The 1978 song Angus Young called the greatest he’ll ever play: “A challenge”
Angus Young didn’t get into the business trying to be a guitar hero.
Half of AC/DC’s best songs weren’t meant to be the most difficult thing in the world, but when you hear them tearing through tunes like ‘Back in Black’ or ‘Highway to Hell’, there’s never a doubt in your mind that you’re listening to one of the best rock and roll bands that the world had ever seen. Young was the one who was responsible for cranking out the tunes, but a lot of people forget that every one of their greatest songs was always a package deal.
The Young brothers were a united front every single time they went into the studio, and while everyone tends to fight like brothers, Malcolm seemed to have a lot more control over the songs than Angus did. He was the one who brought many of their greatest songs to the band, and if he didn’t have the engine of a right arm as he did, there’s a good chance that the band wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get as big as they did.
But that’s not to say that Angus was ever playing second fiddle to his brother, either. They had that strange telepathy that can only come from people who have been playing together forever, and you can definitely hear the joy that they have for playing together across every single one of their albums. When it comes to their status as a great rock and roll band, though, Bon Scott tends to hold a special place in everyone’s heart more than most.
Not to say that Brian Johnson hasn’t done a great job in the meantime. The band weren’t going to get one of the highest-selling records in the world by having a mediocre singer, but Scott gave them the chance to bring out their sense of menace a little bit more. There was an element of danger around those first few AC/DC records, and when looking through some of their greatest hits, Young felt that Powerage held a special place in his heart more than most whenever he played it.
Even though the band looked down on punk rockers, Young felt that bringing in some speed into their repertoire would kick things up a notch whenever they played. And while there are many tunes from the record that deserve to go down in legend, like ‘Rock and Roll Damnation’, ‘Riff Raff’ is the kind of tune that storms out of the gate like a feral dog ready to pounce on anything it comes across.
And as a guitar player, Angus felt that nothing ever seemed to top it when asked about his favourite songs as a guitar player, saying, “That can be very tough. I’m biased because I’ve been on them all, you know? [Laughs.] If I was just thinking of the guitar, since I’m a guitar player, I’d say ‘Riff Raff.’ The guitar work was a challenge but interesting in the way the song rolled out. That’s my guitar answer.”
The song is absolutely perfect in its own right, but it also set the standard for some of the more badass riffs that they would make only one album later. Highway to Hell might be the acknowledged masterpiece for some of its greatest tunes, but a song like ‘Beating Around the Bush’ is basically the DNA of ‘Riff Raff’, only with a bit more swagger and musical swing behind it half the time they play it.
The guitars didn’t have to be roaring like they are on a Metallica record, but whatever AC/DC came up with was about more than just the guitars. It was about whether you could make it work with the rest of the band, and compared to all of their electrifying imagery, ‘Riff Raff’ is one of the few songs that sounds like a musical fireball from the moment the riff starts.
