ACDC vs Bon Scott

The What's Your Mount Rushmore podcast? The topic workplace sitcoms. My final pick goes against me disagreeing with your favorite band from the nineties, TLC. Oh, you don't like them? Oh I love them, but they they didn't want scrubs, but I do. I'm putting scrubs on my Mount Rushmore there. Oh you sneaky little bastard. You forging sneaky bastard. What's Don't know? Listen wherever you get podcasts.

Welcome to Rock and Roll Story. Hey, it's Brian. And hey, it's Murdoch. Welcome to the show. All you have to do to get involved is send an email. It's that simple. It's a lot easier than most things that you have to do in your life. Uh here's how you do it. You send an email to we are the story guys at gmail dot com. Look how easy that was. We do the research and we come back to you with answers and today uh we have got a letter.

Actually we've got a we've got a few letters. Here here's the first one. Yeah. Uh hi, my name is Connor. I'm fifteen years old and I live in Australia. I know, I'm so excited. We this really is starting out as a winner. Uh, I've been a big fan of your show for quite a while now and I listen to it most mornings while riding my bike to school. Yeah. Did you did you ride your bike to school? Is this a shaming moment? This is Oh dude, I forgot. I forgot you don't know how to ride a bike. Connor.

My parents never taught me to ride a bike. Oh no, don't say it like that. Now it sounds mean that I'm laughing at you. Brian I will teach you I will teach you how to ride a bike. Connor Brian also is very abusive. Okay, so I'm just kidding. I'm sure we've told this story before, but I the way I found out that you didn't know how to ride a bike was one day you saw me riding a bike.

Like in traffic. Yes. And you rolled down your window and said to me, Oh, so that's what this looks like And then you drove off. Yes. I thought you were being mean and when I confronted you about it, you were like, Nah dude, I just literally don't know how to ride a bike. Yes. And I was being mean to all I have is meanness about it. But when when I was sixteen Honestly, honestly, when I asked you that question, I forgot. Well I know. When I was sixteen I got an Oldsmobile.

And then I would go to school and I got to take two people to school and then I got a car when I was eighteen too. But I took two people to school. So every day, but I got to listen to music. I didn't obviously listen to a podcast, didn't exist. But I took two people to school, had the coolest name. Okay. And it was Chris Cruiser and Betsy Bingham.

Isn't that the coolest? Isn't that the coolest crew? Golly gee shucks, Murdoch. Mark Murdoch. Betsy's in the car first. We're gonna go pick up Chris Cruiser next. That the coolest names. We would listen to like Was there an alliteration rule? Mark Murdoch. MM? I mean we had all the names. You're like, listen, I'll take your kids to school. How does that happen? I it it it sounds a little bit like an Archie comic book. And the mayor lived in the middle.

Like look at that. Like there's things Sorry Connor. None of this has born in a small town. Yeah. Sorry, Connor. None of this shit has anything to do with A C D okay, let's continue the letter here from c this is Connor speaking. I'm a musician and a sound engineer. I know. I have a lot of questions. I'm also the proud lead host of a school radio station that I started. I know. Here's my new question. Is it possible that one of us unknowingly father this boy?

How many Australian ladies do you know? How unfashionable is it for me right now to be like, I really want to get to know this fifteen year old young man I met in Australia, Connor Um because I I mean, oh my gosh. You sound like a fun guy, Connor. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, Cotter is the people this is further from his letter. I'm writing to ask you if you can share some history about

A C D C particular the band's journey and any interesting or challenging hurdles they face through their career. This is what his letter's about. So okay, first I gotta say.

This is awesome. Uh not only because Connor sounds awesome, but we can actually knock out two notes for the price of one here. Uh since Connor really just wants to talk about A C and A C D C in general. I went looking for other requests we have about ACDC and uh here is the hold on, let me find this one. Okay. It's Matt with one T. Yes, read that. Yeah.

Um, I once had lunch in Melbourne with a journalist who was close to the subject matter of Bon Scott's death and his family, and he was convinced that ACDC management took property. From Bond's London flat in the immediate aftermath he maintains with the Damn dude, we just went from riding a bike to school, hanging out with Murdoch and Brian, to uh Bond Scott stealing his stuff from his apartment. Right. Um he maintains with near certainty that the lyrics are back in black.

And some of those on For Those About To Rock were written by Bond. and not by Brian Johnson. There's there's no coincidence that these lyrics beyond this point are largely trite. A C D C, i.e. the Young Brothers in Management, are known for their ruthless approach to the business side of things. That's true. And this

This is obviously a significant commercial maneuver given the lifetime sales lifetime sales of Back and Black. Matt, what a letter. Matt's doing a lot of work for us here. Okay, so let's let's just have this conversation. Were you aware of this conspiracy? Yeah. Well, actually about the what Matt is talking about, I I didn't but I knew obviously where people there was that lore about how did he really die, but I always heard about the lyrics.

