AC/DC's "Back In Black" (1980): Track by Track!

<v Speaker 1>Welcome back everybody to these Surely You Can't Be Serious
<v Speaker 1>podcast For those about to rock, we salute you. We
<v Speaker 1>are here to take on the second part of the
<v Speaker 1>Appetite for Destruction versus Back in Black episode. Jason, how
<v Speaker 1>are you doing?
<v Speaker 2>It's been along. I'm glad to be back. Yes, I'm
<v Speaker 2>let loose from the noose. Thanks kept me hanging about.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm just understruck, so let's start rocking the free world.
<v Speaker 3>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
<v Speaker 3>Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
<v Speaker 3>of eighties and nineties pop culture.
<v Speaker 1>With your co hosts James D.
<v Speaker 3>Graves and Jason Collivin.
<v Speaker 1>We are here today to talk about the ACDC album
<v Speaker 1>Back in Black. Last week we talked about Appetite for
<v Speaker 1>Destruction by Guns N' Roses, and once we're done with
<v Speaker 1>going through today's episode, we will give you our final
<v Speaker 1>judgment as to which album we think is the best. Jason,
<v Speaker 1>do you know what you're gonna pick? Yet?
<v Speaker 2>I do know what I'm gonna pick. I do know
<v Speaker 2>what I'm gonna pick. This was a really fun episode
<v Speaker 2>to put together because I mean, you and I went
<v Speaker 2>back and forth. We had to find two worthy opponents.
<v Speaker 1>Right, we've got Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson face to face.
<v Speaker 1>Here we go. That's who's gonna bite somebody's ear off.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do it, man, Let's yeah, all right, we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>jump right in. So we're talking today about ac DC,
<v Speaker 1>who has a unique history. They started off and got
<v Speaker 1>famous with a singer that was not the singer for
<v Speaker 1>Back in Black.
<v Speaker 2>They went through a couple of singers before they got
<v Speaker 2>to the singer Back in Black. When they started out,
<v Speaker 2>initially they had this guy named Dave Evans, Yeah, Dave
<v Speaker 2>and Mark Stone and uh, the guy for the police
<v Speaker 2>need to form this band called Missus, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, so Dave Evans was the guy. They had
<v Speaker 1>had a guy or two before that. But I'll rewind
<v Speaker 1>just a little bit. You know, we gave you the
<v Speaker 1>story of the Van Halen Boys history and with this band.
<v Speaker 1>There's no question that Malcolm and Angus Young are the
<v Speaker 1>backbone of the band. They're the founders of the band.
<v Speaker 1>They're the consistent and so some interesting things about them.
<v Speaker 1>You know, this is regarded as an Australian band, but
<v Speaker 1>most of the members the core members anyway, were transplants.
<v Speaker 1>They were immigrants from Scotland. Bond Scott, who ultimately became
<v Speaker 1>the lead singer, came over in the fifties, and Angus
<v Speaker 1>and Malcolm came over with their family. In nineteen sixty three.
<v Speaker 1>Scotland had had what was called the Big Freeze, which
<v Speaker 1>was like the worst winter on record, and so everybody
<v Speaker 1>was kind of miserable eight feet of snow, and their
<v Speaker 1>dad sees a advert on the telly, as they say,
<v Speaker 1>and it's given, you know, financial help for somebody who
<v Speaker 1>wants to travel down to Australia, and so he and
<v Speaker 1>another family member's travel down there. And it's down there
<v Speaker 1>that their older brother, George starts a band that within
<v Speaker 1>just like six months or so has a reasonably popular success.
<v Speaker 1>And the boys see his fame and they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I think we could do that.
<v Speaker 2>Their brother, George was a member of the band called
<v Speaker 2>the Easy Beats, who had a hit song in America.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and they were inspired.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, hey, our brother put together a couple of guys,
<v Speaker 2>made some music, and all of a sudden he's famous.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I mean they came over there and they were
<v Speaker 1>they're poor, they were staying in a hostel. You know that.
<v Speaker 1>It was a meager means that they existed by. And
<v Speaker 1>then six months later they've got cameramen on their front
<v Speaker 1>doorstep wanting to take pictures of the new rock.
<v Speaker 2>Star, their famous brother. That's right right. They grew up, though,
<v Speaker 2>in a musical family where they would sit around the
<v Speaker 2>piano and they would play songs, and for them this
<v Speaker 2>was normal behavior. They just assumed every family did these things.
<v Speaker 1>Right, just kind of like reading. For them. Everybody just
<v Speaker 1>learned how to play something.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Angus's first instrument was actually a banjo that he strung
<v Speaker 1>as a guitar so that he could play it like
<v Speaker 1>a guitar. And he and Malcolm formed a couple of
<v Speaker 1>high school groups, separate groups, and eventually they decided, you
<v Speaker 1>know what, these groups aren't working out, but we do
<v Speaker 1>something together. And then George, the older brother, got home
<v Speaker 1>and they said, hey, we've started a band together, and
<v Speaker 1>he goes, I give that one two weeks.
<v Speaker 2>These were two brothers separated by two years, and they
<v Speaker 2>constantly fought.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it's interesting to hear that two weeks for
<v Speaker 1>guys who ended up staying together from nineteen seventy four
<v Speaker 1>until Malcolm had to leave the band due to health issues. Yeah. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>forty years.
<v Speaker 2>It's a great run for them, great run for them.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's interesting where they got their name from
<v Speaker 2>their band name. Yeah, their sister Margaret had a sewing
<v Speaker 2>machine and she just made the comment something about her
<v Speaker 2>sewing machine and on the back of it has this
<v Speaker 2>little label that said ACDC. Yeah, basically heard that and
<v Speaker 2>he's like, and that's that's pretty good, you know, And
<v Speaker 2>that to them meant power and energy, and they thought, well,
<v Speaker 2>that's a pretty good name.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we're electric. Not much longer, they're riding in a
<v Speaker 1>taxi cab and they tell the cabby their name and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, are you guys gay? Like what speaking.
<v Speaker 2>Of their name? Yeah, So it really did just come
<v Speaker 2>from the back of a sewing machine. Everybody has tried
<v Speaker 2>to put different meanings for it.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I had heard all the rumors about how anti Christ
<v Speaker 2>Devil's Children or after Christ Devil comes all this sort of.
<v Speaker 2>They just thought it was pretty cool little electrical term.
<v Speaker 1>You know. There's this thing that happened when we were
<v Speaker 1>kids where this guy in California was murdering people as
<v Speaker 1>the Nightstalker. As it happened. You know, the sheriff's office
<v Speaker 1>found a hat that he had left behind at one
<v Speaker 1>of the murder scenes and it happened to be an
<v Speaker 1>ACDC hat. The you know, the sheriff's office was like,
<v Speaker 1>we use that information to try to get people to go, hey,
<v Speaker 1>maybe I know who that is. You know, it's identifying.
<v Speaker 1>But the press took it and went an entirely different
<v Speaker 1>direction and try to make them into this demonic band
<v Speaker 1>and yeah, anti christ thing. It kind of dumb.
<v Speaker 2>If you liked ac DC's music, you were suspected of
<v Speaker 2>being a serial.
<v Speaker 1>Killer, right, yeah, But I mean, to be fair, they
<v Speaker 1>did have a lot of stuff that would have cost
<v Speaker 1>I mean, if I was a parent back in the
<v Speaker 1>eighties have been like, wait a minute, there's a guy
<v Speaker 1>with the devil horns and deviltale on this album and
<v Speaker 1>the songs the songs called what Highway to Hell?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, no, right exactly.
<v Speaker 1>I think they like to do things that were controversial
<v Speaker 1>and stir up excitement about themselves. I don't a new
<v Speaker 1>idea knowledge, No, And it's not a satanic band, right right.
<v Speaker 1>So the boys have their band, they go through a
<v Speaker 1>couple of singers, end up with Dave Evans for a
<v Speaker 1>little while, who's very much a glam rocker. He's putting
<v Speaker 1>on the makeup, he's got the spandex going on, and
<v Speaker 1>the guys are like, uh, this is not working out.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like this.
<v Speaker 2>They didn't like the glam thing at all, but they
<v Speaker 2>did have a hit with him. Was called can I
<v Speaker 2>Sit next to You Girl? Yep, sounds like a Beach.
<v Speaker 1>Boys too, but it was. Yeah. So they decide, we're
<v Speaker 1>tired to Dave. We want somebody else who can rock
<v Speaker 1>a little bit while they have been going through this experience.
<v Speaker 1>Bon Scott, whose name is given name is Ronald, but
<v Speaker 1>they called him Bond, which was short for Bonnie Scotland
<v Speaker 1>because he was from Scotland. From Scotland, right, and so
<v Speaker 1>he had a rough go of it. He's kind of
<v Speaker 1>like Axel, you know. He had he had some run
<v Speaker 1>ins with the law, maybe punched a cop in the
<v Speaker 1>face here and there, you know, like you do, right.
<v Speaker 1>And he had been involved with a couple of bands,
<v Speaker 1>one of which was named Fraternity.
<v Speaker 2>He was in Fraternity, the Valentines and the Valentines.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, he had been in those bands, but had kind
<v Speaker 1>of you know, reached the end, hadn't been much of
<v Speaker 1>a success, had played with some guys and done some tours,
<v Speaker 1>but really was just kind of at a low point.
<v Speaker 1>And one night in nineteen seventy four, gets in kind
<v Speaker 1>of a yelling match with someone in the middle of
<v Speaker 1>the night in one of the bands and drinks. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>he'd been drinking all day, which he did for most
<v Speaker 1>of his adult life, and jumped on a motorcycle and
<v Speaker 1>had a wreck that almost killed him.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, that's right, very near to death.
<v Speaker 1>At that same time, as he was recovering in the hospital,
<v Speaker 1>the boys are looking for a new lead singer for
<v Speaker 1>the band and somebody says, hey, you know what about
<v Speaker 1>having Bond Scott And they're like guy who drives with
<v Speaker 1>the van right right, when you do these things that
<v Speaker 1>you find that there's never a completely consistent history on
<v Speaker 1>exactly what happened. But basically Bond Scott had kind of
<v Speaker 1>acted as a van driver or roady for the band,
<v Speaker 1>played drums with him here and there, and initially the
<v Speaker 1>idea was suggested to him somebody, and I think it
<v Speaker 1>may have been George said he's too old, and I'm
<v Speaker 1>pretty sure that motorcycle accident has messed him up permanently.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think he's a good fit. And then Bond
<v Speaker 1>goes to see ac DC playing and he watches him
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, he wanted to join the band right away,
<v Speaker 1>but he was like, man, they're really young. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if they're mature enough to handle me. But once
<v Speaker 1>they got together, they were immediately brothers. You know.
