AC/DC rhythm guitarist Steve Young has been admitted to a hospital in Argentina “out of an abundance of caution.”

The band are in the middle of a South American tour, and currently in the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires ahead of a show at the Estadio River Plate stadium on Monday, March 23.

Young, who succeeded Malcolm Young in the group in 2014, is said to be in “good spirits,” according to a statement from the band to the Reuters news agency.

“Out of an abundance of caution, he [Steve Young] was admitted to a local hospital where he is undergoing ​a full battery of tests,” the statement reads. “Stevie is doing well and ​is in good spirits. He is looking forward to getting on stage on Monday.”

The band and doctors will no doubt monitor the situation, but at the time of writing, the situation doesn’t look like it will impact the tour.

The powerhouse Australians have already played dates in São Paulo, Brazil, and a doubleheader at the Parque Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, as part of a run of dates to support their 2020 album, Power Up. Despite having passed three years prior to its release, Malcolm has a co-writing credit on every track.

The band took a while to start touring the record, with their first dates in 2024 also marking the debut of new bassist Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction, who has stepped in for Cliff Williams.

Stevie, who is Malcolm’s nephew, had previously played on the Blow Up Your Video World Tour in 1988, made his recording debut on 2014’s Rock or Bust amid Malcolm’s ailing health. The rhythm guitar legend sadly passed away in 2017.

Five years after his passing, Malcolm ‘the pick shredder’ Young was honored by Gretsch with a limited-edition “Red Beast” Signature Jet, the guitar that, alongside the likes of George Harrison and Jeff Beck, helped the Gretsch Jet line take off.

A few years ago, I had to learn (or brush up on) the lead guitar parts and solos for about 83 songs – everything from classic Merle Haggard and Kinks tunes to the Cars’ Bye Bye Love to two entire Beatles albums – all of which I eventually performed at clubs, theaters, and outdoor festivals that spring and summer.

Buried on this two-ton list of tunes was Friday on My Mind, a late-1966 single by the Easybeats, a high-energy Aussie band that churned out some seriously catchy power pop.

The song was huge by the spring of ’67; it reached Number 16 in the U.S., Number 1 in Australia, and Number 6 in the U.K. It even was voted “Best Australian Song” of all time by the Australasian Performing Rights Association back in 2001.

The most striking thing about the tune – from a guitarist’s point of view – is the deftly and relentlessly alternate-picked root-fifth and root-octave figures that outline an implied chord progression during the intro and verses.

And then there’s the Eastern-flavored use of the harmonic minor scale and its fifth mode, Phrygian-dominant, in the single-note fills! And how can we ignore the contrapuntal interplay between the primary and secondary guitar parts, featuring contrary melodic motion?

Anyway, I was so intrigued by the song that I actually paused in the middle of all my relentless song-learnin’ to do a bit of serious research about the band and their guitarists. That’s when I stumbled upon their connection to AC/DC.

First of all, the band – as heard on this particular tune – featured Stevie Wright (lead vocals), Harry Vanda (guitar), George Young (guitar), Dick Diamonde (bass), and Gordon “Snowy” Fleet (drums), and the song was composed by Vanda and Young. As any AC/DC super-fan knows, Young was the older brother of AC/DC cofounders Malcolm and Angus Young.

When the Easybeats called it quits in 1969, Young and Vanda concentrated on writing and producing songs for other artists – not to mention a few for themselves, most of which were recorded under different stage names. One of their studio-based groups, the Marcus Hook Roll Band, featured Malcolm and Angus.

George (along with Vanda) went on to co-produce AC/DC’s early albums, including Let There Be Rock, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, T.N.T., Powerage, and High Voltage. He played bass for the band very early on and wound up producing their 2000 album, Stiff Upper Lip.

George Young’s famous saying to his younger brothers was, “You can’t call yourself a band until you’ve done at least 200 gigs.”

In a 1992 interview with Guitar World, Angus Young reflected on what he learned from his older brother, saying he “was so quick that you learned a lot when you were with him. Especially when you were 14 or something.

“He'd pick up a bass and hand you the guitar. And you'd think you were incompetent, but before you knew it you were playing with him. He'd go ‘G... A...’ And you were away.

“He also taught me... like, say you play a song five nights in one key, but on the sixth night the singer's throat ain't makin' it. You might have to go down a tone or so. George was really used to that, and he got me used to that.”

The elder Young's six-string eccentricities also left a large impression on his brothers.

“He was into some crazy things too, you know,” Angus told Guitar World. “Like he'd tell me the D string annoyed him. The G string, too. ‘Too sweet for rock and roll,’ he'd say – so off went the G string!

“When I last saw him in the Easybeats, he had like four strings on that guitar. He was never a fan of light strings either – especially when those slinky strings came out. He'd say, ‘You can't tune 'em.’”

Young died on October 22, 2017, only a month before his younger brother, Malcolm.

The childhood home of AC/DC electric guitar heroes Angus and Malcolm Young has been demolished, despite the fact it had been listed on Australia’s National Trust Register of Historic Houses.

Located at 4 Burleigh Street in Burwood, Sydney, the property became the Young home when the family moved in back in 1965, the same year that the pair’s older brother George Young released his debut album with The Easybeats.

In 1973, AC/DC formed at the address, and in 2013, it was added to the National Trust Register of Historic Houses. However, when it came to demolishing the property, the company responsible stressed it was unaware of the building’s cultural significance.

“We regret that the previous long-term owner did not share this vital part of the property’s background with us,” says Burwood Square Pty Ltd general manager Leon Kmita. “Learning about this connection after our plans were already underway has shocked us. We are genuinely sorry for this oversight.

“On behalf of the team at Burwood Square, I want to convey our heartfelt regret. We now recognise how deeply this location resonates with the AC/DC community and fans worldwide. We feel a strong responsibility to honour AC/DC’s legacy and to make amends to all the fans who hold this band in such high regard.

"While we cannot change the past, we are dedicated to celebrating this significant part of their story. To the global fanbase of AC/DC, please know that we hear you, appreciate your deep admiration for this legendary band, and are devoted to making this right."

The property was originally demolished to make way for a $28.75 million residential development, but now, in response to backlash from music fans, the site will be repurposed as a new tribute to AC/DC and the Young brothers.

Using material salvaged from the property, the developers have vowed to set up a bar or cafe where fans can “gather to celebrate the band’s enduring legacy”.

In response to the demolition and fan backlash, the local council stressed that, despite the fact the property was listed on the National Trust Register of Historic Houses, it was not protected under local or state legislation.

“As it is not heritage listed or protected under local or state legislation, and because The National Trust is a community-based, non-government organisation, with no statutory authority, the property does not have enforceable protections. Burwood Council remains committed to finding new ways to celebrate the Young family and the area’s rich musical heritage,” the council writes.

Childhood homes of influential musicians and guitar stars are often seen as sites of cultural significance. In 2022, Paul McCartney opened his own childhood home for unsigned artists to write and perform.

Before that, the home of fellow Beatle George Harrison went up for auction.

As the rhythm guitarist holding down the fort while his brother plays lead, Dan Hawkins is the Malcolm Young of The Darkness, so who better to explain why the late rhythm king was the best in the business, and how anyone would go about emulating him?

Hawkins has tried, but it is easier said than done…

When did you first become interested in the art of rhythm guitar?

“It was my brother, Justin, who turned me onto AC/DC. I immediately picked out the rhythms as something I could do. I could hear this guy playing in a way that made me think, ‘Gosh, I might actually be able to do that!’ Malcolm’s approach was groovy but also angry and aggressive.

“He wasn’t playing lightly. His parts sound simple, but when you delve deeper, despite being mainly open chords, they’re quite intricate. Let’s put it this way: I struggle to play barre chords! I spent two years with the stereo panned hard left so I could only hear Malcolm.

“I did my 10,000 hours of trying to copy him. To some extent I failed, but it helped me find my own way. If you try to emulate him, it’s like sport: mess up once and the whole thing is gone.

“But Malcolm never put a foot wrong. He was always in time. If the rhythm section started to drift, he would go with it and then pull them back into line. You can hear that on the live stuff… it’s incredible! He’s got to be one of the most underrated guitarists ever.”

Malcolm usually fed his Gretsch guitars into amps like the Marshall Super Bass. Did his tone influence you as much as his performances?

“Definitely. His sound wasn’t particularly high-gain. I went from acoustic guitar to electric, so my brain was already quite anti-distortion, in a way. I liked those big open chords with very little overdrive. That’s where precision and palm-muting comes into its own, because you can’t let anything get out of control – otherwise people will hear it!”

Have you ever bought a Gretsch Jet or White Falcon to sound like him?

“I had the Malcolm signature for a while, but to be honest I didn’t get on with it. It wasn’t the easiest guitar to play, which again is a testament to Malcolm. It’s so bright and chimey that if you don’t palm-mute correctly, it quickly becomes a clang fest. I’d also been playing Les Pauls for a while, so there was no going back.

“A Les Paul fattens things out better for a band like The Darkness. I’ve used a Marshall Super Bass in the past. I borrowed one in Australia recently, the same exact spec as Malcolm’s. They’re quite growly and warmer than you might expect. That’s why his rig worked so well – the Gretsch could be harsh but the Super Bass would round out the lower frequencies.”

Which song best captures Malcolm’s input to AC/DC?

“For many years, the first song I would play at soundcheck would be Beating Around the Bush! Which is actually similar to the Fleetwood Mac song Oh Well. But it’s quite tricky because there’s a lot of information happening. It’s still probably the first thing I play when I pick up a guitar and plug in.”

Where is Malcolm’s influence most evident in The Darkness?

“I’d say Black Shuck and definitely Stuck in a Rut, as well, especially as that song just sticks with an A chord and toys around with different rhythms. We didn’t even bother changing the chord with that one! But, then again, pretty much everything we’ve done is built around the same three chords. I slip into that stuff a lot because that’s how I learned how to play electric guitar.”

Some might say rhythm guitar is a bit of a lost art form…

“I’m lucky to be one of the last bona fide rhythm guitarists left in the world. Everyone else wants to be playing lead. My daughter is learning and she can already play loads of solos.

“I’m constantly reminding her to work on her engine room. You need to be digging in and supporting the band until it’s your turn to shine. My love for rhythm guitar is born out of necessity and lack of ability! I know I’ll never be a technically great lead guitarist, so I don’t bother trying.”

Did you ever get to see Malcolm in action?