Specifically. The back and black lyrics were really Bond's lyrics. So I've always So you have you have always known that. I've heard that piece. I've never heard the part about them like trying to get his crap out of his loft or his his his flat. Okay. So we we've done time on the subject for A C D C on the show way back in the day.

I I don't think any of that is available now to non Patreon subscribers at this point. And w w we've never really talked about Bonn in any of that. It was it was usually after the Bonn period that I think we've had well we We had the conversation about Malcolm and the knife fight, but that was really centered around Malcolm. Yeah. And and then after that would have been during the Bond period, but then after the Bond period, we talked about the night stalker stuff.

Yeah. But we ha we've never really talked about Bonn. Yeah. They're a A C D C is they're more than this, but they're the they're a trivia question answer because they're a band where the lead singer Is gone and they replaced the lead singer and then they totally still had success after it. And technically, Bonn himself is a replacement.

Right. I mean I think the casual fan forgets, but i technically, historically, ACDC three singers. Yeah, if you're inerto about it, there's three. There's Dave Evans, Bon Scott, Brian Johnson. Now, I mean you could argue that Dave Evans barely counts. He records one track with them and then he's asked to split and and this I think has to do with the band kind of

deciding on a direction, uh choosing this is more what we do, less of what we were doing. Uh less glam, more full on rock and roll. Yeah. And when we talk about the police, the band, We talked about the brothers who were involved in that band who were off stage, Miles Copeland, he had a huge influence on the group. In a similar way, ACDC isn't just Malcolm and Angus. Their older brother George will play a big part in the band, and we'll talk about a band that George was in in a little bit too.

Yeah, he I mean you you're right, he has bands of his own. That's is where it starts. He has a songwriting and producing partnership too that he that and he's part of the production on AC D C records. All the way up to Powerage in nineteen seventy eight. Yeah. The only reason they stop using them uh using him is because they get forced to buy Atlantic Records, by the record label. Yeah, the short version.

So like they haven't broken in America yet at this point. They're five records in and they're getting on some tours and stuff, but they haven't really had this like crossover moment they need.

And the pitch they get is we need to give you a producer who can make you sound like what American radio sounds like. Right, right. So here's info from the book A C D C Maximum Rock and Roll. The band was apparently not enthusiastic about switching away from family in the production seat.

Quote being told to do was bad enough, but what really pissed off Malcolm and Angus is they felt that George was being treated disrespectfully by Atlantic like an amateur with no great track record when it came to production. Now there's a radio interview where Malcolm basically says that they were forced to choose another producer. A quote losing George was almost literally like losing the sixth member of the band and much more.

They start recording without him in March of seventy nine and they actually do lose a member of the band a little less than a year later. But let's just say they're gonna get an upgrade here in a little bit on who's working on this record. Uh so uh and that's not the s that's not the person they lose. Let's let's do talk about the person they lose though. Sometime during the late evening of february eighteenth, nineteen eighty, in the early morning of Tuesday the nineteenth.

Bon Scott passes out and dies at the age of thirty-three, okay? He'd been out at a club, a friend finds him unconscious later that day, calls authorities, he's taken to the hospital, and he's pronounced dead on arrival. That's right. The coroner concludes that he had died of this is the quote acute alcohol poisoning. Okay. So so that's the setup. All right. Right here.

Now let's go backwards and talk about the history that this band has with Bonn so we can sort all that out. I mentioned the importance of George Young to this band and one of the many reasons even beyond his production and his early instrumental contributions, is that he finds Bon Scott. Yeah. So it should be stated That George is in a band before his brothers. You you mentioned that. It's a band in Australia. They become big there, though they've not had a lot of reputation.

crossover to America, but they they were called the Easy Beats. Yeah, and they're a big enough deal there to where they inspire teenage bands across that country, including one that included a big personality that went by the name Bon Scott. And he was a kid who is sort of obsessed with aping the easy beats lead singer Stevie Wright. But it's not Stevie Wright that he meets when this man plays Perth in nineteen sixty six. He meets the guitar player.

Our guy, George Young. Right. And Bon moves on to a couple of different bands in the next few years. George starts writing songs, producing, and their their paths cross a little bit more.

It's worth setting the scene early with this quote from one of Bond's former bandmates. Quote, we were drinkers. We got into marijuana, mescaline, and mushrooms, but alcohol was the mainstay. We'd arrive in a town, we'd go to the pub, the locals wouldn't like the look of us. But we'd get as pissed as rats. You ever been as pissed as a rat?

Yes. And then we clean up on the pool table, and that tended to win them over. This is from Uncut Magazine, quote A keen motorcyclist, Scott enjoyed a typically carefree approach to road safety. It's such a like diplomatic way of saying to this guy. Watch this, right? What a diplomatic way of saying famous last words, watch this. He would ride naked, drunk, up and down stairs to make people laugh. Now, we've all known guys like this, right?