<v Speaker 2>Angus At that moment when Bond wanted to join the band,
<v Speaker 2>Angus was only nineteen, Malcolm was twenty one, and bon
<v Speaker 2>Scott was twenty nine. So he's an older guy. He's
<v Speaker 2>been around the block a few.
<v Speaker 1>Times, yeah, and a few times.
<v Speaker 2>And he went to him and he's like, hey, give
<v Speaker 2>me a shot. You know, I think I can. I'm
<v Speaker 2>a better singer than the guy that's been traveling with
<v Speaker 2>you guys. You know, give me a shot. I can
<v Speaker 2>do this. Yeah, And then when he stepped in, man,
<v Speaker 2>it took off.
<v Speaker 1>It was magic.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, everybody, we're going to take a quick break. We'll
<v Speaker 2>be right back after this business.
<v Speaker 1>And so yeah, kind of the rest is history for
<v Speaker 1>a time there. They put their first record out in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy six.
<v Speaker 2>That album is called High Voltage and actually that's the
<v Speaker 2>first international release. I think they had a couple of
<v Speaker 2>albums that were Australia only and they kind of combined
<v Speaker 2>those two to make an all star one called High Voltage,
<v Speaker 2>which was released. Most people are familiar with that one
<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy six.
<v Speaker 1>And it's it's interesting, you know, you look at the
<v Speaker 1>album covers, the center of attention is Angus, right, you know. Typically,
<v Speaker 1>I mean even with van Halen, David Lee Roth was
<v Speaker 1>in the front. I mean, Eddie was there, but it
<v Speaker 1>was you didn't have only the guitar player on the front.
<v Speaker 1>But Angus had done a heck of a job kind
<v Speaker 1>of developing this persona with a schoolboy outfit. This was
<v Speaker 1>the This is the other way. His sister was involved, right,
<v Speaker 1>that's it. That's right.
<v Speaker 2>So his sister, Margaret, who came up with the name ACDC,
<v Speaker 2>also commented that Aegis still looked like a schoolboy, right,
<v Speaker 2>and he thought, well, heck, if I look like a schoolboy,
<v Speaker 2>I might as well still wear the schoolboy outfit.
<v Speaker 1>He had been trying to find a stick. He had
<v Speaker 1>tried Superman parody called super ag and he had tried
<v Speaker 1>a spider Man and a Zoro outfit. But when he's
<v Speaker 1>a small man. Small he was young at the time anyway,
<v Speaker 1>I mean a young guy. But he's a small, young guy,
<v Speaker 1>and so the schoolboy outfit worked. It was kind of this, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>is there a little kid up there shredding the guitar
<v Speaker 1>right now?
<v Speaker 2>I saw this. This is really interesting. Angus is five
<v Speaker 2>foot two, yeah, Malcolm is five foot three, yeah. Brian
<v Speaker 2>Johnson's only five foot five.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So the power that these guys put out. These guys
<v Speaker 2>are pint sized rockers, but they are awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. They to kind of promote the schoolboy image. They
<v Speaker 1>told everybody that Angus was actually five years younger than
<v Speaker 1>he really was.
<v Speaker 2>When you think about what I was doing at nineteen,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he's touring the world doing all this crazy stuff,
<v Speaker 2>playing crazy guitar. He's a rock star.
<v Speaker 1>All these guys were high school dropouts who became world touring,
<v Speaker 1>world changing rock stars.
<v Speaker 2>Malcolm and Angus dropped out of high school exactly at
<v Speaker 2>fourteen years nine months, which is legally the minimum you
<v Speaker 2>can go to school. I'm out of here.
<v Speaker 1>My school birthday is tomorrow.
<v Speaker 2>That is math, Assimon, that you jumps are doing tonight,
<v Speaker 2>I ain't doing it.
<v Speaker 1>So they became a pretty big hit in Australia, and
<v Speaker 1>then with the release of High Voltage they started to
<v Speaker 1>get some international success. It took them a little while
<v Speaker 1>to become a success in America, though.
<v Speaker 2>It did they. I heard. One of the ways they
<v Speaker 2>did it was they would play anywhere, anytime, all the time.
<v Speaker 2>Ten people, five people, three hundred people, didn't matter. Their
<v Speaker 2>play and play and play and play and play. And
<v Speaker 2>that's something that the Beatles actually did in Hamburg. They
<v Speaker 2>would just play so much they got good at their craft,
<v Speaker 2>right and people they made a name for themselves.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you and I have both read the book Outliers
<v Speaker 1>that talks about how the Beatles would play in that
<v Speaker 1>strip club in Hamburg, and it would they wouldn't have
<v Speaker 1>a half hour set, they wouldn't have an hour set.
<v Speaker 1>They would have an eight hour set in a strip club.
<v Speaker 1>So people aren't really looking at them, so they were like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we've got to find some music that's interesting for people
<v Speaker 1>to listen to because we're not the focus of the
<v Speaker 1>show here. And they got so much practice just as
<v Speaker 1>kids that by the time they hit America in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>sixty four, there were already experts in their craft.
<v Speaker 2>So after High Voltage, they moved to London in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy six in an effort to become international rock stars.
<v Speaker 1>It's interesting, you know, to hear these guys talk because
<v Speaker 1>they don't sound Scottish, but they also don't exactly sound
<v Speaker 1>Australian either. That's funny because Brian Johnson at this time
<v Speaker 1>is playing in a band called Jordi, which refers to
<v Speaker 1>a group of folks who have a very unique style
<v Speaker 1>of speaking from the UK. If you've seen Britain's Got Talent,
<v Speaker 1>the two guys who are you know, off to the side,
<v Speaker 1>who like introduce people and stuff, those guys are both
<v Speaker 1>Jordy guys and it's that kind of the accent is
<v Speaker 1>intriguing to.
<v Speaker 2>Me, you know, just kind of on that note, I
<v Speaker 2>read that. So these guys are short, they kind of
<v Speaker 2>look like truck drivers, They kind of talk funny. They
<v Speaker 2>had trouble getting into their own gigs sometimes because people
<v Speaker 2>didn't believe they were the rock stars that they are.
<v Speaker 2>They looked like just these average guys off the streets,
<v Speaker 2>the little scruffy you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah they did. Bond was missing a few teeth
<v Speaker 1>as an older guy. I mean, he looks too old.
<v Speaker 1>They look too young. It's all very I mean, this
<v Speaker 1>guy's got tattoos and chest hair and this is supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be a lead singer for a rock band. I
<v Speaker 1>don't understand what's going on here.
<v Speaker 2>So after High Voltage, also in nineteen seventy six, they
<v Speaker 2>release Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
<v Speaker 1>There Dune Dirt Cheap.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but they don't stop there. In nineteen seventy seven
<v Speaker 2>they release another album, Let There Be Rock.
<v Speaker 1>And the music was good and the music was loud.
<v Speaker 2>Then in nineteen seventy eight, notice they're not taking any
<v Speaker 2>time off at all. They release Poweradge.
<v Speaker 1>Album Tour, Album Tour.
<v Speaker 2>It's just like the Van Halen episodes. We talked about
<v Speaker 2>lash Back if you haven't heard episode one of Van Halen.
<v Speaker 2>Then again in nineteen seventy nine, they released an album
<v Speaker 2>called If You Want Blood, You've Got It that was
<v Speaker 2>a live album.
<v Speaker 1>All of those albums were produced by their brother, George.
<v Speaker 1>I guess he was the seasoned expert at the time
<v Speaker 1>that they started the band. But you know he's helping
<v Speaker 1>him out through this process and he's the older, wiser
<v Speaker 1>guy who can put these albums together. And make them
<v Speaker 1>sound good. Well.
<v Speaker 2>Then in nineteen seventy nine, we have an album called
<v Speaker 2>Highway to Hell.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this one was not produced by their brother Georgie.
<v Speaker 1>This one was produced by Langa Lega.
<v Speaker 2>We love him. He produced Pyromania, He produced Hysteria. He
<v Speaker 2>produced some albums by Celine Dion and Schneia Twain. He
<v Speaker 2>also did Heartbeat City by the Cars back in. Michael
<v Speaker 2>Bolton Michael Bolton, this guy knows how to make hits.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, come on, yeah, he does, and he was
<v Speaker 1>Highway to Hell was one of the earlier ones that
<v Speaker 1>he had done, and he had not quite gotten to
<v Speaker 1>the state that he was at by the time Pyromania
<v Speaker 1>came under his control. But he was definitely a guy
<v Speaker 1>who knew what he was doing and was still meticulous
<v Speaker 1>and was still making hit albums.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. They would talk about how they get started about
<v Speaker 2>ten in the morning, and then they would come in
<v Speaker 2>and record and he would stay until three o'clock in
<v Speaker 2>the morning, just be a studio rat.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Then just as things are taking off, they're on
<v Speaker 1>their meteoric rise. February nineteenth to be exact, nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>bon Scott goes out drinking with his friends, and bon
<v Speaker 1>Scott was always the guy who wanted to keep partying,
<v Speaker 1>who wanted to drink a little bit more, stay up
<v Speaker 1>a little bit longer. And he and the boys had
<v Speaker 1>gotten together just a few days before and they had said,
<v Speaker 1>here are some of the songs that you know, here's
<v Speaker 1>the music, some of the songs that were working on
<v Speaker 1>for our next album. He even played drums. There's a
<v Speaker 1>couple of demo tapes out there that have him on
<v Speaker 1>the drums on those songs. But he walks out the
<v Speaker 1>door and they say, just a couple more weeks, man,
<v Speaker 1>and we will have these songs ready for you to
<v Speaker 1>put lyrics to. And that was the last time when
<v Speaker 1>they saw him. He went out drinking with a friend
<v Speaker 1>of his, and you know, like I said, he wasn't
<v Speaker 1>a stranger to drinking. They had a good time, got
<v Speaker 1>home late that night or early the next morning, and
<v Speaker 1>he was sleeping it off, as they say, except that
<v Speaker 1>when the friend came out the next day he found
<v Speaker 1>him lifeless in the car.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get too graphic,
<v Speaker 2>but the story that I read up on was he
<v Speaker 2>passed out in a passenger seat. His friend leaned the
<v Speaker 2>chair back and put a blanket on him. Couldn't rouse him,
<v Speaker 2>couldn't bring him inside, so just let him sleep in
<v Speaker 2>the car, and overnight he aspirated some of his vomits
<v Speaker 2>and passed away that way. The death certificate says a
<v Speaker 2>cute alcohol poisoning death by misadventure.
