience. “It sickens you to have anything to do with that kind of thing.”
The actual meaning behind ‘Night Prowler’ was much more innocent – let alone, needless to say, anywhere near as criminal. “It’s called ‘Night Prowler’, and it’s about things you used to do when you are a kid, like sneaking into a girlfriend’s bedroom when her parents were asleep,” Malcolm Young explained – exhibiting there could be no starker difference than mass murder and simply making love.
Ultimately, the song took on way too much of a dangerous lifeblood for AC/DC to ever contemplate fighting back – not that it would have done their reputation any good to do so. The best thing to do was robustly deny and then just move on because there’s no point in trying to reason with a rumour mill gone into overdrive. ‘Night Prowler’ may have never been able to stalk the stage again, but it was probably for the best. They just wanted to be rock gods, not be held responsible for having a mass crime scene on their hands.
