A few months ago, I was talking with a Senate candidate about AC/DC, his favorite band. It kind of blows my mind to imagine someone in the Senate listening to She’s Got Balls or Highway to Hell on earphones while Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are trying to cripple Social Security and privatize Medicare. When I told him I was at the infamous San Francisco show on the band’s first U.S. tour— at the Old Waldorf— and was backstage when one of them had his dick bitten by a groupie, he flipped out. And he sent me a recording of the show (up top), that I wasn't even aware existed.
I told him what I remembered about the show, but it was like 45 years ago and they were just a new, unknown band from Australia touring American clubs. I couldn’t even remember for sure which guy got his dick bitten. And you know what else I didn’t remember? The second night— I went to both shows both nights (4 sets)— I had sat down with a tape recorder to have a chat with Bon Scott and Angus Young. But, recently I found a transcript of the interview. There wasn’t much to it so I don’t mind re-transcribing it.
They told me they were kind of new but not “new wave.” Bon: “We don’t like being classified as a punk rock band. Not everyone can be p.r. bullshit. It’s great that there are new bands, fresh faces and all, but there are good bands and bad bands within that punk rock. We just call ourselves a rock band.” Angus chimed in that “The punk thing in America is pretty cool. It’s not like England where it’s a very political thing— a dole queue type of thing. There’s too much money over here too classify all the punk bands as dole queues and dropouts. It’s just a young thing— a new breed type thing.”
Bon Scott was back with how funny he finds it “over here when someone calls himself punk.” Angus: “If we said we were a punk band, people would say, ‘Yeah, right. These bands are violent; they like shittin’ and pissin’ on carpets, smashin’ up rooms and the like. A lot of people get the wrong idea and get turned off and don’t wanna see ya.” I mentioned that to an outsider they seem pretty aggro and violent themselves.
Angus: Onstage we can do it any number of ways, depending. Some nights we play violent. We get mean, ya know. Other nights we just get on and have fun. Last night— the second set— I could hardly walk. I had two rubber balls; they’d gone rock hard. Some chick was suckin’ me dick and bit the end of me dick— left these big teeth marks on there. Backstage. Big tits, a huge tall chick.
Bon: I had him on my shoulders out in the audience there and he was shoutin’ ‘Put me down, put me down— me balls, me balls.’
I changed the subject— asked them about how they got their name. Angus jumped right in with a well-used, tired line: “The back of me sister’s sewing machine; sounded cool. The first gigs that we ever used to do were small clubs and the first time we ever toured [1974] we were with that guy from here… what’s his name?
Bon: Lou Reed.
Angus: Yeah, Lou Reed and so consequently people would say ‘Oh AC/DC and Lou Reed; this is gonna be some big bisexual show.’ We played and every gay place in the country booked us on the name alone. Those were some of the best gigs we ever done. They loved it.
Bon: Especially Angus’ school uniform and shorts. They went crazy.
Angus: It was a lot of fun.
I told them that I had heard they took their name from the song by Sweet. They didn't like that and they didn't like Sweet.
Bon: That’s what they put around.
Angus: They came to Australia once and they were mouthing off on the radio that we took the name off them and we sound like them. In Australia, Sweet are a bubblegum pop band. Same in England. If you’re gonna take a name, you wouldn’t take it off something like them.
Afterwards, Bon said that the letters on the back on the album sleave “were kind of toned down for publication” and proudly showed me some of what he said were the real letters. One said “You’re a foul, rotten, filthy, sordid, disgusting, sex-starved, revolting, used-up bastard. We hate you.” It wasn't much of an interview but as much as I liked the music on that first album, I thought they were probably too gimmicky to ever go anywhere.
I never went to see them again after those club shows, although 2 years later there were 4 Day on the Green shows and I had a photo pass and went to all of them to take pictures. AC/DC was on the third show with Aerosmith and I saw their set which easily upstaged all the other bands who played that summer. A few months later Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning and was replaced by Brian Johnson (who recorded Back in Black with them, a good record). In 2016 Johnson went deaf and was replaced by Axl Rose and the following year Angus’ brother, Malcolm, died of dementia, although he had already retired a couple years earlier. But they still call the thing AC/DC and they’re supposed to tour again— after a 6 year hiatus— next year.
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