“Way more important”: The guitarist Angus Young called better than the rest
Everyone who has ever dreamed of being a guitarist is usually waiting for the moment when they can rip out a blistering solo. The whole appeal of playing in the studio might seem daunting for someone who started playing, but as soon as the crowds start screaming once the amps are turned up there’s no greater shot of adrenaline than being able to fly up and down the guitar neck as the rest of the band thunders away behind you. Although Angus Young has been living out that rock star fantasy for years now, he admitted that he was far from the greatest guitarist to walk the Earth.
First of all, it’s not like AC/DC were making the most complex music in the world. Many of their early lessons came from the true legends of rock and roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, which meant that they only needed a handful of chords and the right amount of attitude to get the job done. It was far from complex, but who really cared when ‘Highway to Hell’ sounded that good?
If there was one ace in the hole in their live performance, though, it was Angus. Compared to the cartoon characters of rock coming out at the time like Gene Simmons of Kiss, Angus got the job done by being a relentless ball of energy every time he played. Whether it was him flying across the stage or rolling around on the floor with his guitar, it seemed very likely that he would explode if he didn’t have the guitar in his hands at times.
But the spectacle was only the result of them getting their playing down, and that originated from how Angus played off his brother, Malcolm. Despite standing at the back of the stage for his entire career and singing the occasional backing vocal, Malcolm was the driving force behind every single AC/DC tune, hitting the strings as hard as he could until many of his picks turned to powder halfway through a show.
No one really needed to be hitting that hard, but in a group like AC/DC, it was essential for them to play like that to get into a groove. Not much of their material used a ton of loud distortion pedals, so outside of turning up the amps as loud as possible, Malcolm’s role as a rhythm player was to make sure that tunes like ‘TNT’ or ‘Thunderstruck’ were well-oiled machines by the time the show started.
“People like Malcolm—they’re all doing something better than the rest of us.”
Angus Young
In fact, Angus had no problem saying that Malcolm’s style of guitar playing was miles better than what any shredder could have possibly done, saying, “People like Malcolm—they’re all doing something better than the rest of us. I can’t deny that Eric Clapton’s and Eddie Van Halen’s lead stuff has influenced a stack of people, but for me, it’s the rhythm thing that’s way more impressive and important to a band. Malcolm is a big inspiration to me; he keeps me on my feet.”
And it’s not like Angus is wrong, either. Looking at the construct of any band, the rhythm guitarist tends to have a lot more power than you realise. Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend may have had their hands full working both the lead and rhythm at the same time, but people like John Lennon and Keith Richards could make their band move in a totally unique way the minute they locked in with Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts, respectively.
So for any guitarist looking to treat their rhythm player as a second-class citizen during rehearsal, remember what kind of power they wield. You might be the one who soaks up the attention when ripping through different solos, but if the foundation doesn’t work, you’re going to look like an idiot practising scale exercises onstage.