<v Speaker 1>And there are all kinds of conspiracy theories out there
<v Speaker 1>that we don't need to get into. We sure don't
<v Speaker 1>have the expertise to talk about that sort of thing.
<v Speaker 1>But the point is they're shooting up like a rocket
<v Speaker 1>and then suddenly the pilot's gone.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, that's right. I do think it's interesting Bond had
<v Speaker 2>several lyrical ideas for the album, the unnamed album that
<v Speaker 2>was coming, that those ideas were abandoned in favor of
<v Speaker 2>Brian's lyrics. Yeah, but ACDC manager Ian Jeffrey claims to
<v Speaker 2>still have a folder that contains lyrics for up to
<v Speaker 2>fifteen songs that was going to be Back in Black.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. The boys are notified of Bond's death. They have to.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, his mom's still down in Australia and they're
<v Speaker 1>up in the UK, and they have to give her
<v Speaker 1>a call and let her know what's happened, and they
<v Speaker 1>go to the funeral. They are trying to figure out
<v Speaker 1>does the band continue on? What do we need to do?
<v Speaker 1>And it's actually Bond's father that says, Bond would want
<v Speaker 1>you to go on. He would want you to continue
<v Speaker 1>with ACDC and make it something great. And so they
<v Speaker 1>decide not to mope about. They decided to start playing
<v Speaker 1>and pick things back up where they had left them off.
<v Speaker 1>And then they start their search for not a replacement
<v Speaker 1>singer because you can't replace Bond Scott, but a new
<v Speaker 1>singer to be their front man. Okay, everybody, we're going
<v Speaker 1>to take a quick break. Please stay with us. We
<v Speaker 1>will be right back after these messages. So we know
<v Speaker 1>what happens. We know that Brian Johnson becomes the new
<v Speaker 1>lead singer. But do you know who the first person
<v Speaker 1>to recommend Brian Johnson to the band was?
<v Speaker 2>No, who was it?
<v Speaker 1>It was Bon Scott? Wow. So yeah, So we mentioned
<v Speaker 1>earlier that Bon Scott was in a few bands before
<v Speaker 1>he joined ACDC, and one of those bands was a
<v Speaker 1>band called Fraternity. Well, Fraternity used to do supporting gigs
<v Speaker 1>for this band called Jordy, which I mentioned just a
<v Speaker 1>bit ago, that had Brian Johnson as their lead singer,
<v Speaker 1>and they had had a little bit of success as well.
<v Speaker 1>But Bond Scott had seen them perform, and after seeing
<v Speaker 1>them perform, he came and told the young brother. He's like, oh, man,
<v Speaker 1>I wish you could have seen this guy. He was amazing.
<v Speaker 1>He was like little Richard, and Little Richard was Bond's
<v Speaker 1>favorite performer. He was like, he did this whole thing
<v Speaker 1>where he fell on the floor and was spinning around
<v Speaker 1>like he was in agonizing pain. It was amazing and
<v Speaker 1>he like sealed the deal. Like they came and like
<v Speaker 1>took him out in a wheelchair. It was. It was
<v Speaker 1>and I'm just you know, I'm kind of imagining I'm
<v Speaker 1>kind of imagining James Brown, you know, where they try
<v Speaker 1>to walk him off the stage and he goes back on.
<v Speaker 1>But as it turns out, Brian Johnson was actually he
<v Speaker 1>had appendicitis. He was actually rolling around the ground on pain,
<v Speaker 1>and they really did take him off to the hospital
<v Speaker 1>after it was over. But after Bond's passing, they had
<v Speaker 1>a fan that sent him a tape of Jordi and said,
<v Speaker 1>you guys should really look at this guy. And they're like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>isn't this the guy that Bond talked about, and then
<v Speaker 1>Mutt Lang, without knowing any of this, says, I think
<v Speaker 1>you guys should listen to Brian Johnson, and I think
<v Speaker 1>he's I think he'd be a really good fit for
<v Speaker 1>the band. And so by the time they started doing
<v Speaker 1>auditions with folks, he kind of was already the pick
<v Speaker 1>in their head.
<v Speaker 2>That fan from Cleveland that mailed the album to the
<v Speaker 2>record company and said, you guys need to listen to
<v Speaker 2>this guy. If you're listening to this podcast, we want
<v Speaker 2>to hear from you.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, we don't know your name, but.
<v Speaker 2>Please hook us up on Facebook say I'm the guy
<v Speaker 2>contacted the record company on behalf of Brian Johnson.
<v Speaker 1>So, Brian Johnson, I mean we talked about we talked
<v Speaker 1>in our episode about Journey, and you know, Steve Perry
<v Speaker 1>was working on a Turkey ranch when he got the
<v Speaker 1>call and said, hey, we want you to come see
<v Speaker 1>for Journey. But Journey was nobody at that point, you know,
<v Speaker 1>they were the leftovers from Santana. The guy who took
<v Speaker 1>over for Steve Perry was working at the Gap. He
<v Speaker 1>was working at the Gap when he got the phone
<v Speaker 1>call that hey, we'd like you to come be the
<v Speaker 1>lead singer for Journey. Well I've kind of got like
<v Speaker 1>a insurance now and dude, Journey Journey. Oh okay, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'll come out. So when Brian Johnson gets the call,
<v Speaker 1>they don't tell him who the band is, and he's
<v Speaker 1>like and he's like, okay, well you want me to
<v Speaker 1>come down there, and you know, it's it's a bit
<v Speaker 1>of money. Can you at least give me the initials?
<v Speaker 1>And the lady who's talking to him on the phone goes, yes,
<v Speaker 1>the initials are A C, D C. He's still hesitant,
<v Speaker 1>you know, he's like, ah, man, I just don't even
<v Speaker 1>know that this is worth it, because he had kind
<v Speaker 1>of reached the end like so many, you know, so
<v Speaker 1>many of the guys that we've talked about. He's just
<v Speaker 1>kind of given up on the music industry and had
<v Speaker 1>started a little car repair place.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 1>He's like, ah, no, no, you know, just fix and windshields, right, oh,
<v Speaker 1>think about it, gots why walls and so, as we
<v Speaker 1>mentioned in our Spaceball's episode, he happens to get another
<v Speaker 1>call near the same time that says, hey, we got
<v Speaker 1>a paying gig for you. Oh all right, how much
<v Speaker 1>does it pay three hundred and fifty pounds. Oh solid,
<v Speaker 1>what's it for Hoover Vacuum. So Brian Johnson thinks, Okay, well,
<v Speaker 1>I'm getting paid enough money that it makes it worth
<v Speaker 1>the trip down there. I guess I'll go ahead and
<v Speaker 1>audition for ac DC while I make my vacuum commercial.
<v Speaker 2>I love the Human Vacuum Clinic commercial. It is amazing.
<v Speaker 2>It's no vacu in black, but I mean, you know, it's.
<v Speaker 5>Good though, It's really good. It's a beautiful mover. And
<v Speaker 5>then he's got to go over and sing for ac
<v Speaker 5>and these guys are our world famous at this point,
<v Speaker 5>and he's petrified. He talks about sitting in a cafe
<v Speaker 5>across the street, too scared to go over, having a
<v Speaker 5>bit of tea and a and a biscuit or something,
<v Speaker 5>and the pastry's so crusty that he can't even eat it.
<v Speaker 5>And he's like a fit. I guess I better go
<v Speaker 5>do this, and just walks across the street. Well, meanwhile,
<v Speaker 5>Malcolm and Angus and the boys have been auditioning all
<v Speaker 5>these other lead singers and they are like, hey, where's Brian.
<v Speaker 5>He was supposed to be here like an hour ago,
<v Speaker 5>And somebody goes, oh, I think he's downstairs playing pool
<v Speaker 5>with the roadies, and they're like, well, okay, well at
<v Speaker 5>least he plays pool, and so they call him up
<v Speaker 5>and the first thing Malcolm does is hand him a
<v Speaker 5>beer and says, I'm sure you're thirsty, and he's like,
<v Speaker 5>I bet I could drain this thing right now, you
<v Speaker 5>know what, I think I will, and he drains the
<v Speaker 5>beer and they say, well, what do you What would
<v Speaker 5>you like to perform and he says it.
<v Speaker 2>Was my Iicantina Turner is called Nutbush City.
<v Speaker 1>Limits and so they hear him say that, and they're like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>thank god. Every other person that's been in here singing
<v Speaker 1>says smoke on the water. Yeah, okay, that's good. And
<v Speaker 1>so they do that and it goes pretty well, and
<v Speaker 1>so they say, well, what else have you got? And
<v Speaker 1>he he had put his band back together at that point,
<v Speaker 1>but they were just doing small club shows. But they always,
<v Speaker 1>as their closing song would play a whole lot of Rosie,
<v Speaker 1>and so he says, I can do a whole lot
<v Speaker 1>of Rosie. I'm like right on, and so they play it,
<v Speaker 1>he sings it and they know immediately this is our man.
<v Speaker 1>So They send him back home, and a little while
<v Speaker 1>later they're like, hey, can you come down for a
<v Speaker 1>second audition, And again he's like, guys, you know this
<v Speaker 1>is it's kind of expensive for me to come down there.
<v Speaker 1>And they find a way to get him down there.
<v Speaker 1>He sings with him again. That night, he stays at
<v Speaker 1>a hotel with one of the roadies, and the roadies
<v Speaker 1>roady guy is like, I think you got this man,
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, now he has no help. He has
<v Speaker 1>given up hope on this thing. He goes back home.
<v Speaker 1>He continues working on cars. He continues playing small gigs
<v Speaker 1>and says, oh, hey to his band at the time, says, oh,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, guys, I went and had a sing
<v Speaker 1>with ac DC And they're like, what, I had a
<v Speaker 1>sing with ac DC And they're like, oh cool. And
<v Speaker 1>then they go play and that was all the conversation
<v Speaker 1>that they had, you know. And then he gets a
<v Speaker 1>call on his dad's birthday. He was still he had
<v Speaker 1>gone back to living with his parents, came to the house,
<v Speaker 1>had bought his dad a bottle of whiskey for his birthday,
<v Speaker 1>but comes in and nobody's there and the phone rings
<v Speaker 1>and it's Malcolm Young and he says, so we're going
<v Speaker 1>to be leaving in a couple of days to go
<v Speaker 1>record this new album. Do you think you can make it?
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, are you serious?
