AC/DC Pt. 2: Dirty Deeds, Dead Friends, and Murder for Hire

I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. Then why would I play you that specific slice of pre Kelsey Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November sixteenth, twenty fourteen. Then that was the day a CDC's Phil Rudd was arrested on charges that would make the musicians seem strangely alike one of the murderous characters in one of the band's best songs,

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. On this episode, concrete Shoes, Cyanide, neckties, contracts, high voltage. In Part two of our ACDC story, I'm Jake Brennan and this his disgrace.

Easy Beats. The Easy Beats single Friday on My Mind reached number sixteen on the Billboard Hot one hundred in America in nineteen sixty six and was covered by David Bowie on his album Pin Ups in seventy three. In the environment that Angus and Malcolm were raised in, hard work and discipline were of utmost importance. It didn't matter if you were mixing cement as their father had done, or playing guitar in a band with your brother on

stage and your other brother behind the board. Concrete shoes, cyanide, neckties, contract killings. This kind of work the Dirty Deeds, the kind that Dishonest John promised to deliver Dirt Cheat. Dishonest John was a character from Angus's favorite cartoon growing up,

The Beanie and Cecil Showy. Even this type of work required discipline, But for Angus and Malcolm, who in nineteen seventy five were putting together the lyrics with ACDC singer Bond Scott for the third album, Contract Killings and the like were just violent fantasy, typical the type of transgressions

demonstrated by the characters dreamed up by Bond. Men on the outer edge of society, thieves, broke down, dreamers, schemers, stalkers, and yes, even killers, Men on the fringe, like the main character and the title track from their forthcoming album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheat, a song inspired partly by Bond's vivid imagination, and partly from Angus's childhood infatuation with the dishonest John cartoon character, and partly from those bad

bad men Humphrey Bogart portrayed in his early films. The song Dirty Deeds was great, no doubt about it. Beneath the story of Bond's bad bad man hiring himself out to solve his customers problems with all manner of criminal violence, and in typical Bond humor, to do so cheaply. Beneath all of that, there was a killer riff and a rhythm that swung. ACDC is often categorized as being a hard rock band, but that couldn't be more untrue. ACDC

is a rock and roll band. The rock part of the equation is the part that sounds hard, and the roll part is the part that's hard to do. It's the part that swings. Think of the rolling stones, hard riffs from Keith, but songs that feel good and make you want to dance because of Charlie. Because Charlie Watts knew how to swing. The swing is subtle. Most rock bands get it wrong, and well, they're not rock and roll bands. They're just rock bands. Malcolm Young was hell

bent on being a rock and roll band. Being just a rock band wasn't good enough. You might as well be hauling concrete or watching cartoons. Being in a great rock and roll band was something that would last, and finally, on this album, on Dirty Deeds, Malcolm had what he wanted.

That's because now, after a series of early releases with different bandmates, inconsistent repertoire, and distribution issues, ac DC seemed to finally be putting it all together on one great full length album that was bound to break the band in America. Malcolm knew what anyone who saw ACDC back in the seventies quickly learn. Ac DC was the greatest

rock and roll band on the planet. Pete Townsend from the who saw them live and loved them to Trick found other brothers from down Under Kiss was intimidated by them, and Van Halen was afraid to follow them on stage. Ac DC was that good, and a big reason why was because, in addition to Angus's schoolboy guitar hero antics and Bond's bad boy soul strip and Malcolm's iron fist behind it all, ACDC had a drum who could swing,

Phil Rudd. With Phil now behind the kid, Malcolm Young was on his way to building a band that was the rock and roll representation of raw, working class power, a machine that could withstand fame, addiction, death, and even murder. But Atlantic Records didn't hear a single, and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was shelved in America, it disappeared into Limbo unreleased. Not until years later did American audiences get

to hear it. For the time being, partly to prevent being dropped by their label, and partly as a giant fuck you to the label that clearly didn't believe in his band. Malcolm Young took ACDC back into the studio and created a masterpiece, nineteen seventy seven's Let There Be Rock. Let the label try to ignore this. They couldn't, neither could audiences. The band toured relentlessly through Europe and America.

