The ultimate “rock god”, according to Angus Young
Angus Young has been operating at the top of the rock ‘n’ roll pile for longer than many in the crowd at AC/DC’s shows have been alive.
The expertise that Young has accumulated over the course of his career means that he is capable of playing to 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium in his sleep. It’s the thing he was put on this planet to do. However, Young also knows that his career is only possible thanks to the pioneers who came before him.
As much as he’s one of the most recognisable figures in rock music when he’s dressed up in his schoolboy attire and delivering his famous duckwalk, Young didn’t invent the wheel. While AC/DC have perfected a particular brand of stadium rock, which is imitable, nothing is entirely original in music, and everything is borrowed to a certain degree.
In the mind of Young, nobody deserves more credit than the late Chuck Berry. Without him, there likely isn’t only no AC/DC, but The Rolling Stones and The Beatles likely would never have forged the same sound that drove them to greatness. Although Berry wasn’t world famous to the degree of Elvis, few individual names, if any, have had a more influential impact on the music industry.
John Lennon once epitomised his brilliance best, saying: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry”.
This mindset was shared by many of Lennon’s peers, who would go out of their way to get their hands on his records and study every second of them. He provided a rock ‘n’ roll blueprint that gave others a reference point for their own work, which took the genre from a niche interest to worldwide domination.
Aside from being an inventive musician in the studio, Berry was an innovator on-stage. Most famously, he invented the ‘Duckwalk’ manoeuvre, which many others have adopted in the decades since, including AC/DC’s Young, which is a fitting homage to one of his ultimate rock heroes.
Young also once revealed another subtle way he was inspired by the legendary blues figure, sharing: “When [Berry] was singing, he always had little raps with the audience … I figured if Chuck could do it with his voice, I could do it with my guitar.”
He delved deeper into his love of Berry during a radio interview with the BBC in 2021, when probed about the ultimate “rock god”, saying, “Chuck Berry was probably one of the great guitar people for rock and roll. He combined a lot of elements — he combined blues, a bit of jazz and his own unique style.”
The AC/DC guitarist then revealed how Berry’s ability to bring a myriad of different sounds together under one sonic umbrella was the attribute he found most revering, adding, “He melded all these kinds of different genres of music, but he seemed to bring it together and bring it out, and it came out in that rock and roll style — so plain and simple, but it was so effective.”
Around the time that Young first heard Berry, he “could play guitar a little bit”, but it quickly accelerated into an obsession once he fully understood what was possible with the power of rock ‘n’ roll.
After making the vital discovery of Berry, Young has never looked back. While more artists waltzed their way into his life and became figures of influence on his sound, nobody will ever be more important than the first responsible for putting him on the path of rock ‘n’ roll. For that reason, in Young’s mind, there will always be one “rock god” that matters more than anybody else to him.
