The 1967 song Angus Young called his gold standard: “I wanna look that cool”
Angus Young isn’t a complicated man to understand. He plays the guitar well, and he loves great rock music.
A lot of people might be surprised to hear that Frank Zappa was a big fan of AC/DC, given that he made quite complicated music, and AC/DC’s approach to rock is relatively simple. However, it was this easy-to-understand appeal about the band that Zappa liked so much. It was authentic, good quality, and easy to get along with, and what’s not to like about that?
Angus was a big part of what Frank Zappa liked about AC/DC, and he remains one of the most appealing factors of the band to this day. The control he had over the six-string, both when it came to steady riffs and ludicrous solos, was unlike any other guitarist on the planet. His songs remain timeless because of this exciting approach to hard rock.
“He played much more just in the pocket type of stuff and melodic classic guitar kinds of things,” said Zappa’s son, Dweezil, “But when he did let loose, it’s pretty impressive his sense of rhythm and his phrasing. Is what really sets him apart. Probably the most important thing about his playing is his vibrato. It’s so fast, but it’s not wide. He bends it right up to pitch and then just shakes it there.”
Angus Young’s talent wasn’t something that came out of nowhere, though; there were a number of great musicians who helped contribute to inspiring one of our greatest guitarists. Angus Young grew up listening to the blues, R&B and hard rock, but the one guitarist he looked up to the most was essentially able to combine all three of these styles and present them in one neat sound.
As soon as Jimi Hendrix was given room to run, you best believe that he ran. The guitarist made a name for himself in the States, but it was in the UK when he really started to gain momentum. Everyone had either seen him play live or wanted to see him play live, and it didn’t take long for news to travel from London all the way to the other side of the world in Australia.
It wasn’t just his sound either, but his entire look. Hendrix was an exceptional guitar player, granted, but he also had an image that people were equally in awe of. The way he dressed, the way he acted, his stage presence and his aura, all of it was enough to completely win over anyone who looked.
All Angus Young needed to see was a small photo of Hendrix in a local magazine in Australia, as well as a listen to his 1967 song ‘Purple Haze’, and it was enough to set the standard that he would try to live up to. Since then, even now, decades later, when Angus Young makes music, he does so with musicians like Jimi Hendrix in the back of his mind.
“Boy, that was it,” he said, “I was so excited. And then I thought, ‘How am I gonna find out about Jimi Hendrix?’ I was out walking anywhere. I went up to a magazine store, and I’m trying to look if they’ve got a magazine from England, ’cause I knew he was in London. And I found a little picture of this guy with a guitar, and I was going, ‘Wow! I wanna look that cool’.”
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