ACDC quickly followed Let There Be Rock with nineteen seventy eight's Powerridge quite literally the greatest rock and roll album of all time, by the way, but I'm not here to start arguments you can't win. I'm here to tell you a story about Dirty Deeds, so I'll just keep going with Poweradge came more touring and plans for another record, this one to hopefully do what others hadn't break the band in America. But touring was taking its toll. As

touring does. People think that the lives of touring musicians are glamorous, and to some extent it is dancing girls and champagne on ice, as Bond Scott wants saying, but it's also incredibly taxing physically and mentally. It'll drive even the best of them crazy. And people also think that being in a band is being part of a brotherhood, and it most definitely is. But the part that often gets left out is what if one of your brothers goes shit house nuts every now and again? What then

every band knows what I'm talking about. Bon Scott definitely knew about this, so much so that in nineteen seventy eight he took some time off from partying on the road to write a letter to his sister, Valerie. Bonn wrote on Hilton Stationary, well, as you can see Bond's in downtown Pittsburgh today, I've just come over from the West Coast, where I spent a couple of days in La doing midnight special Bond goes on, and you can feel the natural charm in his words and the sweetness

he has in reserve for his sibling. You can also instantly feel his concern for a friend. Bonn is telling Valerie that he's scouting drummers to fill in for ac DC's Phil Rudd, saying quote, Phil had a bit of a nervous breakdown, and Bonn goes on to say that Phil had to spend a lot of time with a shrink and that it was real bad, but luckily he got over it quickly enough not to upset the band, and we had a tree with kid gloves for a bit. But he's okay now. According to Bond Scott, Phil Rudd

had gone a bit off the rails. A loose cannon drummer was exactly the type of drummer a musician as serious minded as Malcolm Young could not abide. Yet Malcolm needed Phil. Malcolm had played with other drummers, and other drummers were a dead end. Phil swung in a special way and Malcolm couldn't go back to the way it

was to be in just a rock band. So Malcolm closed ranks, dealt with Phil's problem internally and kept trudging towards success in America, with Phil behind the kit for the recording of the band's next album, again the one they hope would break them in the States. But now the label was interfering once more, and for this next record, ACDC would need to part ways with their longtime producer, their brother George Young, and work with someone who better

understood what American audiences were looking for. The meddling stung. Being forced to break the bond with their older brothers stung even worse. Atlantic suggested legendary producer Eddie Kramer, he of Jimmy Hendrick's fame. Eddie Kramer suggested Malcolm and Angus record the Young Rascals Good Loving as their first single. Malcolm called his manager and told him to get Eddie Kramer the fuck out of the studio and on the first thing smoking back to wherever the hell he came from.

Atlantic then shipped in Mutt Lang, fresh off crafting a number one hit for the Boomtown Rats. Mutt told Malcolm and Bond that the backing vocals on the demos needed to be sung in a certain way. Malcolm told Mutt he wasn't no dirty Boomtown Rats. Singing for the charts, and Mutt then went in and sang the suggested vocal part perfectly. Malcolm took the note, and so did Bond. Mutt, who's on another level, and he understood what made ACDC work. For the most part, he just got out of the

way and let them cook. What emerge was a masterpiece. Highway to Hell. The album did for the band what it in Atlantic had long hoped to achieve. It broke them in America. To date. The album that sold almost eight million copies in the United States and more than fifteen million worldwide. But if a CDC was going to be built to last, there was another mile marker on the highway to pass even greater success international success. Malcolm

was relentless a workhorse. He and Angus wrote tirelessly for what they were certain would be an album that would blow the rest of the world wide open for ac DC. As nineteen eighty progressed and high school kids across the United States dug into the massive riffs on Highway to Hell, the band was already set to record a follow up. Now it was Bondstern. He looked up from the notebook he was writing in and closed it It was February in London, cold and dreary, but Bond was feeling celebratory.

He'd done it. He'd finished writing the lyrics for acdc's next album finally, and so it was time to get drunk. Chapter two Neckties. There are no handbooks in rock and roll. There's no index you can leave through, no dead singer section filed under d and therefore there were no instructions for ACDC when they learned in February nineteen eighty that their singer, the inimitable and seemingly irreplaceable Bond Scott, had died.