Uh I had a roommate in college kinda like this. But f i in Bond's case, it goes from being funny to dangerous pretty quickly. By seventy-four. He's been in and out of different types of bands, none of which really happened for him. He's in this marriage that's fallen apart and he's trying to make ends meet. He gets uh mad at a at a bandmate with the project that he's working on at the time, and he rides off Loaded on his motorcycle. He survives, but ends up with cracked ribs, a lacerated throat?

Smashed teeth and a broken collarbone. This these are all things I like to do when I ride my motorcycle naked and drunk. Not not good. Uh okay, here's the timetable. May of seventy four. Right? That means it's only been about six months since that first time that ACDC officially went on stage. That's right. Another six months in. And Bon will officially join ACDC, which is actually an odd fit. First off, he's nine years older than Angus. Bonus twenty eight.

Angus is nineteen, so they think of him as an old man. Plus he looked very odd, Bon with tight blue jeans, no shirt, unkipped, kind of a tough looking guy, and Angus Literally wearing a schoolboy outfit, dancing around a stage like Chuck Berry hopped up, geeked out on methamphetamine. I like this quote from the band's manager at the time. His name's Michael Browning. He says Bond took the role on like a character actor. He was the missing link and he made them real. I love it.

Someone saying that he took on a role versus he's just some drunk guy up there singing those songs.'Cause it's like There's a little extra credibility in there. I don't know. I mean, I mean that's always an interesting thing we talk about on the show, right? Is about where is the line between the myth

and the actual and uh you know, he does blur it. I be he's not just pretending to be a wild and crazy man. He is living it out. Oh yeah. And there's just something legitimate about like There's no questioning that he's a front man, even though like

By today's modern standards, like a dude is not look like a front man. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But let's talk about the rec let's talk about the music. Okay. So there are two that don't make it very far internationally. These are high voltage and T N T and seventy five. Now I know somebody's listening going, Oh, I've heard of high voltage. Well, yes. But that's basically because it gets an international re-release in seventy-six. But that is not the same record.

It's mostly made up of T and T. So that's very confusing. I know. Uh it's it's totally weird. But the international releases they kick in in seventy six. So you get this monster run of releases from A C D C high voltage That is uh seventy-six, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, 76, Let There Be Rock is 77, Powerage is 78, and then Highway to Hell closes out the decade in 79. If you have to pick one, which one? Highway to Hell All Day, every day, all the songs, ten out of ten.

Uh now we get back to this story about George getting the boot as the producer. Yeah. Did you know that Atlantic Records tried to Frampton A C D C? Frampton. Oh, you mean like try to make him put out a live record? Right, right, exactly. Right. I have a if if you have not listened to our Frampton episode, we talk about this idea that Frampton they couldn't figure out how to get him to connect with audiences.

And what ends up doing it is a live record with no context, which is very strange. We don't think about that being an option anymore. I'd really love it to imagine there's like a documentary movie or just a comedy about like a musical act and there's just a bunch of fat guys smoking cigars around a table and one guy goes

Let's give him the Frampton. Like a perm. Right. Anyway, I have a p great personal story about the live record. We we talked about Frampton just r it wasn't too long ago. Um, that's what made him a star. Kiss Alive made Kiss a star and and Atlantic. um wanted to try this with ACDC obviously. I assume this does not work. Well not like they were hoping. It was called If You Want Blood, you got it and while it does sell, it doesn't hit the numbers it needs in George's brother's

Hands are forced and and Highway to Hell becomes the first A C D C record with someone else new behind the board. Do you know why that live record is so significant to me? Why? The cover art. Okay, tell me more. Okay. The cover art Okay. The cover art full on college professor mode, here it comes. Let me get on my blazer.

Called a roll. The cover is Angus being impaled by his guitar and there's blood everywhere and it looks so convincing that he's being maimed or whatever, and then behind him, under his arm is this

Gremlin Demon Man and that's Bon Scott. And it made it terrifying and weird and I didn't understand it's like Kiss, it's like they're from Mars. Like I didn't understand who they were. And it just looked so scary as a kid,'cause I had that as a kid, you know, under ten. Like I had that thing, like that's not a thing you're s you probably got to see that cover art until quite a while later. And I shouldn't because it freaked me out. Like it scared me all the time.

So I was thinking about a more modern context to this, like what how to compare that. Like I was like, d does this happen now or are we all just desensitized and our kids desensitized? And I saw someone recently who has young kids who was like We're on a road trip and this is our third ghost show. And I was like, and the kids are like nine? Yeah, yeah, it's two completely different. Wow. Okay. So so what they did.