<v Speaker 2>Get it?
<v Speaker 1>They get it? What do you mean? And he's like yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so we yeah, we're just thinking, you know, we got
<v Speaker 1>to leave pretty quick. So are you in? And he says,
<v Speaker 1>can you call me back in ten minutes? I just
<v Speaker 1>want to make sure that people that's nobody, that somebody's
<v Speaker 1>not screwing with me right now, you know that. Malcolm's
<v Speaker 1>like okay, hangs up the phone, calls him exactly ten
<v Speaker 1>minutes later and says okay, so can you go And
<v Speaker 1>he's like, yeah, yeah, okay, he's not using that language.
<v Speaker 1>He's using better language than that. He puts the phone
<v Speaker 1>down for a second, says the F word, gets back
<v Speaker 1>on and says, yep, I'll find a way to do it.
<v Speaker 1>And he then he hangs up the phone and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm the only one here. So he pops the top
<v Speaker 1>on the bodily he bought for his dad because he
<v Speaker 1>figures out I needed, and he chugs himself a celebratory
<v Speaker 1>drink by himself, and in one week he is in
<v Speaker 1>the Bahamas with Mutt Lang and ACDC recording what would
<v Speaker 1>become one of the greatest albums of all history.
<v Speaker 2>It's incredible. These stories are amazing. This is why nobody
<v Speaker 2>should ever give up on their dream. Steve Berry was
<v Speaker 2>working at a Turkey ranch, Brian Johnson was fixing windshields.
<v Speaker 2>One week later, he's in the Bahamas recording back in Black.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break. Please stay
<v Speaker 1>with us. We will be right back after these messages.
<v Speaker 2>All right. That is how the band came to be.
<v Speaker 2>Are we ready to dive in track by track on
<v Speaker 2>this one?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? And just real quick, just you know, briefly touch
<v Speaker 1>on the recording process. You know, it sounds really nice
<v Speaker 1>to be recording in the Bahamas. You know, we kind
<v Speaker 1>of talked about the police and their beautiful island that
<v Speaker 1>they were on as they were recording. It was not
<v Speaker 1>exactly that for the ACDC boys. It was a kind
<v Speaker 1>of a cement and mortar type of place. The only
<v Speaker 1>reason that they went to the Bahamas is because there
<v Speaker 1>were no recording studios available in the UK, and also
<v Speaker 1>it worked as a tax advantage to record down there
<v Speaker 1>instead of recording in the UK. This recording studio that
<v Speaker 1>they had was run by this old Bahama lady who,
<v Speaker 1>in addition to giving them a room with a table
<v Speaker 1>and a lamp on the table, gave them a stick
<v Speaker 1>it's like a harp like a fish harpoon stick to
<v Speaker 1>put by the door. And she said, you got to
<v Speaker 1>be careful. Sometimes at night, these wild Haitians have come
<v Speaker 1>down and try to rob you. Okay, this is not
<v Speaker 1>the Bahama, this is not the Bahama vacation I was expecting.
<v Speaker 1>But again, you know, you put all these circumstances together
<v Speaker 1>and somehow you come out with Back in Black.
<v Speaker 2>Amazing. All right, So Back in Black has released July
<v Speaker 2>twenty fifth, nineteen eighty. Talk briefly about the cover.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, okay, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>First of all, the title back in Black was a
<v Speaker 2>phrase that Malcolm Young had in his head for a while,
<v Speaker 2>but he knew in his brain this is what I
<v Speaker 2>want the album to be called back in Black YEP,
<v Speaker 2>as a tribute to Bon Scott. The cover of the
<v Speaker 2>album is all black, with just some basic white outlined
<v Speaker 2>letters saying ACDC back in Black.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. The boys had wanted it to be just straight black,
<v Speaker 1>and the record company was like, not okay with that,
<v Speaker 1>but if you'll just put your name in white lettering,
<v Speaker 1>that's fine. Yep, okay, So are we ready to do this?
<v Speaker 1>Let's do yes, let's jump in. I'm excited about this
<v Speaker 1>first song. I listened to this album again today, cranked
<v Speaker 1>it up, pumped my fist as I drove home. So
<v Speaker 1>the first song on the album.
<v Speaker 2>Is Hell's Bells.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. So we've talked before about how Mutt Lang puts
<v Speaker 1>these albums together, their brick by brick, and this first
<v Speaker 1>song is such an awesome layering of sounds because you
<v Speaker 1>start off with that bell, you know, and there's a
<v Speaker 1>story behind the bell I'll get to in a minute.
<v Speaker 1>You've got that bell and it's it's all you hear.
<v Speaker 1>It's like here are you coming to church? What's going
<v Speaker 1>on here? And then on your right speaker, it lays
<v Speaker 1>down that first guitar, you know, layer one bell, Layer
<v Speaker 1>two guitar, Malcolm's guitar is over there, and then layer
<v Speaker 1>three you get just little snippets of Angus's guitar coming in,
<v Speaker 1>you know, just little bits that's over here on the
<v Speaker 1>west speaker. In this incredible job of using the stereo
<v Speaker 1>to its full advantage and then the drums come in
<v Speaker 1>Layer four and you're like yeah, yeah, and then it
<v Speaker 1>all comes together face comes in, which is I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the bass on almost all of their songs is just
<v Speaker 1>that straightforward boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom,
<v Speaker 1>and it is.
<v Speaker 2>Amazing or a great start for the album. And like
<v Speaker 2>you said, it's layer intensifies builds to this great rocking song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And so there are literally thousands of ac DC
<v Speaker 1>fans that, I mean, within a matter of just a
<v Speaker 1>few months have learned the lead singer to their band
<v Speaker 1>has just died, and six weeks later learned they've already
<v Speaker 1>got a new guy. And I mean it's just I
<v Speaker 1>could I mean, this is akin this to like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>your your parents get divorced and then one of them
<v Speaker 1>has a you know, girlfriend or boyfriend in a month
<v Speaker 1>and a half. You're just like, oh, what's what's going on?
<v Speaker 1>And this isn't right? And so the question is, you know, like,
<v Speaker 1>how are the fans going to react to this new guy?
<v Speaker 1>And are they I mean, if this album is dedicated
<v Speaker 1>to Bond Scott, is it going to be some sort
<v Speaker 1>of you know, sappy sentimental tribute, but they don't do
<v Speaker 1>that at all. They give, they give, they give that
<v Speaker 1>ominous tone in the and the even the guitar has
<v Speaker 1>kind of an ominous feel to it. But it's the
<v Speaker 1>song is Hell's Bells, which is kind of a nod
<v Speaker 1>to for whom the bell tolls, You know there's it's
<v Speaker 1>come up several times, but the saying is ask not
<v Speaker 1>for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. And
<v Speaker 1>the idea is, don't worry about the dead, worry about yourself,
<v Speaker 1>worry about your life. And that's exactly what they do
<v Speaker 1>with this album. They say or Bond would not have
<v Speaker 1>wanted us to play some sappy ballad. He wouldn't have
<v Speaker 1>wanted some song you know about him. He would have
<v Speaker 1>wanted us to kick ass. And that's what we're gonna do.
<v Speaker 2>A few episodes ago, we talked about Jonathan Kane when
<v Speaker 2>he wrote Faithfully by a Journey, he had kind of
<v Speaker 2>a supernatural experience where that song, he says, God gave
<v Speaker 2>it to him and just sort of supernaturally came through
<v Speaker 2>him out of his hands and he just wrote it
<v Speaker 2>down on a piece of paper, just flowed out of him.
<v Speaker 2>Something similar happened to Brian Johnson on Hell's Bells It's supernatural.
<v Speaker 2>He's not a believer, but something weird happened to him
<v Speaker 2>and he talks about it. He said, I don't believe
<v Speaker 2>in God or heaven or hell, but something weird happened.
<v Speaker 2>He was in his room. He said, I'll never forget.
<v Speaker 2>I just started to write and never stopped, and it
<v Speaker 2>just flowed out of my hands. I thought that was
<v Speaker 2>a really interesting story. Did you know that there's an
<v Speaker 2>ac DC all female tribute band called the Hell's Bells Elles.
<v Speaker 1>No, but I did know that there's a bluegrass band
<v Speaker 1>tribute to ACDC called HAC Dixie. You're only you.
<v Speaker 4>Good?
<v Speaker 1>That's good. So he came up with the lyrics to
<v Speaker 1>this one midway through the recording of the album. He
<v Speaker 1>did a majority of, if not all, of the lyrics
<v Speaker 1>in this album, which is kind of a big deal.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they auditioned him to sing, but they didn't,
<v Speaker 1>you know. They just were like, hey, can you write
<v Speaker 1>the lyrics? And I guess you know it's writing an
<v Speaker 1>entire album's worth of lyrics is a daunting task, and
<v Speaker 1>he had done quite a few songs and was just
<v Speaker 1>kind of out of ideas and was stressing about it,
<v Speaker 1>and Mutt Lang just I guess, gets gets the feeling
<v Speaker 1>and goes so he goes by his room and says, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you know, Brian, are you doing all right? He's like, man,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just I'm out of ideas, and like, as he
<v Speaker 1>says it, lightning strikes yep, right, and then of course,
<v Speaker 1>you know they're in the Bahamas where you get tropical
<v Speaker 1>weather just instantaneous, and so the lightning strikes and there's
<v Speaker 1>this really loud thunder cut that comes through, and Lang says, God,
<v Speaker 1>do you hear that thunder? And Brian just kind of
<v Speaker 1>with his head down says, yeah, it's a rolling thunder.
<v Speaker 1>And Mu's like what he says, rolling thunder. That's just
<v Speaker 1>what they call it in the UK. It's a rolling thunder,
<v Speaker 1>and Much says, write that down right. And then as
<v Speaker 1>they're talking that, this torrential downpour happens, and so in moments,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you talk about that divine inspiration. In moments
<v Speaker 1>he goes from I can't think of anything to the
<v Speaker 1>first lines of his song I'm a rolling thunder, a
<v Speaker 1>pouring rain coming on like a hurricane.
<v Speaker 2>That's great, man, that's awesome. Okay, So here's something that
<v Speaker 2>Hell's Bells means to me. All right, and we talked
<v Speaker 2>about this in our Major League episode. But I'm a
<v Speaker 2>baseball fan, right right. River Hoffman was a relief pitcher
<v Speaker 2>for the same Diego Padres in the nineties, and every
<v Speaker 2>time he took the field, they played Hell's Bells as
<v Speaker 2>an intimidation to the other team. Right, okay, So for me,
<v Speaker 2>Hell's Bells signifies Trevor Hoffman's coming on the field and
<v Speaker 2>he's going to shut everybody down. However, this was one
<v Speaker 2>of the first they call it entrance songs for baseball players.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, they got this idea from when Ricky Vaughan
<v Speaker 2>took the field and they played wild thing in Major League.
