![]() ![]() Sometimes he might write something and he would go: ‘Is that too clever?’ And I would go: ‘No!’” ![]() I thought: ‘He knows me better than anyone,’ and he was my audience whenever I had my own ideas. “So for this album I was determined to use some of the strong ideas he had put a lot of effort into. But he still held himself together pretty good,” says Young. Had Malcolm already been diagnosed with dementia? Were they stockpiling against the day when he wouldn’t be able to write? “There was the odd moment towards the end of that time … you could see something was not right. Young says they spent five years in the studio together accumulating material, with 2008’s Black Ice the first album made from those writing sessions. After the tour for Stiff Upper Lip ended in 2001, the band were silent for seven years, but Angus and Malcolm set to work on writing not just whole songs, but extra riffs, hooks and choruses. The origins of Power Up date back to the early years of this century. And when I listen to it, it’s almost like time travel.” It’s a throwback to the days when rock’n’roll was so much fun and we were younger and it just seemed like nothing would end and it was always gonna be life in the early 80s, before Aids, before all that. “I still get goosebumps when I hear that song,” Johnson says. It kept flashing through my mind: ‘Is this how Malcolm wants it?' We don’t want to sound gooey but facts is facts Brian Johnson ![]() There are even surprises: Through the Mists of Time is curiously reminiscent of a mid-tempo track from an early REM album, albeit played by a hard rock band. It would be unreasonable to expect another Powerage, Highway to Hell or Back in Black at this point, but Power Up is a genuinely decent album, a lot better than their last few. But putting out newer material, I hadn’t really given that a thought.”īut here we are with Power Up, the band’s 17th studio album, and it is a good bit better than one might have feared. “I figured at some point either the record company or somebody would say to me: ‘Do you think you could put something together?’’ So I had that in the back of my head. But Young – since Malcolm’s retirement, the band’s undisputed kingpin – says he had always thought their story was not necessarily over. “No,” he says, simply, and bursts into laughter. When Williams is asked if he had expected it to happen, his answer is rather more to the point. He was there in such a strong spirit that it was palpable. We walked into the studio, and you could feel the electricity in the air. “It just shows the resilience and the bond that exists between us. Johnson, his hearing now much better thanks to what he calls a pair of “prosthetic eardrums”, agrees. ![]() So when, in September 2018, photos emerged of AC/DC – including Johnson, Williams and Rudd – together at a Vancouver studio, it seemed miraculous. Little more than a year after that final show, Malcolm was dead. Angus’s brother Malcolm – the band’s de facto leader – had already left, owing to dementia, to be replaced by their nephew Stevie. Drummer Phil Rudd, the longest-serving member bar Young, had not even made it on to the tour, after getting himself involved in what Young had called “a bit of a pickle”: pleading guilty in a New Zealand court to charges of threatening to kill his personal assistant, plus possession of methamphetamine and cannabis. ![]()
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