Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / AC/DC’s Secret Weapon: Malcolm Young [Highlight From Episode 345]

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AC/DC’s Secret Weapon: Malcolm Young [Highlight From Episode 345] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our guest is Kathy McCabe, author of the new book
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Rock Gods, Icons of Rock Music. I love that Malcolm
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: is in there with Angus Young because Malcolm, a lot
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of people don't know unless you're a really hardcore ACDC fan.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: He is so important to the ACDC sound, which I'm
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: assuming is that why you wanted to put the brothers
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: together rather than just Angus, because maybe most would just
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: go with Angus because he's the guy. You see, he's
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the you know, he's the the face of the band.
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  Speaker 2: With that they never never could have been.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, he was the one who was neurdling away
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  Speaker 3: on the guitar in the bedroom while you know, the
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  Speaker 3: fans of their brother George were screaming on the front
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  Speaker 3: yard in western Sydney, a couple of suburbs away from
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  Speaker 3: where I am now, and Angus was just trying to
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: be as good as him. But the interesting thing was
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: they deviate in their paths of how they wanted to
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: play and how they wanted to construct music. And that
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  Speaker 3: was Malcolm went rhythm and Angus went lead, and that
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  Speaker 3: I guess that kind of happened naturally is as brothers,
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  Speaker 3: would you know, sitting in a bedroom jamming, Well, you're
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: not going to want to play exactly the same thing together.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: You're going to want to sort of play.
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  Speaker 3: Off each other and inspire and push each other. But
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  Speaker 3: Malcolm was was He was the captain of that band.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: The General, the Little General.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I think was one of the nicknames that he had.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: People came and went in that band because Malcolm wanted
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: them to go. You know, he had absolutely no qualms
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: about changing the line up when he felt that there'd
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: been a clash of personality, or somebody wasn't lifting their weight,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: or were going through some tough times themselves with drugs
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: and alcohol. I mean, he famously took himself off for
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: about eight to ten months, you know, when the drinking
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  Speaker 3: got the better of him and started affecting his playing.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: And that was the first time Stevie Young, their nephew,
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  Speaker 3: joined the band, who now you know, is permanently there
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: as Marcum's replacement.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: That was in eighty six, i think nineteen eighty six,
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  Speaker 1: on the Blow Up Your Video tour.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
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  Speaker 3: You know it's like obviously the two of them stopped
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  Speaker 3: to have a conversation after Bond's death, you know, do
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: we carry on? Do we fold the band? And it
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: was bon Scott's family who insisted that he would have
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: wanted them to continue, so, you know, they did their
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: secret auditions found Brian Johnson and the rest is history.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I saw them a couple of weeks ago here, and
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  Speaker 3: despite the fact that there's been you know, the usual
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: social media pylon about you know, perhaps they're not at
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: their best anymore. I took a friend who'd never seen
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: them before, and he was just completely wild.
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  Speaker 2: I saw nine.
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  Speaker 3: Year old goals with their you know, their little flashing
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  Speaker 3: horns and their mouths just dropped watching this complete explosion
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  Speaker 3: of you know, guitars, drums and bass and Johnson doing
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  Speaker 3: the best you can with the voice that he's got
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: at his age seventy eight, I think, and I just
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: don't understand why you would begrudge them doing what they're
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: doing when they're able to do it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm with you, they can do it as long as
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they want. If nobody's forcing the fans to go, you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: don't have to buy a ticket.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Well, and it's not the fans who are who are
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: leading this, you know, time to hang it.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Up call.
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  Speaker 3: It's people who haven't even been to the gig who
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: are watching, you know, the dodgy concept footage that we
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: all take on our on our phones. I mean, it
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: just seems if you're there, the electricity of it is,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: you know, you can't argue that that is worth the
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: price of admission.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the times we're in now. Everybody's putting up
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: footage on lyons certainly not not even close to the
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: same thing. Like you said, it's an experience when you're there.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: That's great to hear that the younger generation is still
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: loving ACDC. What's not to love, right, I mean that
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  Speaker 1: the songs are just they hook you in and they
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: never let you go.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: And that's the thing about rock music too, I think,
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: you know, and it was notwithstanding you know, the artists
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: that we've lost, there is this you know, inexplicable refreshing
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of the generation with rock music that I think happens
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: far more with this genre than it does with pop
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  Speaker 3: or even hip hop. It seems almost to be a
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: rite of passage that you know, particularly for young Australians
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  Speaker 3: that you know, guys turn thirteen, the testosterone kicks in
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  Speaker 3: and they're they're raiding their parents ac DC records.
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  Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome, or in.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Excess or midn idol or cultures or whichever.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: And then you know led Zeppelin, Black Zabbath, whoever from overseas,
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  Speaker 3: and they become real students.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Of the music.
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  Speaker 3: They like to dive down the rabbit hole and find,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: you know, more music, find you know, interesting information. There
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  Speaker 3: were students of it, and I don't I don't see
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: that happening as much with pop music. Maybe Michael Jackson,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: but not to the same degree that it does with
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  Speaker 3: all all of the rock ats.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You're right, interesting to see what happens regarding Michael. The
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: movies coming out on Michael, So we'll see what that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: does for his bodywork, because I mean there's a guy
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: who was just what he could do. Is I mean
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: we had in the eighties, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna. I mean,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: there's so many huge stars, Whitney Houston. You know, it's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: amazing how many people the greatest artist performers of all
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  Speaker 1: time in that decade.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you sort of see it.
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  Speaker 3: I guess around you know, anniversaries and things like that.
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  Speaker 3: You'll see, you know, a spike that will happen in
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  Speaker 3: you know streaming or on the charts where a good
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: of back catalog or go back. But you look at
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  Speaker 3: ac DC, I mean they held their music off streaming
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  Speaker 3: services until twenty fifteen. They only went on I Tunes
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, so they held out. Now they've got
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: three songs that are over two billion, Thunderstruck, Highway to Hell,
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  Speaker 3: Back in Black, I think you shook me all On's
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  Speaker 3: one point five billion.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be up there, so you know.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: There's not there's there's what the Weekend Edjiran Taylor, Swift, Adele,
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  Speaker 3: a bunch of others. Who are you know, Drake and
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Kendrack could have three billion, two billion multiple tracks.
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  Speaker 2: But I can't think of another rock at that's.
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  Speaker 3: Got that many tracks that have hit that that Spotify
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: ceiling of over two billion.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And there everywhere sport you go to sporting events, you
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: hear Thunderstruck and Back in Black, and.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Thunderstruck would have to be the most played sports highlights
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: package song of all time.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so many people I would put
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I would put money on that