<v Speaker 1>So flashback to a Major League episode. That's great. So, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the you know the line You're only young, but You're
<v Speaker 1>gonna die. I mean, there they are these, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it comes up in a few of the other songs.
<v Speaker 1>There are these references to death and drinking that are
<v Speaker 1>not in any way sentimental, despite the fact that a
<v Speaker 1>month and a half earlier their lead singer had died
<v Speaker 1>because of drinking too much.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Basically, every single ACDC song is about either sex, booze,
<v Speaker 2>or rock.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that's it's there, that's what they do.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, I don't know if Brian Johnson was inspired.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if like if Bond Scott was speaking
<v Speaker 1>to him from beyond the grave or if he just went,
<v Speaker 1>you know what. Bonn had a lot of success with innuendo.
<v Speaker 1>Let me see what I can do with that.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna run with that. I think I got this. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>all right, let's talk about the actual bell sound.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so they needed a bell. You know, they've they've
<v Speaker 1>got this idea that the bell is going to be
<v Speaker 1>the perfect way to start the album, the perfect way
<v Speaker 1>to start the song. And they can't get a good
<v Speaker 1>bell sound. And somebody says, why don't you just go
<v Speaker 1>to the church it's down the road and just use
<v Speaker 1>that bell, And so they're like okay, and so they
<v Speaker 1>take their recording equipment and they go to record the bell,
<v Speaker 1>and every time they rang the bell, all these pigeons
<v Speaker 1>that are sitting in the around the bell would take
<v Speaker 1>off flying and you had the sound of flapping wings
<v Speaker 1>on your recording of the bell. Yep, Like okay, So
<v Speaker 1>we wait for the bell to quiet down. It's finally
<v Speaker 1>quiet again. They hit the bell and by that time
<v Speaker 1>all the pigeons had come back and there's flapping all
<v Speaker 1>over again, like well, balls, this is not going to work.
<v Speaker 2>So they have to have a bell custom made, right, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So they have a bell, a two thousand pounds cast
<v Speaker 2>bronze bell made by John Taylor. It's a replica of
<v Speaker 2>the Dennison bell in the Carolyn Tower at Lowborough War Museum. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I can't if I mispronounced that. I'm really sorry. I've
<v Speaker 2>never been here. But when they recorded the sound effect
<v Speaker 2>for the bell, they used fifteen microphone because the acoustics
<v Speaker 2>of the bell, you never know where the sound is
<v Speaker 2>going to come from, right microphones. And then when they
<v Speaker 2>got the sound that they wanted, they slowed it down
<v Speaker 2>to half speed. It gives it that real ominous boom.
<v Speaker 1>Oh nice, Okay, that's awesome. Well, and then of course
<v Speaker 1>after they produced the album, they went on tour and
<v Speaker 1>they took the bell on tour with them and they
<v Speaker 1>would start every show by lowering that bell down and
<v Speaker 1>Brian Johnson would slam it with a hammer as or
<v Speaker 1>you know. Sometimes he would even run and jump and
<v Speaker 1>ring the thing, but it was It was a great
<v Speaker 1>stage prop that they had made just by needing to
<v Speaker 1>have the sound for the album You're Keeping Drag at Home.
<v Speaker 2>There's thirteen bell tolls, four before the music starts and
<v Speaker 2>nine after all.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Okay, I did not count the bells.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. The next song on the album is Shoot the Thrill.
<v Speaker 1>So in just a bit, we're going to talk about
<v Speaker 1>Back of Black, which was the intro song for Tony
<v Speaker 1>Stark in iron Man one, and then for iron Man
<v Speaker 1>two they used Shoot the Thrill.
<v Speaker 2>It's so freaking good. This song is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it kicks a whole lot of butt, and it's
<v Speaker 1>got the sexual inuendo in there and the dangerousness. You know,
<v Speaker 1>is this a real gun? Are we talking about a
<v Speaker 1>male gun? Probably a little double entre picked up on
<v Speaker 1>those euphemisms.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so you touched on it. You're right. This for
<v Speaker 2>my family. I mean, I know this song from Back
<v Speaker 2>in Black, but my boys recognize it as basically iron
<v Speaker 2>Man's theme, right, So when he enters in iron Man two,
<v Speaker 2>they play Shoot the Thrill. They also play this in
<v Speaker 2>the original Avengers when iron Man enters. Brian Johnson was
<v Speaker 2>explaining the inspiration for this song. He talked about how
<v Speaker 2>this is about suburban neighborhood board housewives who get in
<v Speaker 2>to extramarital affairs and too much narcotics.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the girls who want the bad boys.
<v Speaker 2>This song, interestingly enough, was never released as a single
<v Speaker 2>and no video was ever made for it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's crazy, because this song is amazing. It was
<v Speaker 1>made to be a single. I can't figure out why
<v Speaker 1>they would not have done that. I'm with you.
<v Speaker 2>This is one of the best songs on this album.
<v Speaker 2>It's a five star song.
<v Speaker 1>But I mean, as I understand it, I think radio
<v Speaker 1>stations played every single song on this album at some point,
<v Speaker 1>like it's just not it was whether it was a
<v Speaker 1>single or not. The radio stations recognized this album is
<v Speaker 1>full of hits.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I mean DJ's definitely lashed onto this song and
<v Speaker 2>played it anyway despite not being released as a single.
<v Speaker 2>All Right, this song's amazing. I love it. Five stars.
<v Speaker 2>Song moving on track number three is a song called
<v Speaker 2>what do You Do for Money? Honey? Okay, So, some
<v Speaker 2>of the lyrics on the song talk about calling out
<v Speaker 2>gold diggers and saying that he will not be set
<v Speaker 2>up by the women who are after his.
<v Speaker 1>Gold a gold digger song.
<v Speaker 2>It's a gold digger song. It's a good song. It's
<v Speaker 2>not a great song.
<v Speaker 1>That's hard song. Yeah, No, I love this song. Okay, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's a good one.
<v Speaker 2>It's hard to maintain the shoot to thrill back in
<v Speaker 2>black Hell's Bell's level of songs throughout, but.
<v Speaker 1>Well they come back. But yeah, they come back with
<v Speaker 1>kind of their punching intensity that they had from their
<v Speaker 1>previous albums. On this one, I mean, it explodes out.
<v Speaker 1>Whereas the other ones were a bill this one is
<v Speaker 1>immediately in your face, bam bam.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I like it. I definitely like it. Track number
<v Speaker 2>four is a song called Given the Dog the Bone.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna be hard to remain family friendly as we talk.
<v Speaker 1>About this one. So is it giving the dog or
<v Speaker 1>bone or given the dog a bone? I got given
<v Speaker 1>It will appear differently, like I think on the album
<v Speaker 1>it was g I v E N, but then like
<v Speaker 1>on iTunes, it's g I v I N and it
<v Speaker 1>has appeared as g I v I n G in
<v Speaker 1>certain spots.
<v Speaker 2>Either way, as I can best tell, this is a
<v Speaker 2>song about going to the store buying a milkbone for
<v Speaker 2>your dog. I don't know this song. I saw it
<v Speaker 2>described as a very spinal tap esque.
<v Speaker 1>You're saying, you're saying, there's a lot of subtlety going
<v Speaker 1>on here, Is that right?
<v Speaker 2>There's some description that leads you to believe certain things.
<v Speaker 2>So I don't know, what do you think about this one?
<v Speaker 1>This one is okay for me, But it wasn't. It
<v Speaker 1>wasn't something that I want to come back and listen
<v Speaker 1>to over and over again.
<v Speaker 2>Here's the thing, in all honesty, here's the thing. If
<v Speaker 2>you like one ac DC song, you probably like almost
<v Speaker 2>all a CDC songs because there's very similar. It's heavy guitars,
<v Speaker 2>it's sex, booze and rock. It's pretty simple rock, you know,
<v Speaker 2>right in your face. Some are just better than others,
<v Speaker 2>you know what I mean.
<v Speaker 1>She's no Mona Lisa, she's no Playboy star, but she'll
<v Speaker 1>send you to Heaven then explode you to Mars. I
<v Speaker 1>really I don't know what he's talking about there. He's
<v Speaker 1>talking about doing ugly chicks sorry, family friendly. He's talking
<v Speaker 1>about having an ugly girlfriend or something. I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, well, she'll send you to Mars. It's okay.
<v Speaker 1>This is this is this is kind of like a
<v Speaker 1>whole lot of rosy Part two.
<v Speaker 2>Nice, good reference, right there. Okay, good song, not a
<v Speaker 2>great song. Good song all right? After giving the Dog
<v Speaker 2>a bone, that brings us to a song called let
<v Speaker 2>Me Put My Love into You.
<v Speaker 1>I'm still I'm lost. What do we think we mean
<v Speaker 1>here on the well?
<v Speaker 2>You know I have love to give, and so let
<v Speaker 2>me put it into you.
<v Speaker 1>Let me put it on the line.
<v Speaker 3>This song.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I've been waiting to talk about this.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, let me cut your cake with my knife.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my goodness.
<v Speaker 2>All right, So this song has the distinction of being
<v Speaker 2>on the Parents' Music Resource Center list of the Filthy fifteen.
<v Speaker 2>Have you heard about this list?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? This is the Tipper Gore thing right this?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Really, like all the stor senator wives got together and said,
<v Speaker 1>these songs are profane, these.
<v Speaker 2>Songs are awful for our youth.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So her husband's off inventing the internet and she's complaining
<v Speaker 1>about ACDC song. What's going on there?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so here's the Filthy fifteen. You ready for this?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>So let Me put my Love into You? Okay, we
<v Speaker 2>get it. It's about sex and probably not great for
<v Speaker 2>fourteen year olds to be saying that you know at home.
<v Speaker 2>But here's the I was just curious about who else
<v Speaker 2>was on this list, right, So, just some other songs
<v Speaker 2>that you may have heard. A song called Darlin Nikki,
<v Speaker 2>a song called Nasty Girl by Vanity Sugar, Walls by
<v Speaker 2>Sheena Easton. So far, we got three in a Row
<v Speaker 2>by Prince, right high and Dry by def Leppard. We're
<v Speaker 2>not Gonna Take It by Twisted's sister. What yeah, rebellion
<v Speaker 2>type of attitudes, violence, I think that one.