“A few times. I remember the Stiff Upper Lip tour at Wembley being ridiculously loud, something like 147dB in front of the PA. You would permanently lose your hearing stood two feet away from it. I was halfway down the arena and still couldn’t hear properly for a couple of days.

“I remember we were playing in Germany the day Malcolm died. It dawned on me that the reason I’m on stage making a living from rock guitar – the best job in the world – was entirely because of Malcolm. I shed a tear on stage that night.”

Do you have any other parting tips for nailing Malcolm’s tone?

“I think Marshall knocked it out of the park with their Studio series. One thing that frustrates players is getting the right sound without turning up really loud. Because amps are made to be driven, right? But the Studios manage to get that full sound at a much more palatable 20 watts.

“They will inspire players as much as the powerful stuff cranked. So, I’d say that’s what you need for the classic Marshall sound at a quieter volume. I actually played the Royal Albert Hall for a charity thing recently and was using one of those little Studio Super Lead [SV20C] combos. I didn’t even need the 20 watts – I used it on the 5-watt setting and it sounded massive!”

The sound and playing style of AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young is legendary and constantly emulated. The core elements, though rarely complex, are harder to master than you might imagine, however. 

Malcolm’s open shapes and powerchords are delivered with unrelenting, rock solid groove. And Angus’s leads? Well, his phrasing and vibrato are instantly recognizable – which, while making him the icon he is, does mean you’ll be aping quite an individualistic style. 

Tonally, the AC/DC sound epitomises the idea that less is more. A Marshall amp is a core ingredient, as is the combination of Gretsch G6131 Jet and Gibson SG guitars with bridge pickups selected. 

Assuming you’re not in a position to crank your amp to stadium-ready volume levels, Young brothers style, we recommend keeping the gain low for the rhythm parts and using a Tube Screamer-style overdrive pedal for a mid boost on lead parts. Now, let there be rock...

Example 1.  Malcolm-style open powerchords

The driving force of the AC/DC rhythm section, Malcolm Young predominantly favored open chords and powerchords, where open strings would maximize resonance and sustain. 

Coupled with the lightest of drive tones this gives loads of dynamic range and bucketloads more power than you’d expect. Here in our Dirty Deeds-style riff, the minor 3rd G note can be bent slightly sharp for a bluesy flavour. 

Example 2. Malcolm-style sparse riffs 

Space and raw simplicity are key to Malcolm’s vibe – he’d never overplay. His parts let the drums and bass breath and never got in the way of Angus’ lead parts. Inspired by tracks like Rock ’N’ Roll Train and Highway To Hell, our example here is best delivered with downpicking for a consistent attack. 

Example 3. Angus-style doublestop lick

Angus' lead style is a blend of rock ’n’ roll and blues, and this doublestop (two notes together) idea demonstrates his Chuck Berry influences. 

We've taken our inspiration from Hells Bells here with a lick that's based in the minor pentatonic scale – but listen out for the 14th-fret note on the second string, which comes from the Dorian mode. 

Example 4. Angus-style bends & vibrato

Many would say Angus’ frenetic vibrato is instantly recognizable. Break the vibrato in our example riff into two elements by copying first the speed and timing, then analyzing how much pitch bend to apply. 

Example 5. Angus-style pentatonics

One trick that Angus uses is to mix up the major and minor pentatonic scales. Our example is inspired by You Shook Me All Night Long and starts out with the bright-sounding A major pentatonic scale (A B C# E F#) before moving to the darker A minor pentatonic scale (A C D E G). Try to exploit this mood change in your own licks.

Steel Panther electric guitar player Satchel has claimed that AC/DC’s late rhythm guitarist, Malcolm Young, was more influential than Eddie Van Halen, Robert Johnson or Eric Clapton. 

Speaking in a recent interview with Loudwire in which he looked back on the most influential albums from his teenage years, Satchel staked a claim for the underrated rhythm master’s place in the pantheon of guitar greats.

“Not enough guitar players talk about Malcolm Young,” says Satchel in the clip. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here. [Actually] I don’t think it’s a limb I’m going on, but I’m gonna say this: Malcolm Young was probably the most influential guitar player in rock. If not, in guitar [music, in general].”

“[He] probably influenced more people as a guitar player than Eddie Van Halen,” continues Satchel. “I’m saying this: more than Eddie Van Halen, Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton, and any guitar player, because think about all the bands that have come after AC/DC that have tried to write AC/DC-sounding songs with three chords.”

The concept and extent of a player’s influence is obviously hard to quantify and highly subjective, but it’s an interesting thought. For instance, while it’s often the lead players getting the spotlight, many guitarists – we would wager the majority, even – pick up the instrument to play songs or riffs, rather than solos. 

AC/DC were formed in 1973 by Malcolm and Angus Young. While the punk movement that came along a few years later is often credited with lowering the barriers to entry for budding guitarists and songwriters, AC/DC’s no-nonsense rock songs and flair for an irresistible riff arguably sparked a similar sentiment. It’s certainly hard to find a guitarist that hasn’t tried on a few AC/DC riffs at some point in their playing career.

Looking at the numbers, the Australian band are the ninth highest-selling artist of all time in the US, according to the RIAA, shifting an astonishing 75 million albums across their 50-year career. Only Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and Garth Brooks outpace them in terms of guitar-based artists from the ’70s onwards. 

By that token, Satchel has a pretty convincing case to make for Malcolm Young having a wider influence than Van Halen and Clapton, but Young might get pipped by Jimmy Page. Yes, it’s pure speculation, obviously. But it’s fun speculation...

Gretsch certainly regards Young as one of its most influential players – as evidenced by the fact he was recently posthumously honored with a new signature guitar that aims to recreate an early incarnation of his trusty Jet, dubbed the ‘Red Beast’.

Back in June, Gretsch ushered in the summer by announcing two new signature guitars – one of which was created to honor AC/DC's late co-founder and rhythm electric guitar titan, Malcolm Young.

Now, that model – the pickup-packed, limited-edition “Red Beast” Signature Jet – has been officially launched.

Designed in consultation with Malcolm’s nephew Stevie Young, the latest Beast is an homage to the earliest iteration of the famed axe Young used during his early AC/DC performances and videos – including It’s a Long Way to the Top – before stripping it out and embarking on his mod journey.

The original Beast began life as a humble Firebird Red Jet, and was first bolstered with a middle humbucker retrofitted by Young. He would later go on to remove both the middle and the neck pickups, leaving just the bridge unit.

Further, the rhythm guitar icon also removed the original Firebird Red colorway, leaving the now-iconic natural finish of arguably his most famous instrument.

The all-new G6131G-MY-RB Beast is a limited-edition recreation of that early favorite of Young’s, before it was on the receiving end of the above functional tweaks.

As such, it features a chambered body – composed from mahogany with an arched laminated maple top – that flashes two two-inch cutaways, as well as a U-profile mahogany set-neck that is adorned with a 12”-radius ebony ‘board and 22 jumbo frets.

While we’re at this end of the axe, the neck also features aged pearloid neo-classic thumbnail inlays, a bone nut and aged white binding, and flashes an aged white-bound headstock that boasts Schaller die-cast tuning machines.

Other notable appointments include a harmonica-style Adjusto-Matic bridge with a pinned ebony base, which lines up alongside an original-accurate Gretsch ‘60s Jet Vibrato tailpiece.

As for those pickups, two TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity pickups sandwich a TV Jones Starwood humbucker, with each answering to both unit-specific volume controls and a master volume parameter.

Joining the three G-Arrow knobs are a trio of toggle switches. The first is a classic pickup selector, while the other two serve as a tone switch and stand-by switch.

The Gretsch G6131G-MY-RB Malcolm Young Signature Jet is available now for $3,399.

Head over to Gretsch to find out more about the guitar.

Gretsch has heralded the arrival of summer by introducing two new signature guitars.

The G6131G-MY-RB and G6134TFM-NH were created for late AC/DC rhythm guitar dynamo Malcolm Young and Nigel Hendroff, respectively, and each boasts some unique kit.

We'll take you through each of them below, starting with the Young model.

Gretsch G6131G-MY-RB Limited Edition Malcolm Young Signature Jet

Malcolm Young's favorite electric guitar was a legendary six-string affectionately dubbed "The Beast." Early on in AC/DC's career, it was a Firebird Red Jet with stock neck and bridge humbuckers, plus a middle humbucker installed by Young.

The rhythm guitar great then decided to strip that middle humbucker, and the neck humbucker, leaving only a bridge pickup. He also stripped the guitar down from its original Firebird Red look to his preferred natural finish. 

The G6131G-MY-RB recreates The Beast as it appeared in AC/DC's It's A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) music video – after the addition of the middle 'bucker.

We don't have its full spec sheet yet, but we do know that it boasts a double-cutaway chambered mahogany body with a maple top, plus a trio of TV Jones pickups – Ray Butts Ful- Fidelity Filter’Trons in the neck and bridge, and a Starwood humbucker in the middle, for added punch.

These are controlled in part by an individual pickup toggle switch, a three-way tone switch and a three-position standby switch.

Elsewhere, there's a harmonica-style Adjusto-Matic bridge with a pinned ebony base, and a print of Young's signature on the guitar's truss rod cover.

The Gretsch G6131G-MY-RB Limited Edition Malcolm Young Signature Jet will be available starting in October for $3,399. It seems bound to be a good option for those who loved the power of Gretsch's previous G6131-MY Malcolm Young Signature Jet, but are looking for a bit more tonal variety on top. 

G6134TFM-NH Nigel Hendroff Signature Penguin

Second on tap is a new signature Penguin for Nigel Hendroff, a prominent guitarist in the world of Christian music.

Like a typical Penguin, the G6134TFM-NH features a chambered mahogany body with a maple top. It also sports a mahogany neck with an ebony fretboard, and is powered by a pair of Broad’Tron BT65 pickups. Intriguingly though, the G6134TFM-NH's control set seems to our eyes to be a bit more streamlined than that found on a typical Penguin

The spec sheet is rounded out by a string-thru Bigsby B7CP vibrato, Grover Imperial locking tuners and strap locks.

The Gretsch G6134TFM-NH Nigel Hendroff Signature Penguin will be available starting in July – in Amber Flame and Dark Cherry Metallic Flame finishes – for $3,499.

For more info on both new models, visit Gretsch.

A never-before-published interview with Malcolm Young from 2003 has recently been released by The Coda Collection, in which the late electric guitar legend and AC/DC founder takes a deep dive into the iconic rock band’s roots and his guitar-playing relationship with his brother, Angus.

