Alex Harvey: the musician who inspired Bon Scott to greatness with AC/DC
Criticising AC/DC for playing the same music is like criticising Lewis Hamilton for always driving fast. It’s what they’re here to do. There’s no one else on the planet who can match their brand of swaggering, four-to-the-floor hard rock and, something that falls by the wayside slightly, no one else who’s really trying. Sure, Airbourne made a bid for the throne a few decades back, but there was always an air of wish.com about them despite the fact that they had been formed nine years before the website did.
So, really, why would they change their sound? Especially when it’s a sound so eternal, so steadfast it feels like it’s always been here. The idea of AC/DC having influences beyond Chuck Berry and a distortion pedal seems ridiculous. One might as well ask Dominos Pizza who their culinary heroes are. Yet buried deep within the surface of Acca Dacca are a band with a lot more going on than one might assume.
For one thing, the band were resilient long before Bon Scott died. It’s a miracle they even carried on after losing such a frontman, let alone become the biggest hard rock band in the world, but they had replaced their singer before. After all, the band has always been the brainchild of guitar-playing brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. In an interview with the brothers conducted in 2003, the band discussed chucking their original singer, Dave Evans and replacing him with the mercurial Scott.
In true AC/DC fashion, the band don’t mince words when it comes to their original frontman, Malcolm labelling him “a shmuck” who wants to take credit for the band’s success. Young says “Every time we come back to tour here in Australia, Dave seems to get himself into the newspapers by saying he was the star and he made AC/DC.” That is a truly wild statement, considering he lasted a solitary single before being replaced; that said, one can forgive him for being salty when, at the time, he seemed to be being replaced by a worse singer.
When the interviewer (correctly) points out that Scott’s vocals weren’t the most technically brilliant, the brothers all but say that was the reason they hired him, pointing out one of Scott’s key influences to illustrate. Malcolm says, “Bon was an original. There was another guy out of England, Alex Harvey who was quite clever with his phrasing and his words, and I think Bon picked up a few things from him. Alex never really had a singing voice – he did more of a talking type of thing – but he would tear it up onstage.”
Angus chimes in by saying, “Bon, you felt his charisma. You could see him coming from a mile away. He was originally a drummer, and when he first joined up with Mal and I, he said, ‘Ahh, I just want to play drums.’ And we went, ‘No, no, no. You’re singing.'” When the man who put the manic in talismanic is talking up your charisma, you’re doing something right.
It’s true. The band had a comfort zone they never really strayed from. However, there’s a quote commonly attributed to Bruce Lee that goes, “I do not fear the man who has practised 10’000 kicks once, but the man who has practised one kick 10’000 times”. AC/DC are the musical pinnacle of the latter. Their resilience, dedication and ethics have made them the absolute masters of what they do. A band, quite literally, without compare.