One of Bond's girlfriends at the time. Silver Smith claims that Bond finished writing the lyrics for acdc's next album in the London flat that he was renting, and went out afterward to celebrate with his friends from the band UFO at a club called the Music Machine. Bond then blacked out drunk in the back of it over No. Five, choked on his own vomit, and died senselessly. And now Malcolm Angus and everyone else in the ACDC camp was trying to figure out how to get their dead singer

back to Australia from first class on the plane. While they waited to fly out, you could see Bond's coffin coming down the baggage conveyor belt mixed in with the rest of the luggage. Fucked this, Angus wouldn't have it. He wasn't flying home first class with his friend being hauled underneath the plane with the rest of the cargo. The band moved back to coach and back to Australia on Scott was buried, and then the band moved on through their grief. Each band member, Malcolm, Angus, phil and

bassist Cliff Williams worked tirelessly. The first order of business was to find a replacement for Bond, a task that seemed impossible but somehow was accomplished when they found Brian Johnson, a singer who once impressed Bond and a singer who, as it's long been rumored, was recommended to ac DC

by a fan. Next up, they needed to complete the album they started putting together before Bond's death, but when they emerged from the studio they were wielding a tribute to Bond called Back in Black, an album that would sell ungodly amounts of records, largely on the strength of the band's new songs, songs that fit their new singer perfectly, and also on the strength of the group's relentless touring.

When all was said and done, Back in Black did what Malcolm intended it to do, broke the band beyond America throughout the rest of the world. It was a global smash, one that would go on to sell fifty million copies and become the second biggest selling full length album of all time, behind only Michael Jackson's Thriller. Back in Black's follow up for Those About to Rock, We Salute You, sold incredibly well, also deepening ac DC's connection

with American gearheads and FM radio listeners. They continued to tour and became quite literally the biggest band on the planet before hunkering down to create their next album, Flick of the Switch. And that's when the pressure of it all started to grind the gears on Malcolm's well oiled rock and roll machine. Chapter three, Pick up the Phone, Leave Her Alone. Phil Rudd, acdc's drummer, the man who

rolled and swung mightily, was coming apart again. He played nightly to tens of thousands of adoring fans and did his best to outrun the death of one of his best friends, Bond Scott, all while enjoying the trappings of success Bond always wanted but never achieved. It was a lot. The guilt was, no doubt, white hot. Phil cooled it with alcohol, gallons and gallons of alcohol. Of course, in rock and roll, drinking is not only tolerated, it's encouraged.

But for a band leader like Malcolm Young, the only thing that was sacred was you're playing. If the drink impacted the gig, then you could get fucked off stage. In a hotel room in Nebraska, Phil Rudd was drinking with ghosts. They were right there at the edge of his bed. Who were these people pulling from the same bottle that he was? Groupies fans, Some spoke and adoring kiss ass tones. Some taunted Phil. They talked of ACDC songs and fast cars, and all Phil heard was Bond's voice.

When one of them, just a high school ahead, asked Phil flight bonn ask for a life. When the lady with the dude, who was icinger, got frustrated and wanted to know where the coke was, Phil heard Bond question him. When two guys near the bathroom nearly came to blows over a girl sitting on Phil's bed, Phil heard Bonn arguing with himself. Phil had a thought, was this It were the distractions, the gigs, the sessions, the responsibilities. Were

they no longer enough? Phil may have been pissed, drunk, but he knew what this was. Unresolved grief finally coming to the surface, bleeding out all over the room in ghostly white heat, filling the atmosphere within these four walls with the pressure he never imagined, manifest in the words of the fans, his new Fairweather friends, speaking in bon Scott's voice and now increasingly in tongues. The sound of

it filled his head with dense pressure. It was intense, more intense than the pressure of being on stage age in front of tens of thousands, and more intense than staring down Malcolm. Stronger than the fear of letting Angus down. It was the pressure of admitting he was gone and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it. Bond was gone, and these fuckers in the room had to go next. But Phil was helpless. He called his road manager, Ian. Ian would know what to do.

Road managers always knew what to do. Ian headed straight over to Phil's room to clear out the groupies and the fans so that acdc's drummer could get some rest. But when Ian entered the room, it was empty, empty, with the exception of Phil, and there were no groupies and no fans, only a ghost. Phil Rudd had tripped beyond some invisible line and things would not get better.