They wanted to get another producer for ACDC. So what Atlantic did is they went out and they got Eddie Kramer. Now this is a guy that has Murdoch Street cred, right? So he's known for working with Jimi Hendrix. But also Zeppelin and Kiss. That's true. For formative dude for you. Short version of the story though, unfortunately, is that A C D C and Eddie Kramer, they don't get along. Do you think

What do you think this record would have been like, knowing that this is the guy who did KISS in Zeppelin? I wonder if it's like what Nevermind ended up being after they mixed it and it sounded like a little cheesy and a little more metal after they let whatever that guy's name is. Andy Wallace. After they left Andy Wallace mix it. I wonder if if the record would sound a little more too polished. Compressed and polished, yeah. Yeah. Uh it it's like I mean, those records are dry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, we're gonna talk about in a minute. That's the complaint that they have with Eddie Kramer is is cheesy and out of touch, right? That's the problem. He's trying to get them to cover songs they don't want to cover. There's like specifically some talk of a Spencer Davis song they don't want to do. That's hip man. And I I there's this quote I saw from Angus that I love where he says I don't know why, but he kept talking about pianos.

It's so freaking funny. Bro, it's like the best it's the best quote. Dude, that's our rock and roll story guys t shirt. I don't know why just in quotes. It just says I don't know why, but he kept talking about pianos. Getting it made. I'm getting that shirt made. It's it's I mean because the funny thing is like you the person saying it is great. It's yeah. Under it. What do you think? Rock and roll story guys just like We don't have to I don't even care. It it's just funny.

Yeah. I think having Ang I mean Angus is what, like eighty eight? I mean I think it's cool to I I don't know though. We're gonna talk about how litigious this man is. They may come after us. They uh I think yeah. Yes. They're smart I think we should put his name for the quote. Uh uh we get sued by ACDC it'll be great for the show. I think so. I suein's great for everyone. So Malcolm calls their manager at the time and said, Dude, this is not work.

And the manager is like, well, it's like I've got Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nixon my house. Well, I've been sharing a house with this guy, and he's a up and coming producer. So who is this guy? This is a guy at the time known for working with a band called the Boomtown Rats, which again doesn't really translate over to America. Uh this is from a piece.

uh i in revolver. Well and it's a piece that was written about the album. So while still on the phone with Young, the manager turned to Mutt Lang and said, Mate, you've got to do this record.

We know Mutt Lang for what he'll do with A C D C and then later, like the relaunch rocket ship of Def Leopard's career. But than like every major musical star after that. Yeah, if you go if you go look at what Muttling has touched. He's touched everything from like a from a big standpoint, from like an overarching standpoint. Like he touched the boy bands. Well that sounds weird when I say it that way. Yeah. He worked with the boy bands. He worked with

metal. He worked with country. Like he's been in every major scene in some way, shape, or form. But it all started with this gig he got. By accident. Because Eddie Kramer got Kicked off the case.'Cause at this point he'd mostly been doing Irish stuff, which is not stuff that American audiences know. We said Boomtown Rats, but he did Savoy Brown, Grant Parker. Grant Parker, which I like. I think he did heat treatment, which is a record I really like. Yeah. But I like Highway to Hill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh okay. The reason we bring him up in the context of this story about Bonn is that by all accounts, a lot of the work that Mutt does in making Highway Highway, and you said this is hands down. Your favorite A C D C record? Yeah. A lot of people's favorite A C D C record? A lot of it has to do with Bond. That's right. This is from the revolver piece too. The sessions for highway to hell go quickly and smoothie.

Smoothly with very few bumps along the way aside from an occasional run in with Scott over his vocal performance. Now most accounts give a little more detail than that. Okay. To back up a little, there's a classic rock piece from twenty thirteen that suggests that Even before Atlantic insists on a new producer. There are some conversations that the band might need a new singer more than a new producer.

Quote, not in a blunt either we do it or drop you type of way, says former ACDC manager Michael Browning, but there was kind of a conversation going on. Yeah, and here is an Eddie Kramer quote. in that piece that points toward Bonn as being problematic. I w this is a quote from Eddie Kramer, quote, I went there, hung out with them, tried to do some demos and realized there was an obvious difficulty with the singer too. He had I love this. He had the most incredible voice.

But trying to keep him in check with his drinking was a very tough call. So we mentioned that kind of funny story about Mutt. I, in the research, found that story and I found another story that slightly conflicts. I there's an account that says that A C D C's manager approached Mutt's manager, Clive Cowder, to ask if Lang would be interested in working with A C D C. Quote Clive was going no no no, they haven't got a big enough base.

he says, but I just hammered them and by the end of the night I called Malcolm back and said It's cool, I've got Mutt Lang. And what did Malcolm say to him?

