The most important member of AC/DC, according to Angus Young
Being a member of AC/DC didn’t come down to being the best guitar player in the world.
Angus Young was already one of the most energetic musicians in the rock and roll scene when he jumped onstage in his school uniform, but when looking through their back catalogue, there are a lot of songs that are only based on the same power chords and open chords that most guitarists learn on their first day with the instrument. It’s not meant to be the biggest challenge in the world, but have you ever tried playing their songs correctly?
Sure, anyone can consider some of AC/DC’s best tracks as being “beneath them” from a guitar perspective, but the groove that they have is surprisingly hard to bring together. Malcolm Young’s sense of rhythm was unlike anyone else in the rock and roll scene, and while his brother got most of the glory whenever he did his Chuck Berry walk across the stage, Malcolm was technically the better guitarist because of how ferocious he was whenever he hit the strings when he played tunes like ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.
That’s half the reason why the band were able to continue after losing Bon Scott, but it’s not like Brian Johnson’s role was going to be a walk in the park. If anything, Johnson had the legacy of one of rock’s all-time great frontmen breathing down his neck before he even sang a note of music. Scott did think a lot of Johnson’s vocal technique, but being the singer in AC/DC was a lot harder than it looked.
As long as you can get past the register that sounds like a man swallowing razor blades, Johnson’s role was one of the most difficult in the band. The entire group lends itself to writing riff-based music, but even though their lines are irresistible, it’s incredibly difficult to write a vocal melody that floats over the top of the riffs without getting in the way of what everyone else was doing.
No guitarist is usually one to downplay their role in the group, but even Angus said that the vocals on every AC/DC song are the most important piece of the puzzle, saying, “Usually, when we’re playing riffs like ‘Highway to Hell’ or ‘Back in Black’, we hit the chord, and then tap our feet where the snare would be. We’re really two frustrated drummers.”
Adding, “But if you listen closely to our stuff, it’s actually the vocal that holds it all together – like on ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’. You’ve got the guitar playing in the groove with the drum beat, but it’s the lyrics that push it along. We always look for a melody you can sing.”
Which kind of goes without saying when you look at where they were during Scott’s era of the band. ‘Let There Be Rock’ lives and dies on him, telling the fictionalised story of how rock and roll came to pass, and even when looking through a lot of Back in Black, Johnson’s performances on songs like ‘Back in Black’ and especially ‘Hells Bells’ make the whole song sound much more forceful than it is.
Even when his vocals sound a little too busy, it never ends up getting in the way of what everyone else is doing. Mutt Lange had famously thought that ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ had too many words in it, but if it only left those pauses in the breaks of the verse, it would never have had that engine that kept pushing the song forward before the chorus came screaming in.
So while the guitar riffs are the reason why AC/DC are still going strong today, it’s really only half the battle when it comes to their tunes – they were looking to give their audience something a little bit heavier than traditional rock and roll, and that meant playing a handful of songs that talked about the darker side of what life was all about.
