“He didn’t get it”: The producer AC/DC thought never understood their music
A shared icon status doesn’t always ensure a good working relationship. It might be assumed that the coming together of an incredible producer and an incredible artist would always yield incredible results as if there was no room to go wrong with so much talent involved. However, it’s far more complex than that, as AC/DC learned when their label paired them up with one of rock and roll’s finest producers.
There are plenty of examples of when that does happen and when the synergy between a producer and an artist works so perfectly that it’s close to magic. Steve Albini and PJ Harvey is a good example, The Beatles and George Martin, Jack Antonoff and the entire modern pop world; the list goes on. However, that relationship requires more than just mutual talent.
It’s not enough to simply be two individual entities, each great in their own right and simply coming together to work on something. During the process of making a great album, the producer essentially has to be another band member or an extra limb on an artist. They have to move a one and trust and understand each other on a way higher level than the ever colleagues would ever understand. When it works well, it can lead to career-long collaborations or major breakthroughs in an artist’s sound. But when it doesn’t, the whole project can crumble.
AC/DC refused to let this album Highway To Hell crumble. As their sixth album, they already knew they had written anthems ready to be some of rock’s greatest hits. They also knew they had the ability to sound huge on tape, capturing their epic sound on recordings. But they quickly understood that the producer they’d been assigned simply wouldn’t work for him.
But that man wasn’t just anybody. It was Eddie Kramer, the famed producer who had worked with The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, and many more. He was rock and roll royalty, trusted by some of the biggest names in musical history, so he clearly had the credentials.
However, what he didn’t have was the same kind of energy as AC/DC. “The label offered us Eddie, saying, ‘He engineered for Hendrix.’ But he didn’t really fit in with us as a producer,” Malcolm Young recalled. But when they played him their demos for the record he was supposed to work on, they instantly knew something was off, with Young stating, “We showed him the riffs for Highway to Hell, and he didn’t quite get it. We thought, This guy’s out of touch with what we are.”
There seemed to be a rift between Kramer’s rock and roll foundations and AC/DC’s heavier rock elements. Angus Young added, “I don’t know why, but he kept talking about pianos. Maybe he thought that a piano was an interesting thing for a rock and roll band. But that was the wrong word to use around us.” He concluded simply, “I suppose any ideas that Eddie had didn’t seem to inspire us.”
In other interviews, Malcolm Young was much less cordial about the producer, stating, “Kramer was a bit of a prat. He looked at Bon and said to us, ‘Can your guy sing?’ He might’ve sat behind the knobs for Hendrix, but he’s certainly not Hendrix, I can tell you that much.”
In the end, the band ended up axing Kramer and taking a chance on a new name. At the time, Mutt Lange had yet to do much of note. He’d produced a lot but hadn’t had a big breakthrough yet. Together, they made that happen, giving the band their biggest album yet and putting the producer on the map as that necessary synergy came together, leading them to bring him back on board for Back In Black.