Who's he? That's right. But regardless, you can see that when Mutt does this job, there is an obvious emphasis on making sure he can make Bon Scott perform the right way on the recordings. Well And the most famous story about this. is that and you hear this about if you want blood and uh touch too much specifically when they're recording those songs. Basically, Bond is breathing weird on these tracks, and Mutt keeps stopping to correct him.

Trying to show him like this is how you need to breathe when you're singing, this is what you need to do to hit these notes. And at a certain point, Bond gets mad. And and the story goes that he says, Fine, why don't you do it yourself? And Mutt, without standing up, sitting behind the board, which is a key detail, just opens his mouth.

And perfectly nails it. Yeah. So obviously Mutt could sing. In fact, he does some back background vocals on this record at the end. Which is not a thing you ever hear about Mutt when we just talk about him as a producer. That he could sing like that. No, no. It's very similar to what happens like almost so many years later with Bob Rock and James Hetfield where all of a sudden you have a producer working with like a metal vocalist.

Mm-hmm. In the same way, you know, that that those guys work to bring out the bet better things. And that's that's the point that we're trying to make, is that Mutt helps Bond get better. Right. And Maybe in his lyric writing too. There there is a lot of arguing about this online, and I I think some people do think he changes a lot of the lyrics. But what's more known is this idea of Mutt being very involved in helping with phrasing and structure.

And rethinking courses. So if you think about how he's helping him breathe, it would make sense that he would say, Hey, instead of saying Right, or instead of using this word there, why don't you use this word because it's shorter? Like I could see how that would happen. Yeah, yeah. Um So i if you look at this first run of albums, writing credits are mostly attributed this way.

All tracks are written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott. And the explanation for that is: yes, the Young brothers wrote the tunes, and Bon wrote the lyrics. Right. So maybe we should look at the Shakespearean

uh characteristics of the lyrics that Bond is writing. Are they about war and justice and peace and m math and high minded pursuits? Here let me give you a sample. Let's do it. With a flick of my knife, I can change your life. There's nothing you can do. I'm a problem child. What do you think?

Uh uh or this one. Uh she ain't exactly pretty, ain't exactly small, four to thirty nine fifty six, you could say she's got it all. Do you know the first time I heard problem child was they uh I was watching Rastlin? On Saturday morning and and they I forget which wrestler it was, but in the Memphis Memphis T V uh affiliate would take and they would take clips And then they would Really? Illegally make

Music videos. Yep. And they were like this one's this one's we got a video here. That's right. He does have a unique voice. Um for his songwriting, right? Yeah. Scott excelled at writing about being in a band and captured frustrated ambition. Right. The uh early manager uh Michael Browning said it like this: quote, Bond was a street poet.

He described it as toilet wall poetry. They signed a singer and got a lyricist as well. Okay. So there's a site that I ran across in the research called Stuff Nobody Cares About dot com. Which is a great name for a site. Uh i they wrote about Bond and A C D C and and I thought this was a noteworthy observation. Uh Though Bon Scott was self effacing, he could look at his own work in the world.

Scott would frequently write and rewrite lyrics in notebooks and record on portable tape recorders that he carried with him. Well I mean that's a good thing. the argument that you hear, right? We're setting up this idea. Hardcore ACDC fans have said for years the back in black sounds like Bond wrote the lyrics, but the liner notes say it wasn't him. And then they'll say. that nothing they put out sounds quite the same lyrically after that. So this leads listeners to say,

Maybe he did have something to do with them. So let's talk about the guy that ACDC finds to replace Bon Scott. The story goes is that the young brothers originally heard about Brian Johnson from Bon Scott. Yeah, this is Angus talking. Bod had mentioned that he had been in England once touring with a band that had mentioned that Brian had been in a band called Gordy. Did you hear me that sentence, that run of events?

Brian mentioned he'd been in a band, touring with a band, who mentioned a band that had a singer named Brian. This is a real game of telephone. And Bond had said Brian Johnson, he was a great rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard, and that was Bond's big idol.

Little Richard. I think when he saw Brian at the time to Bond, it was, well, he's a guy that knows what rock and roll is all about. He mentioned that to us in Australia. I suppose when we decided to continue, Brian was the first name that Malcolm and myself came up with So we said we should see if we can find him. There is a story that gets told that they get him to come and audition and he's late and they realize he's just been downstairs playing pool with the roadies.

instead of coming upstairs to run through the songs. So he he finally does get in the room with the boys. And it's described that he is reverent and that he shows a real sadness about the loss of Bond. and then reveals that his band had been covering whole lot of Rosie. And so once they start playing, I guess it kind of clicks for people and they you know, everybody in the room and they feel like it's sort of obvious. Yeah, this is the shiny, cleaned up version of the story.

that they tell now. But if you dig much, you'll find out that it kind of seems like Brian Johnson was sort of their last choice. Yeah, we're gonna come back to this, but ACDC does this a lot. They land on a story eventually, and then for the rest of their history, they tell it one way. But if you go back, you can find discrepancies. We've already seen this once. With the Mutt Lang story, right? So I've also read that where they really heard about Brian Johnson was from Mutt Lane.