The newly unearthed conversation was released alongside a whole host of AC/DC-related material, including seven hours of video footage documenting the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson eras, which are currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Also included in the comprehensive catalog are a handful of timelines and in-depth essays, which chart the band’s meteoric rise from outback rockers to one of the most formidable bands in rock ‘n’ roll history.

Notable highlights from Young’s previously unpublished interview include a discussion of his musical relationship with his brother Angus, of which Malcolm revealed, “It was never a brotherly squabble.

“I was more into the chord thing, the complete song, rather than the individual part. I was glad in a way, because I was more of a melodic player. Angus was more into the rock world,” he said. “Straight away I said, ‘This is great.’ There was never any question. I thought, ‘Angus, it’s pointless for me to play solos.’ We just wanted to do good as a band.”

When asked whether he had heard about the rock 'n' roll trope of brothers in bands falling out, Young replied, "We do suffer a bit of that. It's not that dramatic. We have our moments. That's what we do, knowing each other all our lives.

"Brothers do fight, but there is a closeness too. Within the band, a little bit of aggro rears its ugly head. But it's certainly not a problem for AC/DC," he continued. "During the making of the albums it's the worst, because everyone is a bit under pressure. You're in a confined area and things happen."

Young also took the time to discuss how the axe-slinging siblings originally joined forces, recalling, “It just happened at one point when I was putting together a band. We were going to get a keyboard player, but I got Angus instead.

“We never really played together. I was more into the Beatles and Stones, and Angus was more into the heavier stuff, Hendrix and Cream, with the lead guitar. I used to listen to songs as songs. I tended to pick up on the chords, the whole picture around the guitar. 

“I said, ‘Come down tomorrow and have a bash.’ We were going to play rock ‘n’ roll, it was simple as that. When Angus came in, it was a big piece.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Young touches on how he was heavily influenced by blues music in his early years, and discusses how the band's live career blossomed from "rowdy, made, brawling Aussie" clubs.

Head over to The Coda Collection to read the conversation in full and to explore the full list of AC/DC-related titles currently available in the catalog. 

Sometimes, ideas with humble beginnings are destined for greatness. That mantra is all too true for AC/DC's electrifying classic Thunderstruck, which Angus Young recently revealed originated as a practice routine he used to play on, yes, an acoustic guitar.

In a conversation with Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Essential Music show, the electric guitar icon was joined by bandmate Brian Johnson to discuss the band's legendary career and select their essential AC/DC tracks.

When quizzed on the history of Thunderstruck, Angus Young revealed that the larger-than-life lead lick had an unlikely origin.

"It started off as practice thing on an acoustic guitar I had at home," revealed Young. "I had a cassette and I was fiddling around with the guitar and I thought, 'That's interesting', so I put it down."

Young continued, saying that when he showed his brother and bandmate Malcolm, the late guitar great pursued the idea, saying, "Angus, go back, go back to that little guitar thing you had on the acoustic – that's a little hook-y thing... there's something about that."

Angus, per Malcom's request, then began to add to the track, transforming it from a humble warmup lick into a rock guitar classic.

Young also revealed that Thunderstruck was taken to the next level by Malcolm, who tweaked the original arrangement while Angus took a one-week break away during the recording of Razor's Edge.

"When I came back, Malcolm came to me and he said, "Listen and hear what we've done to your song,"" Angus recalls.

"I put it on, and he had added the big thunder choruses at the beginning, and the chant, which we originally only put in the middle section of the song."

In response to Malcolm asking for his opinions on the newly arranged track, Angus said, "You've made it better, you've improved it. It sounds great.

"I was really happy," continued Angus. "I said, 'you've given it life!'"

There you have it, folks. Don't neglect your practice, because those little mindless noodles you play without thinking may have more potential than you think.

Elsewhere in the podcast are a number of other insights into the origins of classic AC/DC tracks, including the tale of how Angus Young came up with the vocal line for Highway to Hell on the toilet – the clip of which can be seen above.

In an emotional new interview with Australia's 60 Minutes, Angus Young has paid tribute to his older brother Malcolm, who tragically passed away at the age of 64 on November 18, 2017. The AC/DC rhythm man had been diagnosed with dementia at the end of the band's Black Ice World Tour.

A statement from AC/DC at the time described Malcolm as “the driving force behind the band”.

“As a guitarist, songwriter and visionary, he was a perfectionist and a unique man,” the statement read. “He always stuck to his guns and did and said exactly what he wanted. He took great pride in all that he endeavored. His loyalty to the fans was unsurpassed.”

In the new 60 Minutes piece, Angus reflects upon Malcolm's original idea for the band, and his 2017 passing.

“It was his creation, his idea, his whole thing,” he says. “When I was younger and he said, ‘Me and you are going to play together’, I said, You’re kidding? He said, ‘No, you’ve got the goods.’ I was like, Are you sure now, you want me playing next to you onstage? and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re as good a guitarist as anyone else.’ It was all his idea.”

Angus also recalls music providing Malcolm comfort and joy in his final days at Lulworth House, a nursing home facility in eastern Sydney which specializes in dementia care.

“I think the hardest part was not so much him passing, because that was a kind of end, the relief,” he notes. “I think the worst part is the decline – that’s the hard part. Because of how you knew him, and then to see that that was gone.”

“I would say, even to the end, if I was there, from [ear to ear], he had a big smile,” the visibly emotional guitarist continued. “And for me, that always gave me a kind of joy. Even though he was in that state, that was always the joy of it. And he still got a great kick if I played him guitar. He would try to tap his foot. But he always knew I was there. So that was a big thing. I was with him towards the end.”

Watch the full interview with Angus, and AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson, above.

Although his playing doesn't appear, Malcolm Young is credited as a songwriter on every track on AC/DC's new album, Power Up.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Angus has also paid tribute to his brother's lead guitar talents, claiming that “Malcolm could solo even better than me”.

We are just days away from hearing AC/DC’s new album, Power Up, which arrives on Friday (November 13), and befittingly, Angus Young graces the cover of the latest issue of Guitar World, which is on-sale now.

During the in-depth cover interview, Angus looks back at the guitar relationship between himself and his departed brother, Malcolm – and how Mal’s reputation as a rhythm king often outshone his lead abilities.

“I remember a [Guitar World] cover me and my brother did together going way back [November 1995],” Angus told GW.

“That was nice, because there was always a tendency for people to only look at solo guitarists, while Malcolm was an out-and-out rhythm player. A lot of people forget that there's some great rhythm players out there. And the two of us were doing it together.

“But what a lot of people never knew was that Malcolm could do a solo probably even better than me. He’d come up with some great licks. Whenever I heard his things, I’d always say, ‘How's he doing that?’”

It was recently revealed that Malcolm co-wrote every track on Power Up, although his actual playing doesn’t feature on the record.

Guitar World’s full cover story sees Angus go into detail on the writing and recording of the album, his guitar philosophy, and how Mal’s spirit lives on in the new songs.

You can order a copy from Magazines Direct, while subscribers receive an exclusive cover.

Aussie rock legends AC/DC are currently gearing up to release new album, Power Up, which features 12 new tracks co-written by the band’s late rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young. Now, in a new interview with the band, Angus Young has reflected on his connection with his departed brother.

“His death was a huge blow to us,” Angus told NME. “But I still think he’s there when I’m playing. It sounds funny, but I can still feel him communicating to me when I’m playing guitar.”

In the interview, Young goes on to detail his final visits to his brother, and how guitar continued to unite the pair right up until Malcolm’s passing on November 18, 2017.

“I’d play him a bit of guitar, and he was happy whenever we were doing that,” Angus recalls. “One of the last records I ever played him was The Rolling Stones when they were doing a lot of old blues tracks [2016’s Blue & Lonesome], and he just thought it was great.”

During the conversation, returning frontman Brian Johnson also reveals he has lofty aspirations for the album – and its impact on guitar sales.

“Instead of looking at dancers on TikTok, I’m hoping this album will make young kids go out and buy a guitar, learn the riffs and discover the rest of our catalogue,” he says.

“It would just be great to get more young rock bands out there, writing their own songs and getting up there on stage.”

Last week, Angus Young revealed why his brother’s playing doesn’t feature on the new album, with his parts instead performed by Mal’s nephew, Stevie Young.

“I know a lot of people have been saying, ‘Did Malcolm actually play – is it his instrument on the new album?’” Angus said. “I chose not to do that because I felt Malcolm himself wouldn’t like me trying to splice his guitar work.”

Power Up is available on November 13, and available to preorder now.

It was recently revealed that every track on the forthcoming AC/DC record, Power Up, features songwriting contributions from late electric guitar player and co-founder Malcolm Young., who passed away in November 2017.

But while Mal’s riffs are all over the record, Angus Young recently revealed why his brother’s actual playing is not.

“I know a lot of people have been saying, did Malcolm actually play, is it his instrument on the new album?” Angus told Spain’s RockFM radio. “I chose not to do that because I felt Malcolm himself wouldn’t like me trying to splice his guitar work.”

He continued, “Malcolm and myself, a lot of what we had done through the years, we’d make notes with the tracks. Some might be a little bit rough here and there, and I polished them up. In other cases, Malcolm might have done just a small bit and then I would do the next verse. The bulk of the contribution of Mal is mainly musical.”

As previously reported, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Angus said several of the riffs on the new album stem from the writing sessions for 2008’s Black Ice.

“There was a lot of great song ideas at that time,” he said. “At that time he said to me, ‘We’ll leave these songs for now. If we keep going, we’ll be overboard. We’ll get them on the next one.’

“That always stuck with me. When I went through and listened to them, I said, ‘If I do anything in my life, I have to get these tracks down and get these tracks out.’ ”

Power Up is out November 13. The album is currently available for preorder.

Engineer Mike Fraser, who worked with AC/DC on their forthcoming Power Up album, recently stated that the record includes several ideas from late electric guitar player Malcolm Young, who passed away in November 2017.

But it’s now been revealed that Malcolm is credited as a writer for every track on the album, including the first single, Shot in the Dark.

As Angus Young says in a new video interview posted to the band’s YouTube channel, “I know Mal’s not with us anymore, but he’s there with us in spirit. You know, this band was his baby, his life. He was always one [to say], ‘You keep going.’ ”

“He would have been proud of this, I think,” adds singer Brian Johnson about Power Up. “He’s not far away.”

Continues Angus, “His big line always, every now and again, he’d go, ‘If you’re a musician, it’s a bit like being on the Titanic, the band goes down with the ship.’ That’s how he viewed it.”

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Angus said several of the riffs on the new album stem from the writing sessions for 2008’s Black Ice.

“There was a lot of great song ideas at that time,” he said. “At that time he said to me, ‘We’ll leave these songs for now. If we keep going, we’ll be overboard. We’ll get them on the next one.’

“That always stuck with me. When I went through and listened to them, I said, ‘If I do anything in my life, I have to get these tracks down and get these tracks out.’ ”

Power Up is out November 13. The album is currently available for preorder.

We've witnessed several teasers for AC/DC's eagerly-awaited comeback album over the past week, including a snippet of a new track, Shot in the Dark. Now, the band's long-serving producer, Mike Fraser, has spoken to the AC/DCFans.Net Podcast, and revealed further details on the album.

PWR/UP – the apparent title of the LP – is the follow-up to 2014's Rock Or Bust, and will feature AC/DC's 2020 line-up of Brian Johnson (vocals), Phil Rudd (drums), Cliff Williams (bass), Angus Young (guitar) and Stevie Young (guitar).

And, according to Fraser, the band's late rhythm powerhouse, Malcolm Young, will also make his presence known, having contributed several song ideas to the new album before he passed away in November 2017.

On the topic of songwriting and recording for PWR/UP, Fraser revealed, "Angus came into this with a lot of ideas and riffs and not too many completed songs. But that was similar on Rock Or Bust. 'Cause him and Malcolm had written tons of songs before Mal got sick and eventually passed away."

"He's got a whole treasure trove of ideas and riffs. He probably spent a few years before we came in to do this record pooling ideas together, and then when he came into the studio here, he just sat down with a whole suitcase full of little demo things he had done."

A little over two years ago, Brian, Phil, Angus and Stevie were photographed outside Warehouse Studios in Vancouver, which led to speculation on the band's return.

Questioned on whether he thought AC/DC would make another album after Rock Or Bust, Fraser said: "At the end of the Rock Or Bust tour, I figured that was kind of gonna be it – they were gonna hang up their hats.

"They had done a tribute to Mal [late AC/DC rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young], but it ended up kind of funny. So I didn't think they'd be back at it again. But Angus has got a lot of fire in his belly, and if he could possibly put it together again, he would have been the guy that did it. And he did."

Fraser also revealed that he was notified of the band's plans to make a new album around two weeks before the sessions in Vancouver were scheduled to commence.

"I remember I got the call for this record, but no detail," he said. "I had no idea, walking in the first day of the studio, what was gonna happen – who the personnel of the band would be. As far as I knew, Brian had retired, Cliff had retired, and with Phil and some of his problems he's had in his home country [of New Zealand]. So walking into the studio here in Vancouver the first day, I had no idea what was gonna happen."

"When I got there, none of the band had arrived yet, but a lot of their techs were there getting things moved into the studio and set up. And one of the guys said, 'Hey, you know what's going on?' And I said, 'I have no idea. I just know we're here and we're setting up.' 

"And he goes, 'Well, the whole band's here: Brian, Cliff, Phil and Stevie, and we're ready to rock another record.' So, man, it was such a shocking, awesome surprise. It was great."

As for a release date for the band's new album, that's yet to be revealed. Stay tuned, however, as we'll bring you the latest AC/DC news as it emerges.

Few rock guitarists have earned the same respect from the blues world as Angus and Malcolm Young. 

There’s an undeniable, tangible honesty to AC/DC’s music that pays homage to the very roots of rock ’n’ roll, sticking to the traditional formula of a few easy chords and powerful pentatonic licks.

Their raw and uncomplicated tones echoed that essence of sonic purity – favoring a more direct and undiluted kind of attack. Here, we’re looking at the gear used by Malcolm. 

As with his brother, the signal path is renowned for simplicity and it works thanks to the sheer quality of its combined ingredients. Very little has changed over the years – even Stevie Young is rocking Malcolm’s gear since he took over the reins. Read on as we cover the essentials.

'63 Gretsch Jet Firebird, aka 'the Beast'

Malcolm’s main go-to guitar, The Beast’s original red paint was stripped to reveal its trademark natural wood finish. After trying out a humbucker in the middle position in the 70s, the neck and middle pickups were removed all together, leaving the cavities open and keeping just the one Filter’Tron pickup in the bridge position.

The Filter’Tron is key to the DC rhythm tone; with greater clarity (though less output) than a traditional humbucker, allied to increased power over a typical single coil, there’s a balanced output with a sweet top end.

All the tone controls on The Beast were bypassed, so the signal path is simple: bridge pickup, volume pot, output.

Early on, Malcolm replaced the stock Gretsch roller bridge and Burns tailpiece with a Badass wraparound bridge, though in later years the original system would be reinstalled. Malc was never a trem user, but the extra string length between the stock bridge and tailpiece would alter the tone and sustain.

1971 Marshall Super Bass

Like Angus, Malcolm is a Marshall guy through and through, and, whereas Angus prefers Super Leads, Malcolm would opt for Super Bass heads. 

Originally designed as a bass amp, the Super Bass shared circuitry with the SL model but was tweaked to give greater clean headroom at high volume. Perfect for Malcolm, whose rhythm tone is surprisingly clean – and his amp settings reflect this. Keep bass and mid at around 3, with treble and gain around 7 for a ballpark tone. 

Other Marshalls have been seen in Malcolm’s rig over the years, the JTM45 being used more than any other model, but the Super Bass gives the quintessential DC rhythm tone.

The rhythm guitar playing of Malcolm Young is one of rock’s great monuments. A massive edifice - solid and weighty, yet hewn with brutally exacting precision - it was the cornerstone of AC/DC’s music from the Seventies right up to our own time. Many rank Young as the greatest rock rhythm guitarist ever, which puts him out front in a distinguished company that includes icons like John Lennon, Keith Richards and all who have followed in their wake.

Rhythm guitar is an often-underrated art, but it was far from Young’s only contribution to the AC/DC juggernaut. He was also the band’s founder and one of its chief songwriters, working in both cases in tandem with his younger brother and AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young. In 2014, AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson summed up Malcolm Young’s importance to the band as follows:

“He was the one that was behind AC/DC. He was our spiritual leader. He was our spitfire.”

It was indeed a sad day for rock and roll, as Eddie Van Halen tweeted, when that flame was extinguished on November 18, 2017, particularly as Malcolm’s passing came just a month after the death of his and Angus’ elder brother George Young, who had played a key role in AC/DC’s career. But Malcolm’s death was far from unexpected. Rock fans all knew that his health was poor. He’d suffered from lung cancer, heart trouble and dementia. The latter affliction had forced him to leave AC/DC in 2014 and go into managed care.

That sad departure marked the end of an adventure that had begun in 1973, when Angus and Malcolm first formed AC/DC in Sydney, Australia. The brothers were born in Scotland but had emigrated Down Under in 1963 with their family. It was a major, and sometimes difficult, transition for two young boys. Angus once recalled coming home and saying, “Mum, I think they put us on another planet.”

But that only served to strengthen the bond between Angus, Malcolm and George, as well as their eldest brother Stephen and sole sister Margaret. (There were two other brothers, William Jr., who came to Australia with the family, and Alex, who remained behind in the U.K.) One of the major ways in which that bond was expressed was through music.

“Among all my brothers, we all played instruments,” Angus told me in 2014. “We could all play a party and try to cover all the different styles of music. Because some liked a bit of folk or jazz, some liked blues, other ones wanted rock.”

Rock would turn out to be the family business. George was the first sibling to find fame, with the mid-Sixties beat group the Easybeats, which he’d formed with a fellow migrant, Harry Vanda. It was Vanda who gave Malcolm the guitar that would be his signature ax for the entirety of his career, a 1963 Gretsch Jet Firebird that he’d modify extensively over the years.

“It was Harry’s guitar,” Malcolm told me in 1995. “He gave it to me when I was 14, just as a gift. He’d played it for a while, but he’d moved on to Gibsons. He knew I was keen and he threw it my way. And I just adapted it for rhythm - with a fuzz box in the early days. You know, a kid in the bedroom - just stripping it apart for rhythm. It evolved out of necessity, that guitar.”

Malcolm and Angus even played with George and Harry in a group called the Marcus Hook Roll Band for a short while. This was right before Angus and Malcolm got AC/DC going, taking that band’s name from an electrical voltage indicator on Margaret’s sewing machine. Even at this early stage of the game, the siblings’ guitar roles were already pretty much locked in.

“Angus always just played lead,” Malcolm told me. “He never bothered with chords. He just wanted to solo. And I used to sit there figuring out tunes - the chords and what have you. I was playing guitar since I was about four. So I’d be strumming along to a little Elvis riff or whatever. And of course when the Beatles came out, I was around ten, 11 or 12; I was trying to learn their tunes, with the chords. 

"Angus played at an early age as well. But by the time he got to be like ten or 11, it was Hendrix and things like that. So he was already hearing the guitar in a different way than me. Sometimes he’d say, ‘Mal, you should play leads as well.’ But I just felt so uncomfortable with it. So I said, ‘The band’s rockin’. Let’s just keep things as they are.’ All we wanted to do was make a noise, to be honest with you.”

Rhythm guitarists often double as a rock band’s lead singer/front person. But Malcolm never fancied that role. From the moment Angus first wore his schoolboy suit onstage - another idea suggested by sister Margaret - he was destined to become the brother who grabbed the attention of the crowd, frequently upstaging each of the band’s three vocalists: Dave Evans, Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. And while Malcolm would step out front to nail the occasional backing vocal, his place was generally the backline. From there he drove the band like a locomotive - albeit one with a lot of heart.

While AC/DC went through three drummers and two bassists over the course of their career, the band’s groove never sounded like anything other than AC/DC. That strutting, swaggering backbeat, that randy, rhythmic push-and-pull - that’s what Malcolm Young gave to rock. And it’s one of the things that defined AC/DC, from their 1976 debut album, High Voltage, onward.

“You do have to hit the guitar pretty hard to get that thing from it,” Malcolm once explained to me. “But it’s not just a smash smash. It’s a dig. You actually dig into those strings. You’re gettin’ under them! It’s percussion, is what it is. It’s rhythm. I think of it more like piano playing sometimes. It’s what I know - all I know. And it suits me right down to the ground.” 

Young’s rhythm guitar mastery is ultimately a matter of that unquantifiable factor known as feel, although Fender heavy picks and heavy gauge strings - often Gibson Sonomatics, .012–.056 - also contributed the nasty bark of his tone.

“That came about by accident, really,” he said of the heavy gauges. “Just to keep the band in tune! With two guitars, thumpin’ the Christ out of ’em at the same time, nothing ever sounded like it was in tune. But it came with a sound, these thick strings.”

Factor in vintage Marshall amps, and heavy is the key word here. But Malcolm never considered AC/DC a heavy metal band, although they were sometimes described as one. Then again, they also initially were classified as a punk band, largely because their mid-Seventies emergence coincided with the dawn of punk rock and they seemed a bit bratty and working class.

“We were giving punk music a good name,” Angus once quipped. “Because that was the word they’d use to describe us - punk band. They’d get the wrong idea. They’d put us on the same bill as punk bands. And they sure got a shock when they started spitting at us and we spat back.”

Malcolm preferred to describe AC/DC simply as rock and roll, once stating that AC/DC and the Rolling Stones were the only real rock and roll bands left. And while their career hasn’t lasted quite as long as the Stones, AC/DC have survived the vicissitudes of changing rock fashion and setbacks that might have defeated a lesser band. 

Malcolm is credited with holding AC/DC together when singer Bon Scott died in 1980, keeping Angus focused on writing the songs that became Back in Black, hailed by many as AC/DC’s greatest album. They got the songs down first, then they went out and found the voice that would bring them to life. The nasty, high-pitched screech that Brian Johnson could produce with his vocal cords seemed an anatomical impossibility. But it was the perfect voice for AC/DC’s rough-and-ready brand of rock and roll.

Songcraft was another one of Malcolm’s priorities and strong suits throughout AC/DC’s career. He’d often fine-tune riffs and ideas that Angus brought to the table, building songs that grab you from the first note and keep your head banging right through to the very end.

“We play with dynamics a lot in this band, through the years,” Malcolm explained to me. “Just being a straight-ahead four-piece band, you’re very limited. So we’ve got to use a lot of dynamics. It’s all about suspense and drama.”

Malcolm’s personal life wasn’t devoid of drama either. In 1988 he had to take time off, missing the majority AC/DC’s Blow Up Your Video U.S. tour to get his alcoholism under control. This was the first occasion on which he was replaced by his and Angus’ cousin Stevie Young - another family member with the right DNA and many hours of jamming with Malcolm and Angus under his belt. But Malcolm was soon sober and back on the job, spearheading AC/DC through their 1990 comeback album, The Razors Edge, a latter-day classic.

Over the years AC/DC worked with many legendary producers. Along with the stalwart team of George Young and Harry Vanda, there was Mutt Lange, Bruce Fairbairn, Brendan O’Brien and Rick Rubin - a virtual who’s-who of top rock producers. But Malcolm was always the ultimate authority for Angus, when it came to guitar parts.

“No matter who we did work with,” Angus told me. “I always looked to Mal in the end if I played a guitar solo or a little break here and there. And he would always say yea or nay.”

Malcolm and Angus’ guitar playing is so closely interwoven that it’s difficult to consider either one in isolation. This is also what’s quintessentially rock and roll about AC/DC. They’re heirs to the two-guitar tradition of John Lennon and George Harrison, or Keith Richards and any of his co-guitarists in the Rolling Stones. Only Malcolm and Angus’ sibling connection made the mesh even tighter.

“If you’ve been jammin’ since you were kids together, I guess it becomes second nature,” Malcolm said. “We know each other so well. Any brothers. If you can imagine two brothers, they know each other inside out. It’s virtually the same with guitar playing.”

Given the brothers’ close fraternal bond, Angus was among the first to detect the early signs of Malcolm’s dementia - the confusion and memory problems that are part of the condition. But the closeness made these distressing symptoms all the harder to accept. 

In 2014, Angus told me that Malcolm’s symptoms had been growing for “a number of years. He got a little disconnected when we were making the album Black Ice. It was becoming more and more kind of noticeable. But I’ve also noticed over the years, in hindsight, that he was having problems. But it was hard to figure out what it was, strange enough as it seems.”

Dementia usually strikes people much older than Malcolm was at the time, and there are also many specific forms of dementia. These factors made it difficult for the Young family to obtain a definitive diagnosis at first.

“We were kind of hoping that Malcolm would get better,” said Angus. “We kind of delayed on that, not knowing. I suppose it is a kind of hard thing. I mean he’s still there. But the condition itself, you know that it’s not him. I know his wife kind of feels that way. It’s like she’s lost her husband.”

Malcolm was also diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after the Black Ice tour. Surgery to remove the cancer was successful, but the ordeal must surely have weakened him further. He also suffered from a heart condition which required that he wear a pacemaker. The Twenty-teens were a bleak time for AC/DC in general. In 2016 severe hearing loss forced Brian Johnson to leave the band.

But even in Malcolm’s absence from AC/DC, his presence was still felt. Much of the band’s most recent album, Rock or Bust, was pieced together from unfinished song ideas that Malcolm had left behind. And this is most likely how it will be in the years to come. While Malcolm Young has left his body, his influence and his contribution to rock music will continue to loom large.

“Malcolm’s always been a strong presence in the band,” said Angus. “He formed the band. It was his brainwaves that put it all together. It was him who guided us from the beginning.”

I’ve spent most of my adult life researching the finer details behind many different guitarists’ tones, and one of the biggest revelations of my efforts is that the simpler something seems, the more difficult it can be to duplicate. Case in point is Malcolm Young’s iconic 1963 G6131 Jet Firebird — the guitar responsible for the vast majority of AC/DC’s incredible rhythm guitar tracks. Malcolm’s Gretsch is as simple as can be, stripped down to almost the barest of essentials with just a single bridge pickup (at one point he experimented with having three pickups installed), several of the extraneous controls removed and even a bare wood finish.

These modifications may seem minor, but many guitarists like myself who located a vintage early Sixties Gretsch Jet Firebird or bought the Malcolm Young model Gretsch offered from 1995 until 2009 noticed something was missing (or actually maybe too much was there). While the past Gretsch Malcolm Young models were damn fine rock and roll battle axes, Gretsch has now gone the extra mile by offering a 100 percent accurate reproduction of Malcolm’s original Jet Firebird, the G6131-MY Malcolm Young Signature Jet, which nails every detail.

FEATURES The most notable feature of the Gretsch G6131-MY Malcolm Young Signature Jet is that it’s a dead ringer for Malcolm’s original “Beast” with the same empty pickup cavities, screw holes and chrome switch/control plugs. Unlike many replica models, it lacks painstakingly replicated battle scars from the 40-piece run of the 2017 Gretsch Custom Shop “Salute Jet” version, which is no longer available. The body is constructed with an early-Sixties-style chambered mahogany body with maple top that produces resonance similar to a semi-hollow guitar and reduces body weight. The empty pickup cavities even act like an acoustic guitar’s soundhole. The neck is also mahogany and features a U-shaped profile, 24.6-inch scale length and an ebony fretboard with Neo-Classic “thumbnail” inlays and 22 jumbo frets plus a zero fret.

The attention to detail paid to the hardware and electronics is equally impressive. The pickup is a TV Jones Power’Tron humbucker that replicates the growl and twang of an early Sixties Filter’Tron, and controls consist of a bridge pickup volume, master tone and master volume knobs. The Space Control roller bridge is period correct (reflecting Malcolm’s switch back to the original bridge after using a Badass replacement bridge for a few years), and the Jet Vibrato tailpiece is just like Malcolm’s, complete with the missing vibrato bar. Schaller die-cast tuners and G-Arrow control knobs complete the picture.

PERFORMANCE From the very first second I plugged the Malcolm Young Signature into a Friedman Dirty Shirley and struck an open A chord, I was greeted with the most satisfying “eureka!” moment of my tone-chasing career. This guitar nails the subtlest nuances of Malcolm’s tone like nothing else I’ve ever played before. The body’s weight feels exactly like that of an early Sixties Jet Firebird, and the unplugged acoustic resonance is lively and vivacious. Even though the guitar ships with more player-friendly .010-.046 strings than the heavier gauges Malcolm preferred, it still delivers his signature crunch and grind.

Malcolm fans aren’t the only players who should consider this ax. It offers outstanding playability and an alluring full-range voice that makes it an excellent option for playing a wide variety of styles, including country and blues. For recording hard rock rhythm tracks with plenty of balls and attitude, it’s nearly impossible to beat as it delivers an inherent aggressiveness that doesn’t need tons of tone-killing gain to generate satisfying snarl.

LIST PRICE: $3,749
MANUFACTURER: Gretsch, gretschguitars.com

● Every detail of Malcolm Young’s original Jet Firebird is duplicated, including empty pickup cavities, screw holes and chrome control/switch plugs.

● The TV Jones Power’Tron bridge pickup delivers the signature aggressive snarl and percussive snap of the early Sixties Filter’Tron pickup Malcolm used.

THE BOTTOM LINE

By painstakingly replicating every fine detail of Malcolm Young’s “Beast,” the Gretsch G6131-MY Malcolm Young Signature Jet nails Malcolm’s tone while also providing players with an outstanding instrument for developing their own sound.

Anthrax’s Scott Ian recently sat down with Gretsch Guitars to discuss his love for AC/DC, and specifically their late rhythm guitarist and co-founder Malcolm Young.

“Malcolm’s always been my hero since day one, because he basically taught me how to play guitar,” Ian says in the accompanying video.

“As a kid with AC/DC vinyl albums in my little bedroom on a turntable I just used to sit and figure out how to play their songs. And it was all Malcolm. So I was learning how to play specifically by listening to what he was doing. He was my guitar teacher.”

As for what he loves about Malcolm’s guitar style, Ian says, “The way he played, the economy and the percussiveness of his playing, his right hand and his left hand together were just so perfectly in sync at all times. And making it seem effortless.

“AC/DC always sounds real simple,” Ian continues. “People think, Oh, that sounds easy. Oh, it’s just a couple of chords. But try playing it right. That’s my challenge to everybody all the time. That’s why there’s only one Malcolm and there’s only one AC/DC. Because only they can do that.”

Throughout the interview, Ian can be seen holding Gretsch’s new G6131-MY Malcolm Young Signature Jet, a replica of the guitar Malcolm used for the majority of his career with AC/DC. In between comments, Ian tears off Malcolm licks from AC/DC songs like “Beating Around the Bush,” “Girls Got Rhythm,” Back in Black” and others.

He comments about the new Signature model Jet: “I’ve read a little bit about [Malcolm] basically ‘Frankenstein-ing’ the one that he was given and turning it into his own… Pulling the pickups out and experimenting. He decided to make it his own. It became an icon. It’s just one of the most iconic guitars since rock and roll was born.”

You can check out the full video below.

Gretsch has honored AC/DC's late co-founder and former rhythm guitarist, Malcolm Young, with its new Gretsch G6131-MY Signature Jet.

The G6131-MY pays homage to Young’s famously battle-hardened Gretsch Jet. Nicknamed “The Beast,” Malcolm made the instrument his own, not least by removing two of the three pickups and stripping away the finish.

“I mean, as soon as you hear that first… chord, you know it’s him,” said his brother Angus Young. “To do this… you have to be a master of rhythm, and that’s exactly what Mal [was].”

The G6131-MY features the essential hallmarks of "The Beast," including “DIY” pickup routes with simulated screw holes, chrome switch plugs, a Space-Control bridge with ebony base and a Sixties-style tailpiece. The guitar also features a thin-skin satin finished chambered mahogany body and a high-output TV Jones Power’Tron pickup.

The guitar has a double-cutaway chambered mahogany body with a maple top, aged-white binding, a bound ebony fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets and Neo-Classic thumbnails. It is available in Aged Natural stain with black back and sides.

The Gretsch G6131-MY Signature Jet will be available in November 2018 for $3,749.

For more info on the guitar, head on over to gretschguitars.com.

Last week, we told you about French figure skaters Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres and their rather unconventional choice of Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence" as the soundtrack to their routine. This week, we have an even wilder merging of the worlds of hard rock and Olympic figure skating to report, courtesy of Hungarian skater Ivett Toth.

Toth, it seems, is a major AC/DC fan. Not only did she soundtrack her routine to a medley of the band's songs ("Back in Black" and "Thunderstruck"), she also wore a studded leather vest with an Angus Young patch on the back.

You can watch Toth's hard-rocking routine—which, sadly, did not earn Toth a medal—via NBC here.

Finding out what gear guitarists use isn’t a problem. Most players will gladly recite a list of their favorite guitars and equipment when asked, especially if they have signature model products. If they won’t, there’s usually a good chance that somebody somewhere has at least snapped a photo or two of their guitars and live rigs.

The bigger challenge is finding out how most guitarists use their gear. It’s not the fault of guitar journalists or the artists themselves—cataloging every single guitar played and amp or effect setting used can be a tedious, laborious, time-intensive affair, and many guitarists can’t remember all of the details (that’s why they pay their guitar techs big bucks). I personally can’t remember every knob on certain amps I own, let alone what my exact favorite settings are.

To help you figure out how to create the guitar tones of several iconic songs, we’ve dug deep into research mode, combing old interviews and meticulously examining stage and studio photos from the appropriate eras. I then dug into my personal gear collection of over 100 guitars, 75 amps and 400 pedals and rack processors to replicate those sounds. If I didn’t have particular pieces of gear, I used items like Fractal Audio’s Axe-Fx II XL+ and AX8 (extremely helpful), a Line 6 POD HD500X and various iPad apps, including Positive Grid’s Bias Series and IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube Series.

Much of the original gear used to record these songs is well known, and as a result many of these items are very expensive, if you can even find them. For those of you with limited funds, we’ve also put together more affordable alternative rigs that should provide most of the core elements of these tones. If you want it all, the most affordable alternative may actually be Fractal’s AX8 and a great guitar or two of your personal preference.

Because control markings and layout styles are inconsistent, I’ve listed all settings from 0–10 where 0 is completely off, 10 is all the way up and 5 is exactly in the middle. Keep in mind that the sound of even the same guitars and amp models can often vary dramatically, especially with vintage gear more than 30 years old. If the recommended settings don’t sound quite right, tweak them as you see fit. These settings worked best with my rigs and should get you very close, but variables such as a guitar’s tone woods and pickups can make a difference. Pedals are listed in the order that they should be chained together in series from the guitar to the amp.

Also keep in mind that all of the examples are studio recordings, so the sounds may not be ideal for live performance. Other important elements like the mics, outboard gear and mixing console settings used in the studio while tracking, mixing and mastering can affect the overall tone, so these sounds may not completely match the final product you hear on a record. However, we hope you’ll find that our settings get you most of the way there and inspire you to come up with your own signature sounds to influence new generations.

“THUNDERSTRUCK”

AC/DC, The Razors Edge (1990)
Guitarist: Malcolm Young

Arguments about the best guitarists are highly subjective, but when it comes to choosing the best hard rock rhythm guitarist of all time, there really is no question that this distinction belongs exclusively to Malcolm Young. Although Malcolm’s tone was relatively consistent over the years, during AC/DC’s classic 1978–80 period spanning the Powerage through Back in Black albums, his tone was slightly more distorted and darker (allegedly due to his use of Marshall 2203 100-watt master volume heads).

Before and after that he mainly relied on Marshall Super Bass heads in the studio, which defined his signature rhythm tone heard on songs like “Dirty Deeds,” “Let There Be Rock,” “For Those About to Rock” and “Thunderstruck.” Basically, the amp is dialed in clean but as loud as possible to ride on the razor’s edge of power amp distortion and deliver the ideal combination of grind, twang, clang and crunch, with no distorted preamp “hair,” fizz or compression.

For “Thunderstruck,” Malcolm’s guitar was his trademark Gretsch Jet Firebird with a single vintage Filter’tron humbucker at the bridge and a Badass wraparound bridge (he returned to the original Gretsch roller bridge and Burns tailpiece with the strings extending to the tailblock a few years later). Extra-heavy strings (.012–.058) combined with the Jet Firebird’s chambered body provided generous resonance to produce a distinctive midrange honk, further embellished by turning the amp’s bass control way down low, which also leaves sonic space to allow the bass guitar and kick drum to sound bigger.

ORIGINAL GEAR

GUITAR: 1963 Gretsch 6131 Jet Firebird with single Filter’tron humbucker (bridge) and Badass bridge
AMP: 1971 100-watt Marshall JMP Super Bass model 1992 head (Presence: 3, Bass: 1, Middle: 5, Treble: 6, Volume 1: 7, Volume 2: 0; guitar plugged into Channel 1 top input)
CABINET: Marshall 1960B (straight) 4x12 with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers
EFFECTS: None
STRINGS/TUNING: Gibson Pure Nickel Wound .012–.058 strings with wound G string/standard
PICK: Fender Extra Heavy

● Gretsch G5445T Double Jet
● Marshall DSL15C combo
● TV Jones TV Classic pickup

TONE TIP

Use the Marshall’s Classic Gain channel cranked way up and with the Deep switch engaged but the Bass knob down low and no Tone Shift. The TV Jones TV Classic pickup provides ideal string and treble zing without sounding shrill.

Malcolm Young—the co-founder of AC/DC, and one of the greatest rhythm guitarists of all time—died on Saturday, November 18, at the age of 64. He had been battling dementia since 2014, when he was forced to leave the band.

Young's rhythm parts were the backbone of AC/DC, one of the most commercially successful and influential rock bands of all time. His rock-solid playing inspired untold thousands to pick up a guitar themselves, and it's difficult to imagine a hard-rock landscape without the lasting influence of his tone and style.

Unsurprisingly, guitarists around the world mourned his untimely passing over the weekend, paying tribute to him and his influence on social media.

• Below, you can see a selection of these tributes, beginning with one from his longtime bandmate and brother, Angus Young, who said "As his brother it is hard to express in words what he has meant to me during my life, the bond we had was unique and very special. He leaves behind an enormous legacy that will live on forever. Malcolm, job well done."

On Ballbreaker, AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young demonstrate yet again that they are randy as a pair of billygoats, and ready to rock.

Like Divine Brown (Hugh Grant’s hooker consort), AC/DC are a guilty pleasure best enjoyed in the car. College professors, doctors, men and women from the finest families…they’ve all done it. At some time or another, all have experienced the thrill of cranking the car stereo to 10, mashing down the accelerator and bellowing along to the choruses of “Highway to Hell” or “You Shook Me All Night Long.” AC/DC have the power to bring out the randy, socially irresponsible adolescent male in everyone, regardless of age, gender or IQ. (Actually randy, socially irresponsible adolescent males think they’re pretty cool too.)

AC/DC are that which no one can really argue with: a fucking great rock band. Their new record is called Ballbreaker. (What else?) The first AC/DC studio album in five years, it’s a nasty piece of work. With the band’s original drummer, Phil Rudd, back on the throne, the grooves have never been drier or grittier. Angus Young’s lead guitar work is remarkably concise and prickly, chafing like a tight dog collar made of cracked leather and dirty blues barbs. His older brother Malcolm— AC/DC’s “secret weapon”—kicks in with walls of rhythm and guitar hooks bigger than Bo Diddley’s Cadillac. And, as song titles like “Hard As a Rock,” “Cover You in Oil,” “Caught with Your Pants Down” and “Whiskey on the Rocks” should make clear, AC/DC have hardly retooled their lyrical stance for the politically correct Nineties.

“People can go out and hear R.E.M. if they want deep lyrics,” smirks Malcolm Young. “But at the end of the night, they want to go home and get fucked. And that’s where AC/DC comes into it. I think that’s what’s kept us around so long. Because people want more fuckin’.”

Only the most hopeless prude could be offended by AC/DC. They do “bad taste” with such panache it amounts to sheer poetry. They are the Coleridges of cock rock. The Tennysons of testosterone. The Shakespeares of salacious, schoolboy smut.

“Salacious…I like that word.” AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson leers approvingly at my description of the band’s lyrics. Although he sings said lyrics in the tonal range of a sadistically trussed magpie, Johnson’s speaking voice is deep and thick with the sooty vowels of working-class Northern England. Johnson also approves of the acoustics in the cavernous corporate conference room that Time Warner’s New York headquarters has kindly allotted for my encounter with AC/DC. The pseudo-industrial faux-marble walls make the singer’s whiskey-besotted, cutthroat croak of a voice sound truly ominous.

“Aye, this is a greeat ruhom for a bad temper. It’s like the headmaster’s room when you were at school. That’s why they never had wallpaper. So the sound would carry when he’d fookin’ bollock ya.”

Curled into an ugly chrome chair, way down at the other end of the ovoid conference table, Angus Young’s compact frame convulses with laughter. It’s the first sign of life AC/DC’s lead guitarist has shown this morning. Brian brings out the mischief in Angus. At most other times when he’s not onstage, AC/DC’s rampaging hellion schoolboy is a quiet man—one who tends to hide behind a perpetual curtain of cigarette smoke, an expressive repertoire of shrugs and winces and a steady stream of Aussie wisecracks. Though he’s legendarily short—under five feet—Angus is elegantly proportioned, with slender, graceful hands.

“We wanted more of a tough sound than we’ve had in the past,” says Angus of Ballbreaker’s bone-dry sound and stark, stripped down arrangements. “With guitars, we wanted to hear the plectrum hit the strings. We didn’t want all the compression and the clipping and the digital sheen.”

Malcolm concurs, crediting producer Rick Rubin with letting the band have their way with the record, rather than urging them to “pretty it up” the way another producer might have: “We just wanted to get back to the old feel of the rhythm. The feel dominated this time. And really the best feels are the simplest, I guess.”

Not that the album was born easily. AC/DC spent months foundering in a New York recording studio before moving out to L.A.’s Ocean Way studios and finding their groove. With characteristic AC/DC luck, they arrived in L.A. right after the big earthquake.

Angus recalls: “My brother phoned up the management office and said, ‘Is Ang on his way to L.A. yet? You’d better stop him. There isn’t an L.A. at the moment.’ ”

There’s something genuinely touching in the way the Young brothers look out for each other. Rock and roll brothers are supposed to fight all the time—like the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies or Oasis’ Liam and Noel Gallagher. But AC/DC are fueled by a kinder fraternal dynamic—a yin/yang thing. Angus is the more intuitive brother while Malcolm is more analytical. Angus is the more public brother—AC/DC’s lead guitarist and wearer of the celebrated Schoolboy Suit. But Malcolm is generally held to be the brains behind the operation—the man who stands at the rear and keeps AC/DC’s bruising juggernaut barreling relentlessly down the highway to Hell. Of course, it’s hard to prove generalizations like these. Get either of the brothers alone and all he wants to do is praise the other.

“I think Malcolm underestimates his own talents as a guitar player,” says Angus. “You see someone like Hendrix play and you think, He makes the difficult look simple. That’s the magic of it. And Malcolm’s like that. You pick up his guitar and try to do what he does and you’re in amazement. He’s got an incredible ear, too. He can zero in on things in the studio—pick out a frequency where two notes collide. At first you think, He’s talking shit; there’s nothing there. But you listen back a week later and go, Fuck, those two notes are canceling out there.”

For his part, elder brother Malcolm tends to downplay his role in fine-tuning Angus’ guitar sounds in the studio: “Angus knows when it’s right. He does it himself, really. He maybe needs a bit of support here and there. But I’m the same. If it takes a long time and a bit of a struggle to get your sound, you can lose your perspective. If I’m in the studio, I can run over and tweak his amp for him if I seem a bit frustrated. But other than that, he can get what he wants. He plays the instrument. He knows what he’s doing. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be up there.”

Malcolm doesn’t do many interviews, but he’s consented to talk to Guitar World. Reputed to be painfully shy, he turns out to be anything but—a cheerful, chummy voice phoning in from a remote locale. Meanwhile, back at the Time Warner conference room, Angus, Brian and I have discovered that the ugly chrome chairs make pretty good go-karts and that the faux-modern power conference table makes a damned convenient center meridian for a racetrack. But finally the boys are convinced to behave and we all settle down to examine both the myth and the reality of the rock and roll institution known as AC/DC.

GUITAR WORLD What do you make of the fact that the young alternative band Veruca Salt named their debut album American Thighs—a quote from AC/DC’s “You Shook Me”?

MALCOLM YOUNG Is that a girl band?

GW It’s two girls, two guys…

MALCOLM Ah, two girls, two guys…

GW Nice-looking girls, at that.

MALCOLM [approvingly] Yeah. Well, if that’s what they… “American Thighs.” Hmmm, great. I haven’t heard their stuff, but anything like that is always a compliment to the band. Although if Barry Manilow got up and did an AC/DC song, that might be a different story. But it’s nice to know that, after 20 years, there are young bands who are aware of us.

ANGUS YOUNG Of course it’s a compliment. And I like American thighs, too. If you look at it, America has dominated the world market for very good thighs. I grew up in admiration of America. You’d pick up a comic book and in the back they’d be selling all these things that I always thought of as really American—like X-ray glasses.

GW X-ray specs! The ads promised you could see through ladies’ dresses.

ANGUS I sent away for them. But I never got ’em.

GW And you still like America—even after that?

ANGUS I love it. And believe you me, America is the land of rock and roll. It started here. Whenever I come here I’m in amazement.

GW Where does the salacious humor in AC/DC’s lyrics come from?

MALCOLM From the whole band, really. That is the band! Your tour bus talk and things—it’s all about that. All the boys, you know? After the night in the club, it’s always the same thing, you know, you talk about… filth. [Malcolm pronounces this word ‘fiwth’] All the jokes and the laughs. It’s easy to be inspired to write lyrics for this band.

ANGUS I think it’s a bit like stand-up comedy. Any guy can get onstage and say “fuck.” But I always think the really funny guys are the ones who can get onstage and not use one dirty word, and yet you think they have. You think it’s a blue joke, but it’s not. That, to me, is clever. And that’s what we try to do with our lyrics.

GW Where did you get the idea to do a song called “Cover You in Oil”?

ANGUS Well, I always liked that double-meaning thing. And I do like to do a bit of painting when I get some free time. I just thought it would be a good play on words. It does sound a bit blatant. When you say “cover you in oil” people think, “Oh, we know what he means.” A lot of times on AC/DC records, it really doesn’t matter what we’re saying. People think the worst just because of who’s saying it. They say, “Uh, oh, these guys are out to cover everyone in hot oil. It’s gonna be Sodom and Gomorrah!”

GW But really the guy in the song wants to paint a picture of the girl—an oil painting. That’s what you’re saying?

ANGUS Well…a bit of that. But as soon as somebody hears something like that, they conjure up all these other images. [pause] If you’re lucky, maybe they’ll even buy the record. [laughs]

GW I had no idea that was a song about fine art.

MALCOLM Neither did I! One of our artistic pieces.

GW Who wrote the line, “I’ll make her wet, I’ll make her mine”?

MALCOLM Now that’s Angus. You’re trying to find out who the deviant is, aren’t you?

GW I just really admire some of your lyrics. You could get a roomful of the best poets and rock critics and they could never come up with some of those lines.

MALCOLM Or even a roomful of psychiatrists.

GW So, Brian, what’s it like when these guys hand you some racy lyric to sing?

BRIAN JOHNSON Oh, they’re great fun to sing and all. You can get the jokes straight away. The words make you want to laugh and giggle, and sometimes you can hear me doing that at the end of a song, as it fades out. Their lyrics are like a little script when you look at them on paper. Malcolm would come into the room when I was singing and he’d create a little scenario—just saying what the song was talking about. Like when we were doing “Boogie Man” he said, “Put yourself in the place of being a nasty little shit…”

ANGUS Which wasn’t much of a stretch for Brian!

BRIAN We did all the vocals right in the control room, just sitting around like we’re sitting here now. Malcolm was sitting on one side of me with [engineer] Mike Frasier on the other. ’Cause I don’t like going into the vocal booth to sing. I like it to be more like when I’m onstage with the others. To have them around me like that.

GW Is that the way you cut the tracks too—all together, live in the room?

ANGUS Yes. Making a record, you’re trying to capture as much atmosphere as possible. And if you’re huddled in a room together, it mightn’t make for the best friendships, but it sure helps for a vibe on a record.

GW Did having your old drummer Phil Rudd back in the group contribute to Ballbreaker’s raw sound?

ANGUS Yeah. Phil’s more the rock and roll style. As a band, that’s what we really prefer.

MALCOLM Phil is an original member of AC/DC, from when the band first kicked off. That’s the feel we wanted to get back to. We figured we’re getting on a bit in years in this band. We just wanted to get tougher again. Ram it down their throats.

ANGUS We just met up with Phil when we were touring last in New Zealand. He said, “When am I gonna get a shot at having a play with you guys again?” Since leaving the band, I think he’d just been working in a small studio he put together.

GW What happened to Chris Slade, your last drummer?

MALCOLM Chris did a grand job with the band. There wasn’t any musicianship problems with him. Or a personality problem or anything. I mean the man is a great drummer—probably a far better musician than any of us guys. But it just got down to a particular groove that we needed. We just wanted to get things back to where they were in the early days of the band.

GW What went down in New York during the initial sessions for Ballbreaker?

MALCOLM We spent a lot of time trying to cut tracks in New York, but unfortunately we just weren’t happy with the sound we were getting. We were really looking for this thing to sound good. We were very particular. We laid down a lot of tracks in New York, but when we moved to Ocean Way [studios] in L.A., the first few days just sounded twice as good as anything we’d done in New York. So we decided to go right through and record all the tracks again. Not an easy task! But we felt that it was worth it. We’ve never done anything like that in the past. We’ve never been extravagant with recording. But we just felt these were good, tough songs and they should get their due. We went on a mission to find the right sound.

GW What did Rick Rubin bring to the party?

ANGUS Well, a big beard…

GW When did Rick first enter the picture?

MALCOLM Rick sat through the New York sessions with us. That’s when he entered the picture. But we’d worked before with Rick on a single [ “Big Gun” ] we did a few years back, for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big flop movie [The Last Action Hero]. And Rick was basically just talking the same language as us, saying how he wanted to get back to more of the rock and roll feel we had in the earlier days. We felt, This could be good. Rick had been trying to produce the band for years. He’d written 20 times to our management, saying if there was ever a chance for him to produce us that he would love to do it. So we took him up on it.

GW It was reported that Rubin left the project before it was completed. That there was some kind of falling out between him and the band. What really went on?

MALCOLM I don’t think there was any falling out at all. Rick was there till the end. We all finished the album—we all put our pieces together in there. But, as I say, we were really on a mission to get the right sound. And you’ve got to wait for your moment in the studio—for the energy to be right. Especially when you’re in the same place every day. It can be like going to work. So there were a lot of low points. A lot of waiting around, I guess, and fiddling around with the sounds. So Rick wasn’t in the studio as often as you’d see a regular producer. But when he came, he did his thing.

GW Did he play an active role in getting the sounds?

MALCOLM Yeah, he knew what he wanted. He put his pitch in. He likes his snare sounds a certain way. Also, Rick helped keep things on the right track. Because sometimes you tend to settle for second best when you’ve been working on something for a very long time. Rick wouldn’t let us get away with that. You gotta hand it to the guy and give credit where credit is due.