Phil Rudd continued drinking with the ghost of bon Scott until on October eighth, nineteen eighty three, Phil walked on stage in Uniondale, New York, wasted, sat down behind his kit and bashed away until he fell off his stool in a pissed drunk stupor. He recovered, sort of and finished the set. Afterward, Malcolm Young walked up to his drummer backstage and walloped him in the face with his fist, and that was it. Phil could fuck off. He was out of the group and ACDC was now just another

rock band. We'll be right back after this.

Faith No More soared into the top ten at number nine with their single Epic, and in the same year, Nelson, Heart and skid Row all competed on the charts alongside ac DC's single Thunderstruck, the band's biggest hit since You Shook Me All Night Long, which drove their new album The Razor's Edge to multi platinum status, the band's best selling records since Back in Black. All of these songs were rock bon Jovi, Billy Idol, Nelson, Heart, skid Row, etc.

They weren't rock and roll. Thunderstruck by ac DC wasn't rock and roll either. It's about as meat and potato as hard rock as you can get. It's great, don't get me wrong, But it isn't Highway to Hell or Let There Be Rock. It doesn't come anywhere near the greatness the band achieved creatively when Phil Rubb was in the band. Neither were the full length recordings that preceded the Razor's Edge or followed the last the album to

feature Phil, which was Flick at the Switch. Those albums being Fly on the Wall and Blow Up Your Video. Simon Wright replaced Phil Rudd on those albums, and Chris Slade of the Firm replaced Simon on the Razor's Edge. This was a creative era of inconsistency for ACDC. Some fans the purest blame Bond Scott's replacement singer Brian Johnson for the band's lackluster recordings during this time, specifically Fly on the Wall and Blow Up Your Video. But Brian

wasn't the issue. The drumming was the issue. Sure, Malcolm made it work with Thunderstruck, but deep down I think he knew they weren't the same band without Phil Rudd. They weren't a rock and roll band and something needed to change. And that's something was brought on by the Dirtiest deads Murder Chapter five. We'll get round Him, We'll

have Her sells a ball. Christmas nineteen eighty three, ACDC is once again on top, one of the biggest bands in the world, and their manager, Crispin Dy had many reasons to celebrate that evening. In Sydney, Australia. There was the success of the band he managed, and then there was the joy he felt over releasing his own debut album. So Crispin went out to hit the pubs. Upon leaving one of those watering holes in the Darlinghurst neighborhood, he

was attacked three men or was it just one. It's doubtful Crispin ever saw the attack coming, and the head trauma likely came first from a blunt instrument, then the punches, the kicks. But when you felled and your brain has been so severely bashed that you could feel it loosening itself from the inside of your skull, the hits to the body don't really register. You're in shock, confused, and you know something's happening to you, but you're not sure what.

There's fear, yes, but that fear isn't of your attackers. It's deeper now. You can feel yourself slipping away. Holding on is no longer a tangible challenge. It's metaphysical that you try to concentrate, but the hits keep on coming, and your mind is pulling you into a darkness you've never known, a darkness with a promise of peace so real you can feel it wrap itself around you and shield you from the pain being inflicted upon your body.

But there's a trade off. Nothing's free. Slipping into that piece means slipping into oblivion. So you fight, if not physically,

then mentally, you will yourself to survive. But when they find you, you're unconscious, bloodied, broken, lying in the street like a Christian thrown to the lions, and they gather up what's left of you, because remarkably you're still breathing, and they bring you to the hospital where you do your best to hang on, but that pull towards something better than what you've been given it's too strong, so

you give in and succumb to your injuries. The next day, Christmas, the day you meet your maker at the age, which is forty one, acdc's manager Crispinde was murdered. They never caught his killers, and this case is steeped in hate. First, there was a supposed eyewitness accusation of the three Pacific Islanders were seen standing over Crispin's body, a lead that

went nowhere. And then there was the fact that Crispin was gay walking late at night in an area known for its gay night life, but the death was investigated as a robbery, not a hate crime, and nothing came of it until in twenty twenty three, thirty years later, it was revealed that the forensic testing of Die's blood stained clothing have been botched by authorities and when the

forensics will run again. A DNA match linked the crime to a violent, convicted felon with a criminal history, including a nineteen ninety three assault with an iron bar, a blunt instrument and another attack of a tourist in Sydney. That convicted felon killed himself in two thousand and two, and the case of the murder of acdc's manager remains unsolved. What isn't a mystery, however, is what this murder, this unfortunate event, did for the band that Crispin Dye managed.