Okay. So here are the people that supposedly got asked to consider taking Bond's place who said no. Are you ready for this list? I am. Naughty Holder from Slade. Would have been kind of cool. Mark Storis from Crocus. My favorite crocus song is Our Love and when I hear it I think about true love. Terry Slesser from this band called Blackstreet Crawler. Uh yeah, I don't know much about that.

Iggy Pop. Yeah. Um, how far out is this is a thing, right? Here's a quote from Iggy Pop. This is a real thing. I listened to their record, I thought I can't fit that bill. I wasn't like Ugh, I don't like them. The album was quite well made. They do careful work, but I'm not what they needed. It's an interesting observation by Iggy because he says they do careful work and I'm not what they needed. Yeah. And

I would say Iggy does not do careful work. You know, I mean that that is the opposite of the Iggy thing. Right. So g you know, I didn't think of him as a self reflective and and person who is very aware. Yeah uh about how he comes off, but apparently he is. So in in the narrativized version of the story in Rock magazine

You often get this line tagged in about how the band was distraught over Bond's death and they considered breaking up, but then they decided Bond would want them to go on, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Again, this feels manufactured to me after doing this research. It feels a lot like a PR spin put out to make sure that they sounded humane because the timeline is really tight for how all of this.

breaks down. So walk us through that timeline. I remember this as a kid too. Th th this happening quickly? Once I yeah, I don't remember when it happened. because I was too young for that. But I remember when I discovered how fast this happened.'Cause it was it was A little jarring for me because I understood how significant it was. So Bondi's that this is like a couple years ago. Like my parents have been married for forever. Since the late seventies.

Like within the last two or three years, I did the timeline between when they started dating and when they got married. And I had never realized how short it was. Oh, so how long was it? It was like I think they started dating in October and they were married by July. Yeah. Yeah, which which I think is pretty normal. And they had known each other before that. But I had just

Always just assumed it had been three or four years or like I just had never done the math. You didn't know. Then at one point I did the math. So do the math for us on ACDC. Uh yeah. It's like the ex the X terrible, like moving on fast thing. So Bond dies on February nineteenth of nineteen eighty, the beginning of the decade. Brian is announced as being officially in the band on April Fool's Day. So that gives us less than sixty days?

I mean way less than sixty days. That's barely more than a month. The next week they are recording with Mutt Lang again and Back in Black is released in July. So Bon Scott died In February, Back in Black comes out in July. So this becomes the number one argument for fans who think that Bond wrote the lyrics on Back in Black. The tightness of that timeline. And I'm revisiting the letter here from the top of the show from our buddy Matt.

I once had lunch in Melbourne with a journalist who was close to the subject matter of Bon Scott's death and his family. So here's a fun part of our show. So when people say things like this, it now presents a new mystery, which is You had lunch with a journalist? Now he did not give us the name of this journalist. But I decided to see if I could figure out who the journalist was. And I think I'm

I think I might know. Now only Matt could confirm this. He may say it's somebody totally different. There's probably more than one journalist. But I wanna we we I wanna know if you cracked it. But There is a particular journalist known for putting a large amount of work into this story, and that is a guy named

Jesse Fink. Yeah, Jesse Fink has been writing books for the last twenty years, and two of them are about ACDC. Now in twenty thirteen he released a book focused on the young brothers, and in twenty seventeen he published What is kind of the definitive work on Bond Scott called Bond The Last Highway?

Yeah, and he has become kind of the de facto torchbearer for a lot of this speculation now because he has organized and given the whole story structure. Okay, so here are his main pieces of evidence for why he believes Bonn wrote a lot of back in black. So number one The girlfriends. That's right in the book. Scott's girlfriend, Margaret Silver Smith. She died.

two thousand six told Fink that Scott called her on the evening before his death to invite her out to celebrate him finish finishing writing lyrics for their next album. Oh damn. Another girlfriend of Scott's, Holly X, that's a pseudonym for her, also claims Scott wrote the song You Shook Me All Night Long. That is Number one. Yeah, evidence number one. Evidence number two.

The old bandmate. That would be Vince Lovegrove, who is in the band, the Valentines with Bon early on. He claims to have knowledge that Bon Scott's family gets royalty. From back and black. But the most damning evidence that Fink rounds up is all of the contradictions that are made in the press over the years by the band members themselves. And this gets me back to this loose bigger idea.

that we're gonna we'll we'll just we'll land the plane on this in a moment. But the ACDC camp eventually will find a story and stick to it. But they don't do this quick enough in most cases. There there are a lot of these contradictions chronicled where they clearly deny Bond having any involvement, and then other places where they say that he did. But the most explicit one is probably this one from Australian Rolling Stone in 1998. Here's what they ask him, okay, in Rolling Stone.

Have you ever thought about quitting? And here is his answer. The only time was when Bon Scott died. We were in doubt about what to do, but we had songs that he had written and we wanted to finish the songs. I'm just gonna let that sit for a second. He says this to Rolling Stone in nineteen ninety eight. Australian Rolling Stone. We thought

It would be our tribute to Bond and that album became Back in Black. We didn't even know if people would even accept it, but it was probably one of our biggest albums and the success of that kept it going. We were on the road with that album for about two years, so it was like therapy for the band after his death. Now, he will double back on this at some point and say

Yeah, but they were songs where Bond wrote the riffs, not the lyrics. So that's how they go back to try to clean up his statement in the press. I if you write the riffs, you write the song too. Well yeah, it bec it b it becomes kind of a moot point. Uh it does. But because fans are fixated on the he wrote the lyrics and all their evidence is well it sounds like him and the timeline and all that sort of stuff.

There there really is a side of this we haven't explicitly discussed and that is why. Why would the band keep credit away from Bon Scott, especially if they are letting his family have royalty? So this is a really good question because yes, we we we've breezed over that, but one of these evidences, one of the guys that Jesse Fink has talked to says, I know that the family gets money.

So if the family gets money, why doesn't Bond get credit? Like that usually the reason would be don't give them credit because we don't want to parse out the money. So here's the prevailing theory on this. It has to do with credibility. highway to hell was huge, and they wanted to immediately prove that they could move on without Bond. And if Back and Black was still considered Bond's work,

They thought their career would end because they this would be their last hurrah because people would say, Okay, awesome, but they sucked after Bond left. So they needed to position Brian as adequate to carry the torch. I think whenever you start to tell one fib, it's really hard to tell the truth after that fib. Uh was nineteen ninety eight's A Simple Plan. Have you ever seen this movie? It's

It's the third Oscar nomination for Billy Bob Thornton, right after Sling Blade. He gets two for Sling Blade, and then he gets a best supporting nod for this. Okay. The premise of the movie is that he and his brother played by Bill Paxton and their friend are messing around on a nature preserve in the middle of winter and they find a plane buried in the snow and in the plane they find four million dollars. Okay.

And then they hatch a quote simple plan for how they're going to kind of vet if they can keep the money or not. And of course, as you can imagine, the money just destroys everybody that it touches, right? Basic kind of morality tale, it's a noir. So I think of that and this in the same way a little bit. That at a certain point you've got a plan, you've got a story, but you've got a bunch of dudes who all have their own agendas who are trying to stay on the same page.

And it becomes very wibbly and wobbly. Do you remember when Brian he was losing his hearing and they had to replace him with Axel and then somehow Brian had the cure for being deaf and could perform again as an old man? I always kick him out. Right. I thought that that was a business weird decision. They immediately kicked him out. Like if you go back and look at this, because this wasn't that long ago, they kicked Brian out of the band immediately.

And then Axelbrook is like and they got that we got that really cool rock and roll chair. Like what a great what a great rock and roll like piece of memorabilia that came out of the whole thing. We're not even gonna talk about Phil. The drummer. No, we're not even gonna talk about that. No, we're not even gonna talk about Phil. Okay, and and so here here's the thing though. This makes a lot of sense if you think of it as a business. Right.

Okay, if you think of this as a and not just a business, if you think of it as a family business, ACDC is a family business started by three brothers. Yep. All of a sudden, this whole thing gets a lot more. Understandable. From a why and how and motivational standpoint. Not not I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying you understand how it

In twenty fourteen, Ruth Blatt wrote this article for Forbes titled Why Being a Family Business Made A C D C the Most Consistent Brand in Rock and Roll. And somewhat ironically, this article is in response to Jesse Fink's first book. about ACDC, which doesn't contain any of the Bond controversy, right? But it unknowingly contains some of the most compelling arguments for this idea about Bond being left behind that that came out of all this research. Here is a quote.

from this article. The family is described by numerous associ associates as insular to the point of paranoia. Read that next part. Because of their clannishness, The young stay physically and socially close to each other, other bands. innovate because one or more disappears for a while, mixes with a different crowd, and brings back new musical influences into the fold, those kinds of wanderings are less likely to occur in ACDC by virtue of their clannish

family lifestyle, you know what I always say about A C D A C D C Brian? What? When someone like I guess when I was younger and they're like, Man, I really like that A C D C song, I'm like, Well you're gonna like the rest of them. Well this is literally an academic reason for why all the songs sound the same. All the songs sound

Isn't that interesting that like the Ramones wouldn't get that target as hard as as A C D C was? I think the reason is it was the whole bit. Yeah. I mean the whole bit for the Ramones was Every song's the same. We're all the same. We're all remones. We all look the same.

In in a lot of ways it was like almost too meta for what it was, right? Because as punk was coming out, it was about individuality and the Roman Ramones were fucking with that. Yeah, and the Ramones were were being exactly the opposite of originality and of individuality. They were a collective and they were the same and they were replaceable.

You know, you couldn't move members in and out and dress them the same. They were and they were kissed and they were you know but ACDC wasn't doing that. A C D C was keeping outside of having to switch these vocalists, but that was a whole concern. If we switch this vocalist Does it draw a line in the sand in which people will judge us? How do we keep things

consistent. How do we keep a consistent brand? And yes, we have an academic reason now for a while these songs sound the same, but the larger point of this article is that AC DC, because they were controlled by a family, Had a death grip on the brand and really understood its importance. And they were able to over and over again make ruthless decisions in the name of the family. Yeah. Now, again,

How do they find Mutt Lang? That story shifts. How do they find Brian Johnson? That story shifts. The story about the lyrics, that story shifts. But once they find that certain version they get consistent and this is what you do when you're creating a brand. That is correct. You use the same font, you use the same color, you use the same

origin story, all of that stuff. So Brian Johnson releases a memoir in the last like five years and he goes on out of his way to make sure the readers know that these conspiracy theories are nothing more than conspiracies. They're reinforcing the narrative over and over ACDC is. And the other thing we haven't really emphasized is that one of the reasons this conversation is so important to fans is because of how successful. Back in black is. I kind of like I just forgot this.

The second highest selling record of all time. Do you know uh on sati on If you got I had to close at the record store I worked at in college. Every now and then there is like one guy and if he was there before we like we'd all hang out and party at like midnight when we would close.

If he was the closing manager, we would have to listen to Back and Black, like uh first. Like we couldn't listen there. We had a five disc changer, but you always knew that like back and black was gonna start right at midnight. Read that quote from Revolver. This comes from a piece in twenty nineteen. Yeah, perha but perhaps the most impressive notch on ACDC's collective bit post is this one.

The fact that on the list of all-time best selling artists in the United States, ACDC is ranked tenth, which means that Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Van Halen, U2, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and countless other legendary acts are well behind A C D C when it comes to all time record sales in America. Yeah. So that's how many records that they have sold. And you don't do that sort of business without really controlling your brand.

I mean how they've done so well with it. They w like there was n I didn't think that there was any brand damage when they were like, Yeah, Axl Rose is our singer. It was I was kind of like That tracks so much, it's like this is Axl Rose's This is Axl Rose like you knew immediately that's Axl's dream job. Well, if Axel if God came down from heaven and said, Okay

We're gonna I'm gonna have a trusty voice. We're gonna get you out of this band. He'd be like A C D C It's like and that And and again it doesn't it it tracks with the reputation of their singers. it tracks with the lifestyle that they want people to think they've had, even though, you know, the young brothers uh have had fairly I mean that you know they're not

in the scandal sheets, some of the other guys in the band are. It makes sense as a brand decision. That's what you're saying. Yeah. What's what's too bad that I think that gets overlooked with this band is the influence of Malcolm. And when Malcolm passed away, the tributes were They were dense from rockers who had learned how to play guitar because it's that idea of like

Green Day songs are great, everyone can play them. It's easy to pick up a song a guitar and play a Green Day s it's like, well, A C D C songs are kinda that way too. But it's like th that had to start somewhere. So in the seventies when These metal guys were learning how to play these songs by the the rhythm part anyway. Yeah. By Malcolm and Malcolm was taught a generation of rock and roll rhythm guitar players.

And Malcolm apparently was kind of the genesis of a lot of the writing. And so even though he was the rhythm player, he was the person that actually did a lot of the orchestrating, a lot of writing songs, and he was, I guess, really important in the songwriting process. I think that's where they get overlooked and underappreciated even though it's like they are on the radio or overplayed everywhere all the time. Yeah.

You know what number one is, right? A thriller? Yeah, okay. That's right. Making sure it does beg that question. Wow. So thank you, Colin. I hope this I hope this didn't let you down. Yeah. Um, and hopefully this is like uh, you know, got you back and forth to school all right.

And and Matt, thank you for your more specific question. Thank you to Australia for listening to the show. That's nice. I'd like to say thank you to Australia for listening to the show. And Colin, thanks for listening to our show on the way to school. And if you have a question, uh send us an email. It's we are the storyguys at gmail dot com. Make sure you support the show on Patreon.

Patreon.com backslash rock and roll story guys uh where you can get bonus episodes, uh outtakes most weeks, a newsletter. Um, all sorts of random stuff. Uh, and all you gotta do is send us five or ten bucks a month. It's right there. Patreon.com backslash rock and roll story guys. And until next time, Murdoch, what should people keep doing? Keep telling.