Youngs : The Brothers Who Built Ac/Dc (9781466865204) by Jesse Fink Page A

of your life and you’d never know the way the riffs are played. It’s certainly beyond what 99.9 percent of the population can begin to understand.”
    But, hell, it’s worth a shot.
    *   *   *
    As The Scream was to the history of modern art—redolent of what had come before it, but just a bit heavier —those AC/DC albums released between 1977 and 1980 were to hard rock. No other band has come close to what AC/DC achieved during that four-year period and nobody has been able to replicate the fury of the Youngs’ guitars. When they come in together— whoomp —it’s like a spark igniting a bushfire.
    â€œI don’t think there’s been a better guitar duo ever,” says Mark Evans.
    Perhaps only Guns N’ Roses or Nirvana came close to matching AC/DC during those years in blowing apart the rock paradigm. But AC/DC are still in their own league. They delivered four absolute belters in a row and even in the lean period that followed released the occasional knockout track, like 1990’s “Thunderstruck,” not to mention a slew of unappreciated gems off “lesser” albums: “Spellbound,” “Nervous Shakedown,” “Bedlam in Belgium,” “Who Made Who,” “Satellite Blues” and “All Screwed Up,” among others.
    Rob Riley, who should have conquered America with Rose Tattoo but instead inspired Guns N’ Roses to do what his band of illustrated bad boys could not, says he has “nothing but respect and fucking love and admiration for the boys from Acca Dacca.”
    â€œMost people I know reckon, ‘Oh, but that fucking album sounds the same as the fucking last and they sound the same all the time’ and I go, ‘No, I don’t think that at all.’ I think they’re fantastic just for the simple fact that they can come up with that fresh sound. I think they’re great. I love ‘Riff Raff,’ ‘Thunderstruck,’ ‘Ride On,’ a shitload of stuff. Great stories. Like ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top.’”
    Even one of their most strident critics, Radio Birdman guitarist Deniz Tek, pays them respect: “I think AC/DC ’s strength was singlemindedness and unwavering adherence to a signature sound that millions of fans loved. They stayed true to it, within a narrow operating range. Most bands veer off course after the first few recordings, usually not in a good way. AC/DC never went off the track.
    â€œIt’s not my taste in music but their incredible success and worldwide impact cannot be overstated. I appreciate their sticking to their vision and doing what they do best, giving their fans all over the planet exactly what they want over an amazingly long period of time. They certainly are great at it. They obviously worked very hard for their success and they clearly deserve it. They are one of the few handful of bands that have put Australia on the map as a center of uncompromising hard rock.”
    George brought a similar lack of compromise to shaping his brothers’ musical and financial destiny. He made it plain very early on that AC/DC should not fall into the same trap The Easybeats did by stretching themselves too thin into different styles of songwriting, muddying their identity and confusing the message of their music.
    â€œMalcolm and Angus were born to be in that band,” says Mark Evans. “A lot of it has to go back to being exposed at a very young age to what George went through. Without The Easybeats I don’t think you’d have AC/DC .”
    As Doug Thaler, AC/DC ’s first American booking agent, who went on to manage Mötley Crüe and Bon Jovi, puts it succinctly: “The Easybeats were a world-class group but they didn’t have world-class results.”
    George, the mastermind, made sure his little brothers were never going to fail in that regard and was happy to get them horribly