At his funeral, members of ACDC passed and present were in attendance, and this was where Malcolm Young ran into Phil Rudd for the first time in years and was reminded of what he'd been missing in ACDC, that dirty swing that only Phil was capable of bringing. You would think that a guy in Malcolm Young's position in nineteen ninety four would be content. He was a guitarist and a massive band, a band he built with his brothers, so it was more than a band. It was a giant,

successful family business. He'd written and recorded iconic music that would outlive him for decades. He had the respect of his peers and heroes, the Rolling Stones. They famously offered ACDC millions of dollars to open up for them for one show, and Malcolm said no because ACDC opened for no one, not even his heroes. Malcolm's band made him more money than he'd ever be able to spend, so why mess around with what was clearly working? Because true

artists never rest. There's always a fear that if what you're making isn't great, then everything, all of it, will disappear. Malcolm young from his earliest days and ac DC wanted a band that could last, that could not be toppled by an outside force, and that meant staying true to what he and his brother believed was the best version of rock and roll they grew up on and set

out to make. Thunderstruck wasn't enough, because Malcolm knew there was a version of ACDC that was better, and that version had to include the wild card Phil Rudd on drums. The encounter at the funerals set off a chain of events that would end with Phil replacing Chris Slade and taking back his rightful seat behind the kit in nineteen ninety four, first with an informal jam session with Angus and Malcolm, and then in rehearsals for the band's next album, Ballbreaker,

produced with Rick Rubin. The idea was that with Phil back, Rubin would shepherd the band to its stripped down seventy sound. That didn't really work out. Rick Rubin and Malcolm and Angus clashed creatively, and the album suffered as a result. A CDC's real return to form didn't come until the next album two thousand, Stiff Upper Lip, produced by Malcolm and Angus's brother Georgia, after Atlantic Records forced George out before Highway to Hell. His reunion with the band was

a reset Malcolm had been waiting for. With Phil Rudd anchoring the rhythm and George behind the board, ac DC once again sounded exactly as Malcolm always knew the band should. Stiff Upper Lip maybe an overlooked record from a CDC's catalog, but it's the band's best record with Brian Johnson, that's not named Back in Black, and after nearly two decades of creative inconsistency, the band was ready to charge into the new millennium with the same white hot intensity they'd

owned in the seventies. But along the way, Malcolm would face challenges to that vision, and none of those challenges was more shocking than when Phil Rudd once again stopped drumming for a C d C and became a real life character written from the lyrics of dirty Deeds Done

dirt Chy, a true dishonest John. We'll get back into this story in a couple seconds, guys, but I wanted to bring up what you may have heard me mention in the last block, the fact that bon Scott's girlfriend claimed that he actually finished the lyrics for acdc's next album before he died. That would be the Back in Black album. But bon Scott isn't credited as a lyricist or a songwriter on Back in Black. This controversy has

been debated by ACDC fans for years. Did Bond Scott actually write some of the lyrics for the massively successful Back in Black album? And was Brian Johnson credited instead? There's too much to get into about the story in this full episode of Disgraceland, but we do dive in more fully in this week's accompanying mini episode, which Disgrace and All Access members can hear in their Apple podcasts

or Patreon apps. Go to disgracelandpod dot com slash membership to become a member today for just five ninety nine, and we're going to get back to our full ACDC story right now, Chapter six. Just ring three six two four three six, Hey, I lead a life of crime. On April sixteenth, twenty fourteen, ACDC issued a statement that read, in part, after forty years of life dedicated to ac DC, guitarist and founding member Malcolm Young is taking a break

from the band due to ill health. ACDC asks that Malcolm and his family's privacy be respected during this time. The band will continue to make music. Ac DC will get together in May and Vancouver to record. It seemed that not even Malcolm Young's own sickness, which was revealed six months later in September of twenty fourteen to be dementia, could deny him of his goal to keep ac DC

moving forward. So it was no surprise when a few months later on November sixth, twenty fourteen, that the band would pledge to continue on in the face of even more unbelievable news from the ac DC camp.