<v Speaker 1>No, but yeah, yeah, that's a stretch right there.
<v Speaker 2>Well wait, she Bop by Cindy Lauper. What that song's about? Masturbation?
<v Speaker 1>Okay?
<v Speaker 2>And then finally Dress You Up by Madonna.
<v Speaker 1>I think they were going more for a look than
<v Speaker 1>an actual context of the song.
<v Speaker 2>Here the Filthy fifteen. That's just a portion. Now some
<v Speaker 2>of those you're like, some of these styles, I'm like, whoa, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I definitely see what that's on there. But do you
<v Speaker 2>have anything more to say about let me put my
<v Speaker 2>love into you. I can crack up every time I
<v Speaker 2>say that.
<v Speaker 1>From what I understand is that all of those songs
<v Speaker 1>actually got a boost in ratings when they got put
<v Speaker 1>on the Filthy fifteen.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah. One of the songs is by Motley Crue,
<v Speaker 2>and Vince Neil was like, that was great for us.
<v Speaker 1>Wait wait, wait, these songs are dirty. Let's listen again.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So after let Me Put My Love Into You,
<v Speaker 2>that ends side one of Back in Black.
<v Speaker 1>Push Stop It.
<v Speaker 2>Ejecked flip it over, Back in Press Play.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, honestly, at this time, at this point, you're
<v Speaker 1>probably flipping the LP over.
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen eighty, you probably are flipping the LP. You're
<v Speaker 2>probably about.
<v Speaker 1>That you you might even be flipping the A track over.
<v Speaker 2>I had this on tape. Quick funny story about Back
<v Speaker 2>in Black. So I was on a ski trip with
<v Speaker 2>five of my high school buddies plus an adult. To
<v Speaker 2>make sure we didn't get in too much trouble, so
<v Speaker 2>I asked my buddy, Chris Bauer, friend of the show's
<v Speaker 2>Chris Bauer, good friend of mine. His nickname was Bomber.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody called him Bomber. So anyway, at about nine pm
<v Speaker 2>we're driving out to Colorado, I asked him. I said, hey,
<v Speaker 2>can I borrow your Back in Black tape? Because everybody's
<v Speaker 2>got their headphones on their tape players. He's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I'll give it to you when I'm done with it.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, all right, great. So I fall asleep at
<v Speaker 2>three o'clock in the morning. He whacks me on the
<v Speaker 2>forehead with Back in Black and I'm like, what are
<v Speaker 2>you doing, dude. He's like, you want to borrow the tape.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, I didn't want you to whack me in
<v Speaker 2>the forehead and wake me up. And Alm was at
<v Speaker 2>a fist fight in the car on the way up
<v Speaker 2>to Colorado.
<v Speaker 1>So this is why you had your mom confiscate his
<v Speaker 1>other tape.
<v Speaker 2>Right, that's right, that's right, all right side to first track.
<v Speaker 2>It's a song Back in Black.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, now I have to think of it. Oh, something's
<v Speaker 1>just happened. Somebody scattered this song. I'm gonna have to
<v Speaker 1>look this up now. Okay, So forgive me for interrupting
<v Speaker 1>this awesome song for just a second, but somebody scattered
<v Speaker 1>the song and I'm gonna put it on so.
<v Speaker 6>Well, and uh, you know, I've got the notoriety came
<v Speaker 6>from the the A C.
<v Speaker 4>D C.
<v Speaker 6>Which I really took sale, which is the.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So this song is very memorable to me for
<v Speaker 1>a couple of reasons. Number One, this is a song
<v Speaker 1>that we would cover this in my band. We did
<v Speaker 1>this song and I don't know why I was dumb
<v Speaker 1>at this particular point, but my drummer just had to say, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>just wait until I hit the cymbol twice before you
<v Speaker 1>come in. Okay, and we play in and then it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna go all that's gonna be real quiet, and then
<v Speaker 1>you come in after that. I'm like, okay, I'll get
<v Speaker 1>it right this time. I promise.
<v Speaker 2>This song is the best song on the album. This
<v Speaker 2>song blows me away. The guitars are so hooky, gorgeous,
<v Speaker 2>crunchy rock. Love it. Malcolm actually had the phrase we
<v Speaker 2>talked about that he had the phrase in his head
<v Speaker 2>back in Black and he had the riff for the
<v Speaker 2>song before they really had the song. This was a
<v Speaker 2>warm up exercise, kind of like how we talked about
<v Speaker 2>last week with Slash and Sweet Child of Mine. He
<v Speaker 2>would do this as a warm up exercise.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. So title track right, dedicated to Bond Scott and
<v Speaker 1>one of the lyrics in this song is forget the
<v Speaker 1>hearse because I never die. I love it. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>this is the perfect tribute to Bond Scott, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's basically saying Bond, your spirit will live on,
<v Speaker 2>your legacy will live on. I thought it was interesting
<v Speaker 2>they were talking to There was an interview with Brian Johnson.
<v Speaker 2>He was talking to Mojo magazine in two thousand and
<v Speaker 2>nine when they said, can you write lyrics? They gave
<v Speaker 2>him the music for this song, and he's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>I'll give it a try, and they said, here's the deal.
<v Speaker 2>The only thing is it can't be morbid. It has
<v Speaker 2>to be for Bond, and it has to be a celebration.
<v Speaker 2>So he thought, okay. So that's when it came up
<v Speaker 2>with you know, nine Lives, Cat's Eyes abusing every one
<v Speaker 2>of them and running wild, and the boys really really
<v Speaker 2>enjoyed it, and they thought it was a great tribute to.
<v Speaker 1>Bond, perfect tribute, and it was a perfect tribute for
<v Speaker 1>the fans to hear as well for them to go, okay,
<v Speaker 1>this as one of us.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And I think it worked. I think it totally worked.
<v Speaker 1>I think the fans embraced Brian Johnson. I don't I mean,
<v Speaker 1>there's I'm sure there's a there's a a section of
<v Speaker 1>folks out there that were like, I don't really care
<v Speaker 1>for a CDC. After Bond died, probably a really small contention. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>The vocals on this are incredible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>For me, this is Brian Johnson at his best right,
<v Speaker 2>And it's that perfect singing scream you know. I mean
<v Speaker 2>we talked about when Nirvana did it, but it's just
<v Speaker 2>that perfect oh, that full emotion that sounds great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you know it's they have I won't I
<v Speaker 1>won't say it's I mean that their voices are not
<v Speaker 1>the same, but if there's a similarness to them, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>he can pull off the Bond Scott songs right right.
<v Speaker 1>He can. He can sing Highway to Hell and still
<v Speaker 1>kill it. But just you know, the voice. Bond Scott's
<v Speaker 1>voice was a gravel voice, right I read he actually
<v Speaker 1>his early morning ritual was to gargle with honey and
<v Speaker 1>red wine and that kept his voice nice and raspy.
<v Speaker 1>And then Angus described Brian Johnson's voice as what somebody
<v Speaker 1>sounds like if you dropped a truck on their foot.
<v Speaker 1>He's got a screech, you know. Brian Johnson has got
<v Speaker 1>a higher pitched screaming style to his voice, but it
<v Speaker 1>fits with the ACDC style perfectly.
<v Speaker 2>What a great tribute. This album came out five months
<v Speaker 2>after Bond's death and this wonderful, amazing song, and it's
<v Speaker 2>a tribute to Bond. I will tell you this. This
<v Speaker 2>is a cool thing that I found. Kurt Cobain was
<v Speaker 2>given a guitar on his fourteenth birthday, and the first
<v Speaker 2>song you learned to play was Back in Black. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>if you're a movie fan, you'll recognize this from Iron Man.
<v Speaker 2>You called Grudge Match, Mega Mind, Karate Kid, the remake, eh,
<v Speaker 2>the one we don't talk about, Okay, School of Rock
<v Speaker 2>and the Muppets. The Muppets, not the Muppet Movie, not
<v Speaker 2>the Great Mumpet Caper. The Muppets.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, the Muppets from like twenty eleven. Okay, yeah, so.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, So we're done with Back in Black,
<v Speaker 2>starting off side to with an amazing song. Then we
<v Speaker 2>follow that one up with You Shook Me All Night Long.
<v Speaker 1>She is the best song.
<v Speaker 2>Now, I can't really argue. The two songs are freaking amazing.
<v Speaker 1>Back to that, yeah, I can remember. I can remember
<v Speaker 1>as a kid, the same cousins that as a seven
<v Speaker 1>year old I went and saw my first three sets
<v Speaker 1>of boobies in the movie theater. When I became a teenager,
<v Speaker 1>I think I was probably fourteen when I went out
<v Speaker 1>to see them again and they had they had CDs,
<v Speaker 1>and they had a really large CD collection. They were musicians,
<v Speaker 1>and among the CDs was Van Halen one. So that's
<v Speaker 1>how I got introduced to Van Halen One, which we
<v Speaker 1>talk about in which I still say is my favorite
<v Speaker 1>Van Halen album to this day. And then also Back
<v Speaker 1>in Black and I made the best mixtape that has
<v Speaker 1>ever existed in the history of mixtapes, using all of
<v Speaker 1>their CDs. But I was a collectic in my tastes,
<v Speaker 1>and so were they. And so now every time I
<v Speaker 1>hear you Shook Me all night long when the song ends,
<v Speaker 1>I really expect Crazy by Patsy Klein to come on
<v Speaker 1>that trade. Man.
<v Speaker 2>We got that mixtape mixed up in your head.
<v Speaker 1>Pavlovian Spot, because that was what was next on the mixtape,
<v Speaker 1>and I listened to it eight million times. So I
<v Speaker 1>just that's what I expect. Be weird for Pandora to
<v Speaker 1>do that, though.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, here's an interesting thing for you. When I discovered ACDC,
<v Speaker 2>it was in nineteen eighty six when they came out
<v Speaker 2>with the album Who Made Who, which was the soundtrack
<v Speaker 2>for Maximum over Drive.
<v Speaker 1>Right, right.
<v Speaker 2>This is Stephen King movie with Emelia Estebez.
<v Speaker 1>It's terrible.
<v Speaker 2>It was terrible, but the soundtrack was amazing. So it
<v Speaker 2>had all a CDC songs and one of them was
<v Speaker 2>you Shook Me All Night Long along with Hell's Bells.
<v Speaker 2>So they pluck some from Back in Black, and that's
<v Speaker 2>how I discovered this song. What I really like about
<v Speaker 2>this song is when it's art, you have the guitar
<v Speaker 2>and then as you continue on on the left side
<v Speaker 2>of your stereo and then it comes in with like
<v Speaker 2>the twinning guitar.
<v Speaker 1>YEP. They bounce it back, they pan it back and forth.
<v Speaker 1>It's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a great effect. This song reached number thirty
<v Speaker 2>five on the US Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. This was the first single off of the album.
<v Speaker 2>YEP, released August ninth, nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 1>So Brian Johnson came up with this song because of
<v Speaker 1>all of the posters of American girls that were in
<v Speaker 1>the Bahamas, and I guess somehow he was thinking about
<v Speaker 1>his old car shop at the same time he was
<v Speaker 1>thinking about those girls. Because she was a fast machine,
<v Speaker 1>she kept her mooter clean.
<v Speaker 2>She was the best damn woman that he'd ever seen.
<v Speaker 2>I did hear and we're talking about writing the lyrics
<v Speaker 2>to this. He uh, the line she told me to come,
<v Speaker 2>but I was already there.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh.
<v Speaker 2>He thought he pushed it too far on that one,
<v Speaker 2>and they were like.
<v Speaker 1>Nope, sounds yep. Best line on the album. Really.
<v Speaker 2>You know who else has a version of the song?
<v Speaker 2>Should I A Twain and Celine Dion?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? That was like one of the worst covers of
<v Speaker 1>all time?
<v Speaker 4>Give me a second, all right?
<v Speaker 2>So you Shook Me All Night Long was placed at
<v Speaker 2>number ten on VH one's list of the one hundred
<v Speaker 2>Greatest Songs of the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>So I heard. I haven't verified these yet, but I
<v Speaker 1>heard that there were some copies of the single that
<v Speaker 1>were pressed incorrectly and they accidentally put shake a Leg
<v Speaker 1>on there instead of Shook Me All Night Long.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I heard about that. That cool collectors item.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah apparently it's Yeah, it's tough to get, but they're yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's collector's item, they're expensive.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Shake a Leg nearly as good a song as
<v Speaker 2>You Shook Me On a Long?
<v Speaker 1>No, not a bit.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, listen to this. I got this cool story VH
<v Speaker 2>one series pop up video.
<v Speaker 1>You remember that ah VH one the pop up video.
<v Speaker 1>I have not thought about that in a long time. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>go ahead, all right.
<v Speaker 2>So, according to VH one's pop up videos, the video
<v Speaker 2>for You Shook Me All Night Long featured a mechanical bowl,
<v Speaker 2>with a woman playing Johnson's lover riding the mechanical bowl.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I remember that.
<v Speaker 2>During the filming, she accidentally jabbed herself with a spur.
<v Speaker 2>The roadie who came to her aid married her.
<v Speaker 1>A year later.
<v Speaker 2>Ah and Hanka's young gave them a mechanical bull as
<v Speaker 2>a wedding present.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>How about that? That's all right?
<v Speaker 1>We done what?
<v Speaker 2>You Shook Me All Night Long?
<v Speaker 1>Yes?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, two amazing songs back to back.
<v Speaker 1>Next, No, that's not it. Okay, sorry sorry.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, no, have a drink on me.
<v Speaker 1>Again. I just love it that. Hey, let's sing songs
<v Speaker 1>about drinking.
<v Speaker 2>I know we just lost our buddy to drinking, so
<v Speaker 2>have a drink on me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I mean it's perfect. It's exactly what. It's
<v Speaker 1>kind of their toast to him, right right, It's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you brought us here, thank you, we're having a drink
<v Speaker 1>on you.
<v Speaker 2>Seriously, they don't see Bond's death as a PSA. They
<v Speaker 2>just see it as a celebration to continue doing what
<v Speaker 2>we're doing.
<v Speaker 1>So lived life to the fullest.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, have a Drink on Me. Awesome song, not quite
<v Speaker 2>at the level as Back and Black and You Shook
<v Speaker 2>Me on It Long. Just another great song on this album.
<v Speaker 1>So honestly, this one is one of my least favorites
<v Speaker 1>on the album. I know that this is one that
<v Speaker 1>the fans. Yeah, I know, this is one of the
<v Speaker 1>ones that fans love it. And it's not bad. I
<v Speaker 1>don't hate it or anything, but this is not one
<v Speaker 1>that I get excited about.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So you and I talked earlier this week. There
<v Speaker 2>are songs like my personal songwriting. This is a turn
<v Speaker 2>it up song, this is a let it ride song,
<v Speaker 2>or this is a skip song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm gonna I mean, I'm probably gonna fast forward
<v Speaker 1>through the song.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, you got me?
<v Speaker 1>Sorry man, I.
<v Speaker 2>Love the song, all right, So that doesn't for have
<v Speaker 2>a dream.
<v Speaker 1>I'm okay.
<v Speaker 2>Now we're on.
<v Speaker 1>Shake a Leg, yes, which I think you know. Whenever
<v Speaker 1>Angus Young plays and he does a crazy, crazy show anyway,
<v Speaker 1>but he has this stick that he does that is
<v Speaker 1>totally a chuck Berry knockoff where he kind of does
<v Speaker 1>the duck walk and he's kicking his leg out there
<v Speaker 1>and it's this goofy, crazy thing. And every time I
<v Speaker 1>hear this song, I'm like, we're talking about Angus, right,
<v Speaker 1>this is Angus shaking.
<v Speaker 2>His leg exactly exactly on that note, I read this
<v Speaker 2>really involves Bond. But one of the things that Angus
<v Speaker 2>used to do was he'd get on the shoulders of
<v Speaker 2>a roadie, right, and he'd play in the crowd. The
<v Speaker 2>roady would carry him around the crowd and he's, of course,
<v Speaker 2>he's five foot two, he's this little shrimpy guy and
<v Speaker 2>he's playing this killer guitar. And then the roady would
<v Speaker 2>bring him back up on stage. He'd put him up
<v Speaker 2>on Bond's shoulders and he'd play on Bon's shoulders, right.
<v Speaker 2>But if he got a bad saddle, he would say, me, balls,
<v Speaker 2>me balls, put me down.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome, all right.
<v Speaker 2>So shake a Leg is an awesome song too. It's
<v Speaker 2>a good song. We talked about how this was printed
<v Speaker 2>on some of the You Shook Me All Night Long singles,
<v Speaker 2>and that has become a collector's edition. It's it's a
<v Speaker 2>good song. I mean it's it's not the world's best song,
<v Speaker 2>but it's good.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, what you're feeling on again, this is you know,
<v Speaker 1>the you pointed out that there's not a lot of
<v Speaker 1>variation in the sound in these songs, right, right, and
<v Speaker 1>so some of them, I mean, the great thing is
<v Speaker 1>is that they're great songs. So if you're gonna repeat
<v Speaker 1>something great, that's good. They're all fists pumping, they've all
<v Speaker 1>got that solid, punchy guitar that you know, doesn't have
<v Speaker 1>the reverb. It's just bump butt up right there in
<v Speaker 1>your face. But some of them don't sell me the
<v Speaker 1>way that others do. And if I'm listening to that
<v Speaker 1>and I'm thinking, okay, this is the this is the
<v Speaker 1>seventh time I've heard this kind of sound and it's
<v Speaker 1>not just blowing me away, that's time.
<v Speaker 2>On that note, you're exactly right. There's not a lot
<v Speaker 2>of variations. So if you like one song, you probably
<v Speaker 2>like most of them. Some of them strike you're a
<v Speaker 2>little bit stronger than the others. But notice, so far
<v Speaker 2>there have been no ballads.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>So, I don't know if you heard this story, but
<v Speaker 2>at the time the production company, the producers came in
<v Speaker 2>and basically put their foot down and said, you guys
<v Speaker 2>have got to come up with a ballad. Your your
<v Speaker 2>peers are writing ballads that are selling their albums like crazy.
<v Speaker 2>You guys got to come up with a ballad. And
<v Speaker 2>they said, we don't know how I do it, Like,
<v Speaker 2>we don't know where to start. We've never done one.
<v Speaker 2>And so the producers are like, all right, here's what
<v Speaker 2>you do. Think about your last girlfriend, write some lyrics down.
<v Speaker 2>We'll send in the guy to help you.
<v Speaker 1>All right.
<v Speaker 2>So after this they kind of gave it the good
<v Speaker 2>old college try, and when the producers came in to
<v Speaker 2>listen to the results, they just got up, shook their head,
<v Speaker 2>walked out of the room and said, you guys, just
<v Speaker 2>keep doing what you're doing.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's good. That's good. Yeah. I don't know. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what I would do if I heard
<v Speaker 1>a ballad from ac DC. I can't. It just would
<v Speaker 1>be wrong, right.
<v Speaker 2>It just doesn't go together.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it'd be like Celine Dion singing an ac DC song.
<v Speaker 2>Exactly exactly, like putting mayonnaise on a steak. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>just yeah, yeah, all right. So the last song on
<v Speaker 2>the album is a song called rock and Roll ain't
<v Speaker 2>noise pollution.
<v Speaker 1>So I've said, now, hey, I've heard the same song,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the same style of song over and over.
<v Speaker 1>This is one where I was getting to that point.
<v Speaker 1>But I was then I was like, who hey, this
<v Speaker 1>is different, this is bluesy, this is more kind of
<v Speaker 1>I'm grooving here a bit. And you got Brian Johnson,
<v Speaker 1>who apparently Mutt Lang just told him, hey, just just
<v Speaker 1>say something over this. I just need something, you know,
<v Speaker 1>so that I know that your microphone's working or something
<v Speaker 1>like that. And so Brian Johnson does this kind of
<v Speaker 1>preacher esque kind of speech to the working man, and
<v Speaker 1>but left it on.
<v Speaker 2>Hey you there, all you middle men, throw away your
<v Speaker 2>fancy clothes while you're out there sitting on a fence,
<v Speaker 2>So get off your ass, come down here. Rock and
<v Speaker 2>roll ain't no riddle man. To me, it makes good,
<v Speaker 2>good sense.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah this song, Yeah, I mean, on an album full
<v Speaker 1>of great music, this song might be number two for me.
