F
or Malcolm Young, AC/DC’s rhythm
guitarist, it was always about the riff. And
with one in particular, as soon as he came up
with it in the early days of 1979, he knew in
his bones it was
something special. As he put it, with
the kind of bluntness and vulgarity
that had always defined the band’s
work: “It stuck out like a dog’s balls.”
This riff was perfect in its
simplicity: the way it moved, in
staccato bursts, reminiscent of Free’s
All Right Now. And from it came
arguably the most important song of AC/DC’s whole
career. Its title started out as a joke, when lead guitarist
Angus Young, Malcolm’s kid brother, described the band’s
gruelling 1978 tour as “a fucking highway to hell”. And inthe words, belted out by singer Bon Scott, was a signature
statement of devil-may-care rock’n’roll attitude.
Highway To Hell was the title track of AC/DC’s first
million-selling album. In the UK it was the band’s first Top
10 hit outside of their native Australia.
Most significantly, as Angus Young
said: “That was the album that broke
us in America.”
All of this did not come easily. In
the making of the Highway To Hell
album, the band were under intense
pressure from Atlantic Records in
America to come up with a hit
record. This led Malcolm and Angus to make one of the
toughest decisions of their lives: dispensing with the
services of their elder brother, George Young, who had
produced all of AC/DC’s earlier albums with HarryThey may have been at loggerheads with their label, but with Highway To Hell AC/DC
raced ahead of the rest by making a record that was true to their roots. It was the
album that finally helped them break America, but such success came with a huge cost.Words: Paul ElliottGET
TY“[The Highway To
Hell riff] stuck out
like a dog’s balls.”
Malcolm Young
28 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM