03BACK IN BLACK AC/DC

(1980)

BACKINBLACK IS, AS DEF LEPPARD’S PHIL COLLEN DESCRIBES IT, THE PERFECT ROCK SONG...

The biggest riff from rock’s biggest album

Malcolm Young had it all planned out from the very start. When the rhythm guitarist formed AC/DC in 1973 with his kid brother Angus on lead, he knew exactly how to make the band’s sound as powerful as possible. As Angus recalled: “Malcolm’s idea was that two of us were always a unit together. We worked as that one unit and tried to make it one big guitar.” And there is no better illustration of this than Back In Black – the title track from what became the biggest selling rock album of all time.

It was an album born out of tragedy, following the death of AC/DC’S singer Bon Scott in February 1980. But with a new singer, Brian Johnson, the band pulled off the greatest comeback ever seen in rock ’n’ roll. And for an album that Angus described as “our tribute to Bon”, the title track was hugely symbolic. That funky, earth-shaking riff was one that Angus had first started toying with back in 1979 during the Highway To Hell tour, Bon’s last with the band.

The album was recorded in just six weeks with producer Mutt Lange, who had cut Highway To Hell and would go on to make Def Leppard’s monster hit Hysteria. Lange’s right hand man, engineer Tony Platt, described the recording process to Premier Guitar magazine. “There was a definite focus to record Back In Black as basically and as live as possible,” Platt said. “So all the songs were tracked with Angus and Malcolm, bass and drums. On a few occasions we may have dropped in a chord or so on a great take.”

Angus Young has always favoured a Gibson SG (leaving the standard issue pickups in it), and has always recorded with it. The Back In Black sessions were no different. His amps were Marshalls as usual. “Still 100-watt Super Leads,” Angus told TG’S sister mag Guitar World. “The old-style ones, without those preamp things. I remember at the time that was the new thing Marshall was trying to push. They were trying to get people interested in ’em, but I wasn’t really interested.” As Malcolm recalled it: “I think Angus went to a smaller 50-watt Marshall for his solos. Just for some extra warmth. I was still using my Marshall bass head...”

Despite Angus’ massively crunchy guitar tone, he seldom cranked up the overdrive. “The amp is set very clean,” he said. “A lot of people who have picked up my guitar and tried it through my amp have been shocked at how clean it is. They think it’s a very small sound when they play it and wonder how it sounds so much bigger when I’m playing. I just like enough gain so that it will still cut when you hit a lead lick without getting that sort of false Tonebender-type sound. I like to get a natural sustain from the guitar and amp.”

What AC/DC created in Back In Black was, according to Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, “the ultimate rock song”. As Phil said: “It has that sexy groove that hardly any rock band could get close to, amazingly restrained, confident guitars that are pure rock, outrageous drums and a vocal meter that is almost a rap but very rock ’n’ roll. And considering the song is based on a blues format, it’s extremely original.”