<v Speaker 1>I really really dig this song a lot. They throw
<v Speaker 1>you a curveball at the end. They finish with something
<v Speaker 1>that is unique, and it's not so unique that you're like,
<v Speaker 1>what is this? It's still ac DC the guitar still
<v Speaker 1>comes in here in a little bit, and it still
<v Speaker 1>kicks some major butt. But it has got a groove
<v Speaker 1>to it that the other songs don't have. Not that
<v Speaker 1>they're bad, it's just that they don't have that kind
<v Speaker 1>of groove that this one has.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So I love hearing that from me. This song
<v Speaker 2>starts out slow, but it has a building power and
<v Speaker 2>it comes full tilt. This is a great, great song
<v Speaker 2>for me on the album as well. This one blows
<v Speaker 2>my skirt up, as you would say. But this song
<v Speaker 2>is similar to or some Sugar on Me. We talked
<v Speaker 2>about when we covered Hysteria that Mutt Lane got to
<v Speaker 2>the end and said, all right, guys, we've got some good,
<v Speaker 2>really good solid songs here. Need one more, right, right.
<v Speaker 2>So initially they only had nine tracks for Back in Black,
<v Speaker 2>but they thought they needed one more song. So Mutt
<v Speaker 2>Lane said, all right, guys, get to work. Angus and
<v Speaker 2>Malcolm wrote this song. The music for the song in
<v Speaker 2>about fifteen minutes.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's incredible.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then it caps off this album so good.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So I'll say this before we get into our
<v Speaker 1>final judgment. They had a formula that they put into
<v Speaker 1>play here, Yes, and that formula worked.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yes, it still works.
<v Speaker 1>It really does. And the songs they last the test
<v Speaker 1>of time. This album is a great album.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be
<v Speaker 2>right back after these messages, I.
<v Speaker 1>Think at this point, unless we got more to talk about,
<v Speaker 1>it's time to jump into final judgment. Let's do it. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna let you go first this time.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Before I get to final judgment, I did want
<v Speaker 2>to bring up something really quick. These two albums that
<v Speaker 2>we're comparing are similar, and they're both rock on blues
<v Speaker 2>bassed rock. They both have that screechy, strong guitar, strong vocals,
<v Speaker 2>really turn it up, your pump your brains out type
<v Speaker 2>of music. But these are both all time best selling albums.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yep.
<v Speaker 2>Now, for whatever reason, it's difficult to pin down an
<v Speaker 2>exact number on album sales. I have seen acdc's Back
<v Speaker 2>and Black listed as high as number two on all
<v Speaker 2>time sales.
<v Speaker 1>Just behind Michael Jackson's Thriller. Highest for a band.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, this one has it at number seven overall, with
<v Speaker 2>Appetite for Destruction at number thirteen. So one of the
<v Speaker 2>things that really can't be disputed, is that Guns Rose's
<v Speaker 2>Appetite for Destruction is the best selling debut album of
<v Speaker 2>all time. Yes, okay, all right, So when I go
<v Speaker 2>to final judgment, here's what I'm weighing. I've got to
<v Speaker 2>what I would consider front to back. Every song on
<v Speaker 2>it is a non skipper for me, twelve tracks, no filler,
<v Speaker 2>all killer, back in Black. Back in Black is the
<v Speaker 2>same way, It's shorter. Okay, Now, then, in my estimation,
<v Speaker 2>Appetite for Destruction is a better album, partially because it
<v Speaker 2>has more tracks. But we had never heard Guns of
<v Speaker 2>Roses before. So I'm going to give ACDC a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of a break here. They get a little bit
<v Speaker 2>of grace because this is their seventh album and they
<v Speaker 2>did this six weeks after they lost their lead singer.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm not discrediting Back in Black at all. The
<v Speaker 2>accomplishment of Back in Black is incredible under those circumstances.
<v Speaker 2>But for me, if you put a gun to my head,
<v Speaker 2>the first one I'm getting out of my tape deck
<v Speaker 2>is Appetite for Destruction. What do you think?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? So here's my thought. We've got two bands, and
<v Speaker 1>the last time that we talked, I said, hey, you know,
<v Speaker 1>what do you think the difference is between hard rock
<v Speaker 1>and heavy metal? And you had kind of an idea
<v Speaker 1>and I shared what my thoughts with you were. But
<v Speaker 1>as we're going through this process, we're we're examining a
<v Speaker 1>lot of music, right, I mean, we've we've listened to Journey,
<v Speaker 1>We've listened to the Police, We've listened to def Leppard,
<v Speaker 1>We've listened to Van Halen, we've listened to Nirvana, we've
<v Speaker 1>listened to Pearl Jam. And as I'm going through this
<v Speaker 1>and I'm trying to you know, I'm looking at these
<v Speaker 1>musical categories and I'm and you know, is this alternative music?
<v Speaker 1>Is this hard rock? Is this heavy metal? Is this
<v Speaker 1>something entirely different? What is this? And something that spoke
<v Speaker 1>to me about both of these bands, they both said
<v Speaker 1>the same thing when people would try to paint them
<v Speaker 1>into a corner, like are you metal or are you
<v Speaker 1>hard rock? They both said the same thing. We play
<v Speaker 1>rock and roll, yeah, and that's it, like, and that's
<v Speaker 1>the you know, it's the lyric to the Billy Joel song.
<v Speaker 1>Is the thing it's screaming in my head. It's all
<v Speaker 1>rock and roll to me, right, Yeah, I mean I
<v Speaker 1>realize that there are some folks who hate on some
<v Speaker 1>of the bands that we have talked about in the
<v Speaker 1>past because of what they did to some of the
<v Speaker 1>bands that we're talking about right now. But it's all
<v Speaker 1>rock and roll. Ultimately, it is all rock and roll.
<v Speaker 1>And I love rock and roll. And right now you
<v Speaker 1>can't get a good rock and roll song from anybody
<v Speaker 1>that I can find. I'm waiting for that comeback. I'm
<v Speaker 1>waiting for the I'm waiting for the ACDC of the
<v Speaker 1>two thousands to show up, where the Van Halen or
<v Speaker 1>the Pearl Jam, whoever it is it's going to show
<v Speaker 1>up and say, guys, we're going to start rocking the
<v Speaker 1>free world again. I'm ready for that. So what ACDC
<v Speaker 1>did was pure simple rock. They had that formula. You
<v Speaker 1>have a punch guitar, you have loud drums, and you
<v Speaker 1>have euphemistic lyrics that are about the basics of sex,
<v Speaker 1>drugs and rock and roll. Man, I mean, that's sex, booze,
<v Speaker 1>and rock and roll. Whatever you want to say. And
<v Speaker 1>so they they set a standard. I mean, Back in
<v Speaker 1>Black has set the standard for what playing rock and
<v Speaker 1>roll in the eighties means. And so they're there at
<v Speaker 1>the beginning of the eighties, setting the standard. And yes,
<v Speaker 1>it's great. It is unarguably one of the best albums
<v Speaker 1>of all time. But because they're so dedicated to their formula,
<v Speaker 1>there's a lack of variation that you have that you
<v Speaker 1>get from other albums, and that you specifically get from
<v Speaker 1>Appetite for Destruction. Appetite is good old rock and roll,
<v Speaker 1>hard rock rock and roll, whatever you want to call it.
<v Speaker 1>But they've they have a little bit of a ballad
<v Speaker 1>that comes in from time to time. They've got a
<v Speaker 1>variation in their sound. They use a talk box here
<v Speaker 1>and there, and with the doing all of those variations,
<v Speaker 1>they not only give you variety, but they maintain some
<v Speaker 1>kick butt tunes. And so I have to say I'm
<v Speaker 1>on the same page with you. I think Appetite wins
<v Speaker 1>the day. It doesn't sold as many albums, it probably
<v Speaker 1>doesn't have as many diehard fans. But when I'm putting
<v Speaker 1>them on the scales, as you say, if I decide, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I got two tapes I can pick before I walk
<v Speaker 1>out the door, I'm gonna pick Appetite.
<v Speaker 2>Something that would be a complete oversight if we don't
<v Speaker 2>mention Brian Johnson when he had to step away from
<v Speaker 2>ACDC for a little bit. Yeah, we filled in for him.
<v Speaker 2>Axel Rose, Axel Rose and Guns and Roses you sent me.
<v Speaker 2>They play a whole lot of rosie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So when they first when they first came out,
<v Speaker 1>Melody Maker described them as a week ACDC. You know.
<v Speaker 2>And here's the other thing. ACDC has given us thirty
<v Speaker 2>years worth of great music. Forty forty years with the
<v Speaker 2>great music.
<v Speaker 1>Well, if they did it first in seventy six, it's
<v Speaker 1>nearly forty five.
<v Speaker 2>Gosh, that's incredible. Yeah, so they keep a CDC has
<v Speaker 2>been pumping out music for decades.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Now not all of it is Back in Black or
<v Speaker 2>Highway to Hell.
<v Speaker 1>No, some of the day I don't.
<v Speaker 2>They have any songs on it.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, but they still even in you know, even
<v Speaker 1>in their fifties, they were making some hits.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, absolutely. Guns and Roses on the other hand,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I keep waiting and waiting and waiting, and
<v Speaker 2>it's just not going to happen.
<v Speaker 1>So I think that Appetite will continue to stand the
<v Speaker 1>test of time. I think Back in Black will continue
<v Speaker 1>to stand the test of time. They're both albums that
<v Speaker 1>you can go back to over and over again, and
<v Speaker 1>I think without Back in Black, there there is no gni,
<v Speaker 1>there is no appetite for destruction. So you got to
<v Speaker 1>give you got to give them that consideration. But it's
<v Speaker 1>a hard choice. These are definitely two major contenders. But
<v Speaker 1>we'd love to hear from you, guys, tell us what
<v Speaker 1>you think.
<v Speaker 2>For me, this is appetite by a nose, But tell
<v Speaker 2>us where we're at. If you're all the way back
<v Speaker 2>in Black, or if you hate appetite, if you hate
<v Speaker 2>access voice, or if you think bon Scott was the
<v Speaker 2>man in Back and Back and everything after that was terrible,
<v Speaker 2>let us hear from you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, you can catch us on Twitter at Shirley Podcast,
<v Speaker 1>on Facebook at Shirley Podcasts, or if you want to
<v Speaker 1>send us an email. We respond to every single email
<v Speaker 1>that we get, and that's shirleypodcast at gmail dot com.
<v Speaker 1>We really appreciate all of the support that you continue
<v Speaker 1>to give us. We're overwhelmed by how many people have
<v Speaker 1>reached out and given us their opinion on things. It's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>We love it. So please join us in the debate
<v Speaker 1>here and let us know what you think.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Thanks everybody for listening. Check us out on
<v Speaker 2>Facebook and Twitter. We will see you next time.
<v Speaker 1>All music, images, and movie clips are used for the
<v Speaker 1>purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the fair
<v Speaker 1>Use agreement under the US copyright law.