Angus Young

The AC/DC guitarist on his band’s new album, life with Axl Rose, and why ‘Back in Black’ will never die

On AC/DC’s last tour, in 2016, the band seemed to be falling apart. Frontman

Brian Johnson’s hearing was failing, causing Axl Rose to replace him for part of the tour; rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young — the bedrock of the band — had developed dementia and could no longer play; bassist

Cliff Williams was planning his exit; and drummer Phil Rudd had been placed under house arrest for threatening to kill a man.

Improbably, though, lead guitarist Angus Young has pulled the band back together. Johnson, Williams, and Rudd are all back in the fold, and Angus recruited his nephew Stevie to replace Malcolm, who died in 2017. The group just released Power Up, AC/DC’s 17th trip down the Highway to Hell. Angus has described the foundation-shaking record as a tribute to his late brother Malcolm, the same way the band’s blockbuster Back in Black was an epitaph for fallen frontman Bon Scott. “We’ve had lots of things go wrong,” Angus says over Zoom, dressed comfortably in a hoodie and sitting between two high-powered Marshall amplifiers in a Sydney studio. “But Malcolm always said, ‘See what we can do. Make the best out of the situation.’ ”

AC/DC has long been accused of making the same album over and over again. Does that bother you?

Malcolm used to say, “Yeah, well, they said we sound the same because we’re the same band.” We never aimed to be going into territory that was not ours.

How did you go about writing Power Up? All of the songs are credited to you and Malcolm.

A lot of the ideas come from around the time of [AC/DC’s 2008 LP] Black Ice. When we made that album, we had so much material because we’d had a lot of years off and the two of us had written so many songs. So I just thought, “I’ll concentrate on the ones I knew that he really loved so much and get them out.”

When Axl Rose sang with you, he asked you to perform a lot of songs that AC/DC had never done live or had abandoned a long time ago, like “Live Wire” and “Rock and Roll Damnation.” Did that give you a fresh appreciation for any past AC/DC stuff?

He always reminded me of songs, and at that time, I’m going, “Yeah, I think we played it somewhere.”

And the trouble was he’d usually do it on the day of the show. He’d say, “Can we do that?” And I’d go, “Oh, all right. I’ll try.” I was lucky. I’ve got a guitar tech that played in a cover band. And I would go, “Tell me the first chord, and then I’ll pick it up.” It was fun. It kept us on our toes, too.

At the time, Axl said that he thought you and he might work on some music together. Did that ever come about?

Nothing really came out solid. I know that he has a lot of things he’s involved in. I don’t even know if you would say it was music. But he had a lot of things that he was involved in.

He made it sound like he maybe wanted to write music together, the two of you. That’s why I was curious.

No, no. That never happened.

At the time, some fans were pretty upset with how quickly you replaced Brian. Do you regret the way that came out?

AC/DC has never been in the PR business. We didn’t want to put anyone under an illusion. To be honest with you, Cliff and I thought, “Well, at least we can end what we had signed on to do.” I get it that a lot of people would be looking at something like this as a train wreck [ laughs].

How did Brian end up rejoining for Power Up?

Well, it wasn’t a case of him rejoining. I knew he’d been seeing hearing specialists, and somebody had come up with some new technology that he seemed to think might really work. I knew that he felt he could do a studio album, and so I thought, “Well, that’ll be really good, because that’ll give me the opportunity to get the songs together.” Everyone was eager to be on board with it.

When did you get in touch with Phil Rudd again?

I saw Phil at Mal’s funeral, and I was just so glad to see him. He got himself working with a lot of therapy, and he was looking really healthy and the best that I’d seen him in a long, long time. I had a talk with him and kept up contact with him.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Back in Black, which has become the second bestselling album of all time—

The second? What’s the first?

Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Gotta get rid of them [ laughs].

Why do you think Back in Black was so popular?

With Brian [replacing Bon] in the band, we were going into the unknown, so we didn’t know how it was going to be received. We knew the songs were strong. Our management told us, “You might sell a couple of million if you’re really prominent.” And they were shocked that it had sold so much. So I guess it’s just an album that grew on people. But it never even got to Number One in the U.S., which Malcolm thought was a good thing. He said,

“If you get to Number One, there’s only one other place you can go” [ laughs].