Why did AC/DC’s original singer Dave Evans quit the band?
From beers with breakfast to trying to wake the Loch Ness Monster with an arsenal of fireworks, AC/DC have always personified rock ‘n’ roll both on and off the stage. They always have, and they always will. As Angus Young put it in 2020, when the group had been around for 47 years, “We’re a band that still makes rock music for teenagers”. They make no bones about that, either.
Why should they? Kids need rock ‘n’ roll exultation. The Young brothers, who first formed the band, knew that from an early age. Angus is the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, and Malcolm was only two years older. So, they were often vying for attention, and attention was scarce with the family faced with bigger fish to fry than livewire youngsters.
The whole family began life in Cranhill, a working-class suburb of Glasgow. Unemployment ran rife, and life was tough. Their father worked several jobs trying to scrape them by before having the bright idea to bring everyone over to the sunnier climes of Sydney, Australia. Even in the Southern Hemisphere, while they might have faired more favourably, they were still faced with the burden of fitting in. So, it was rock ‘n’ roll from back home that proved the perfect companion.
Therefore, in 1973, when Malcolm was facing an uncertain future at the age of 20, he decided to form a band. He had already been part of a group up in Newcastle, Australia, called The Velvet Underground (not that one), so he knew a few names he could call upon to complete his fledgling new band with his brother in tow. Along with Colin Burgess from the Masters Apprentices on drums, bass guitarist Larry Van Kriedt and vocalist Dave Evans, AC/DC were formed.
And they’ve pretty much been peddling the same schtick that they first conceived back in a garage in Sydney ever since. As Angus Young put it, “I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same, In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.” So, with the framework laid with Dave Evans in place, why is the vocalist largely forgotten in the lore of the band?
Why did Dave Evans leave AC/DC?
Well, Evans stuck it out for a little over the year, which was long enough to notice that the band had the chops to make a name for themselves. They clearly were taking it very seriously, too. Finally, Evans even saw the day when the group landed a hit, but he didn’t see much else other than hard work for little or no return. The hit was largely local, and the scene was not one that was favourable to bands.
As Evan explains, “The reason why I left the band was because we had a hit record and we were doing so many shows – sometimes we were doing three shows a day – and I was not getting paid.” He had been less fervent about making it in music than the rest of the group at the time, most notably because he had too many other plates to spin while they were simply fresh out of school.
“We were on TV on the radio, but we were not getting any money,” he told Metal Voice. “Plus were pretty unhappy with our third manager. I had to pay rent back at my apartment in Sidney, I was paying off a car, working my ass off and not getting any money.” And he was growing disgruntled. Having three managers in not much more than a year and hating the latest one is fairly indicative of what the group faced.
So, Evans figured he wasn’t going to face it much longer. He recalled: “We had a meeting one night with the manager, and he smart-mouthed me, so I punched him. I had enough, so I was going to leave the band after the tour unless I got a certain amount of money, which I didn’t, so I left. Strictly economics.” He was replaced by Bon Scott shortly afterwards, and the rest is history.
According to the manager, Michael Browning, that punch was a blessing. He wrote in his memoir Dog Eat Dog: “No disrespect to Dave, but they wouldn’t have made it with him as singer. He could sing OK, but he didn’t have the character Bon brought into the band. The character, the sense of humour, the swagger. They were never going to go as far as they went with Dave out front. Bon was the real deal.”
All the same, they did have a hit with Evans, and who knows, with the band recently selling over 1.5million tickets in a single day for their 2024/2025 tour and cashing in over $180m a decade ago, perhaps leaving for economic reasons was a ropey move.
