The band Malcolm Young thought needed to “grow up”
Rock is built on rebellion, music, and ego. When you merge all three of those things, ideologies clash, and people fall out. This is why we see so many bands break up in spectacular fashion, igniting feuds across music and backhanded compliments in interviews. However, one band that has never succumbed much to the drama involved in rock music is AC/DC.
Granted, there are exceptions to this. For instance, the band almost got into a fight with Deep Purple following a gig in Melbourne. After Deep Purple headlined the Sunbury Festival, AC/DC took to the stage for a late-night set, only to see that the band had taken most of their gear. While the band had left the stage, a lot of Deep Purple’s stage crew were still packing things up, so the AC/DC team started throwing punches.
Bon Scott was also no stranger to backstage antics in the band. Angus Young admitted in an interview that two weeks in Bon Scott’s life was a total adventure, and he found it hard to keep track of a lot of the time.
“His mother put him on a plane once; he went to see his folks in Australia,” he recalled, “She put him on a plane in London. Guy, who was doing our tour managing, went to collect him, you know, he was gonna meet him at the airport, and he got to the airport and called us up, and he said, ‘No Bon’.” Scott turned up a week later after getting off the plane in Bangkok with a girl he met on the flight.
Despite these rock-and-roll antics, however, there has never been a lot of friction within the band. Some of that will come from the fact that two of the key members, Angus and Malcolm Young, are brothers, but it also stems from the fact that they don’t let their differences get in the way of music too much.
Malcolm Young spoke about this, saying they are happy to simply give band members space when needed. “We do have our ‘had enough’ days. Particularly when the pressure is on, or if we’ve been working in the studio for a long time – you know, not sleeping and eating take-out food around the clock,” he said, “But we’re not ones to stew for long.”
Because of how easy it was for AC/DC to avoid big fallouts, Malcolm Young could never understand why so many other bands let disagreements get in the way of making music. There was one band, in particular, synonymous with falling out who he thought needed to give their heads a shake.
“When you hear stories of what some bands go through – like Guns n Roses, for example – we think, ‘Wow, what a waste’,” he said, “Those guys should just grow up, get back together, and get back out there.”