supposed business associates. These men, the identity of the victims has never been disclosed, were allegedly responsible for the existence and, from Phil's point of view, the failure of his solo album head Job the Record, and Phil was pissed and most likely way high on meth and that drug induced thinking caused Phil Rudd to threaten to kill the two men who had worked for him. On the day of Phil Rudd's arrest, ACDC wasted no time a statement was issued.

It read We've only become aware of Phil's arrest as the news was breaking. We have no further comment. Phil's absence will not affect the release of our new album, Rock or Bust and upcoming tour next year Rock or Bust. Indeed, there was nothing, not the sickness of their band's founding and most influential member, not even the arrest of their drummer on a murder for higher charge, that could stop ac DC from moving forward. The show, as they say,

must go on. Two weeks after Phil's arrest, Rock or Bust, an album he played on alongside Angus, Brian Cliff and Malcolm and Angus's nephew Stevie Young, was released. Five months later. On April tenth, twenty fifteen, at Coachella, ACDC kicked off the band's latest tour, with Chris Slade back behind the kit in place of Phil again, Rock or Bust, not

Rock and Roll or Bust. Ten days later, on April twentieth, halfway across the world in New Zealand, Phil Rudd went before the judge and by then the murder for higher charge had been dropped due to insufficient evidence, but the death threats and drug charges stuck and Phil pleaded guilty. He was released on bail to await sentencing, and the judge noted Phil's fragile mental health in his drug addiction. Meanwhile, ACDC tore a path across the United States and Europe.

On July ninth, twenty fifteen, Phil Rudd went before the judge again, this time for his sentencing. He was given just eight months of home detention in order to abstain from drugs and undergo rehab, and the judge warned that a breach of these orders could land the drummer in jail.

But the judge was apparently as softy because just days after Phil was confined to house arrest, he was arrested for associating with prostitutes at his house, and the judge let him off with a warning there was no getting around the house arrest. Though the entire eight month sentence would have to be served. Phil's lawyer argued this would mean that Phil would miss a CDC's Japanese tour. His attorney voiced Malcolm Young's point of view. Phil's drummer was

integral to the band's sound. Why should the band suffer because of Phil's actions? The judge disagreed and replied that Queen replaced Freddy Mercury. Apparently the judge wasn't aware that ACDC replaced Bond Scott. Everyone, even Malcolm Young, was replaceable. So Phil Rudd was sentenced and out of the band, where he remains to this day. While the band continues to tour even after Malcolm Young's death in twenty seventeen.

And of course they're touring without their best drummer, Phil Rudd, who lives out on the fringe, just like one of those characters his friend Bon Scott used to write about in his songs, specifically in Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. It's like a real dishonest John and a true disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this this Disgraceland. All right, thanks

for listening to this episode of Disgraceland. If you want to hear more about the controversy around Bond Scott allegedly writing the lyrics for Back in Black, what the second biggest selling album of all time, you're gonna need to check out today's mini episode. Okay, all Access and Apple subscribers already have it in their fees. Everyone else had to disgraceland pod dot com and sign up for all Access to unlock many episodes, add free listening in uncensored

music history you will not get anywhere else. Here's the kicker. Bond. Scott's friends and girlfriends swore he finished writing the lyrics for Back in Black before he died, But the notebook he wrote them and disappeared the night he was found dead. So where did it go? And why hasn't it ever resurface? That's what we're digging into in the mini episode. Now, this week's question of the week. If Back in Black is the greatest selling rock and roll record of all time,

what's the one record you put above it? You can only pick one? Is it Exile on Main Street London? Calling Abbey Road? Something else? Maybe another ACDC record? Call me six one seven nine oh six six six three eight Let me know, leave a voicemail, send me a text. You can also hit me on the socials at disgracelamppod or get me direct on the Patreon Chat. Credits are coming up right now. Disgraceland was created by yours truly

and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelamdpod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod. Rock a Roller.