GW What kind of guitar sound did you have in mind for Ballbreaker?

ANGUS We used a lot of older Marshalls. We’ve got a lot of them, we’ve had them for years. We actually spent a bit of time going through them all. We’d done a bit of that back in England, before we went to New York. We went through storage and pulled out the ones that we knew cooked and those we used on other records. Plus a whole bunch more that we bought in other places.

MALCOLM We tried to go back and find the old vintage tubes—all that sort of thing. Even down to the guitar strings that I use. I used to use Gibson Sonomatics 20 years ago. You can’t buy them any more, but our guitar technician, Alan Rogan, tracked down things like that for us. It all helps for that old analog sound, you know.

GW You’re noted for using fairly heavy strings.

MALCOLM Yeah. That came about by accident, really. Just to keep the band in tune! With two guitars—thumpin’ the Christ out of them at the same time—nothing ever sounded like it was in tune. But the thick strings came with a sound of their own. And once they’re on there, you get used to them. I can’t play without thick strings now. If I pick up Angus’ guitar, I’m throttling the thing. My guitar is like another instrument. I think of it more like piano playing sometimes. Because you can’t really bend the strings. Not that I’m supposed to, but you know what I mean. It’s not like a regular guitar player’s guitar, nor is it set up like one. It’s just set up for beating, really.

GW Did you use your Gretsch Jet Firebird for everything?

MALCOLM I did. It’s got its own sound, the original Firebird. I haven’t got another that could replace it, to be honest.

GW How and when did you first discover that guitar?

MALCOLM It was given to me. My brother, George Young, was in a band called the Easybeats [best known for their 1966 hit, “Friday on My Mind” ]. Him and his partner George [Vanda] produced the first five albums AC/DC did. And George gave me that Gretsch when I was 14, as a gift. It was his guitar—he’d used it and moved on to Gibsons. He knew I was keen on it and threw it my way.

GW Was that guitar used on any Easybeats recordings?

MALCOLM No, he couldn’t work with it. He’s more a solo player. He couldn’t get much out of it. He knew I had time to play around with it. He said, “Rip it apart. Do what you like. It’s got a nice feel, but it doesn’t sound the best. Maybe you can put a humbucking on it or something.” So I experimented with it. But the Gretsch pickups always sounded unique to me, so I stuck with them. [According to Alan Rogan, Malcolm installed a humbucker between the Firebird’s two Gretsch Filter’Tron pickups long ago. He didn’t care for the humbucker, but liked how the guitar sounded with the empty hole that was left once he’d removed the pickup. So he also removed the guitar’s original neck pickup, leaving just one Filter’Tron in the neck position. This is the configuration he employs today.] The Firebirds were only a cheap issue from Gretsch; they weren’t a wellmade guitar or anything. There was no quality control on those.

GW When you were first starting out, how did you work it out that you would play rhythm and Angus would play lead?

MALCOLM Well, Angus just always played lead. He never bothered with chords—he just wanted to solo. And I used to sit there and figure out tunes—the chords and all. I was playing guitar ever since I was about four, strumming along to Elvis or whatever. And, of course, when the Beatles came out, I was around 10 or 12. So I was trying to learn their tunes, with the chords. Angus played at an early age as well, but by the time he got to 10 or 11, it was Hendrix and things like that. So he was already hearing the guitar in a different way. There’s no doubt that when Angus is playing lead, he’s got the sound. He had it all there. But he’d say, “Mal, you should play some leads as well.” But I just felt so uncomfortable with it, you know? So I said, “The band’s rockin’. Let’s just keep things as they are.” All we wanted was to make a noise, to be honest. And it was always when the guys just let go and started ripping it up that the excitement was created. So we just stuck to that…that’s where the band’s essence came out of.

GW You guys lock together so beautifully. It’s uncanny.

MALCOLM Well, if you’ve been jamming together since you were kids, I guess it becomes second nature. We know each other so well, as most brothers do. And that comes out in the guitar playing. People says it’s unique, but we don’t see that.

GW How does it work when you write together?

ANGUS We feed off each other. We just jam away on riff ideas until something sparks. It might not happen on the first day. But maybe a few years later, two parts will just sound natural together. That’s the important thing, playing through the ideas until you find that natural thing. Rather than sticking things together, whether they belong together or not, and saying, “We’ll make ’em fit.”

GW Where does the pop element in AC/DC come from? Things like “Money Talks” or “You Shook Me”? Less heavy riffing, more the big major key hooks?

MALCOLM Well, a lot of that usually comes from the producers. [laughter] You come in with some nice riffs and, all of a sudden, the chorus is sounding poppy, you know? You hear it without backing vocals, but the producer wants to fatten it up: “Come on guys, this’ll be great.” There’s always a little bit of that. We gotta give some credit to Rick Rubin. He never did that with us. The more straight-ahead rock thing is what we always wanted to be. We never wanted to be a singles band. Unfortunately, you have to have a single to kick the album off and keep the record company happy. The marketing thing. But if you talk to us five guys, all we’re interested in is a good album. We try not to be pop at all—we pull right away from that. But there are some great riffs that just sing themselves. You don’t need anything on top. [Former AC/DC producer] Mutt Lange once said to us, “You guys would make a great instrumental band. It’s a shame sometimes to put vocals on these backing tracks.”

GW I really love the main guitar riff in “Hard As a Rock.” It’s so simple yet so effective.

MALCOLM That’s right. That riff can be bigger than any chorus. You’re right. It’s the simplicity sometimes.

GW Did you come up with that riff, Angus?

ANGUS Yeah. We were just jamming away and that came out.

GW But there, too, it’s the chords behind the riff that make it so effective. The way they anticipate the downbeat.

MALCOLM Yeah, you can build around a riff to see what makes for a little anticipation. We play with dynamics a lot in this band. Just being a straight-ahead four-piece band, you’re very limited. So we’ve got to use a lot of dynamics. We’re willing to play loud, soft… anything to achieve a thump at the end of it.

GW It seems like Angus gravitated toward simpler riffs throughout the new album. There’s nothing like “Thunderstruck,” with hammer-ons all over the place.

ANGUS I think you just have to do each thing as it comes to you. Once you’ve done “Thunderstruck,” you sit down and think, Well, what do we want to do for the next record? It helps if you have an idea of where you want to set the pace. The emphasis this time was just on getting a bunch of songs that we could play onstage and have it feel like it did when we were in a club 10 years ago, battling it out. The guitar riffs are just meant to suit that.

GW Were you thinking “blues” in your lead work for this one?

ANGUS I always think “blues.” There’s always blues elements in rock. And I’m a big fan of that sort of thing.

GW For the last two albums, Malcolm and Angus have written all the lyrics.

MALCOLM We would always write a lot of the lyrics anyway—just to get the phrasing for the vocals. We look on vocals as part of the feel. The words have to sit right with the feel, push it, sort of compliment everything. So we always used to write loose, rough words down anyway. In the end, we said, “We can finish these off. Let’s just do it.” Brian lives on the other side of the world, so we decided it was just easier to do it ourselves. This way when we brought a song to the guys, it was all ready for the band to play. So it’s just completing our operation, really.

BRIAN I prefer it this way myself. I never liked the pressure of having to come up with words. I actually enjoy doing the vocals more now. I can just go in and sing them and not worry about anything else.

GW Have you come under attack from any feminist groups lately for lyrics like “Cover You in Oil” or “The Honey Roll”?

ANGUS I don’t think we’ve ever really worried about that. You’ve got to remember that from Day One, especially when doing the kind of music we do, you’re always open to some kind of attack. If you’re not attacked for your lyrics, you’re attacked for your volume, or the size of your audiences. The last time we were attacked, I think it was someone in Europe crying foul over the cannons or something. [AC/DC fire off real cannons in live performances of “For Those About to Rock.” ] Or explosions. Or—and I really couldn’t work this one out—somewhere they were worried about air pollution. [Spreads his palms in bewilderment] I really didn’t see the connection between air pollution and us. I think that was just their way to give us a problem, you know? Those people have always been around.

GW Would you worry if AC/DC suddenly didn’t offend anyone anymore?

ANGUS As I say, we just take all that in stride. We don’t sit down and say, “Let’s offend.” That kind of thing never dawns on anyone when they pick up a guitar. That’s like saying you really are an instrument of evil, you know? In fact, my mother bought me the first guitar I ever had. She went out and got me a cheap, acoustic, 10-dollar thing and said: “Here’s one for you and Mal. Now behave yourselves.” I think ’cause they were older and we were a big family, they’d seen a lot and they weren’t worried about us playing rock. Whereas I know some of my friends’ parents wouldn’t let them go to a rock show or things like that. My parents never bothered about that. As long as you were home by the time they said you should be home. We never had those sort of rules.

GW I guess they’d been through it with your older brother, George.

ANGUS Yeah, they’d been through it with him. But he wasn’t the only one to play.

GW How many brothers are there?

ANGUS All together, there was seven boys in the family. And one sister. And all of us did get ’round to an instrument, although at different levels of technique. Some of us were well into it, and for others it was just a hobby. We’ve always had some sort of musical instrument around the house, whether it be a piano, a guitar, banjo, clarinet or saxophone. There was always something you could make a racket on.

GW Your brother Stewart became AC/DC’s manager. And it was your sister, you told me last time we spoke, who suggested you wear the schoolboy suit.

ANGUS That’s right.

GW Because of the schoolboy suit, you, and not the singer, are the most instantly recognized member of AC/DC. How has that affected the band’s dynamic?

ANGUS As a band, it’s made us a bit different. It made us stand out. When people ask me to describe AC/DC, I often say it’s four musicians and a gimmick. You don’t think much about things like that when you’re first starting out. But then, after a while, you’re playing in front of people and they want to see that. It’s like Yosemite Sam says in the Bugs Bunny cartoon: “I paid to see the high diving act, and I’m gonna see the high diving act!”

GW Do you ever regret the schoolboy suit? Do you ever wish you could just come out as yourself and say, “Here I am: a grown man, not a cartoon character?”

ANGUS Never. The great thing about the school suit is you can take it off and leave all that behind when you leave the stage. Like if you mess up, you can think, “Oh, it wasn’t me, it was that guy in the suit.”

GW So it’s a way of keeping your public life and your private life separate.

ANGUS Definitely, which I think is a good thing. So many performers get caught up in trying to live the legend 24 hours a day. That can really mess you up.

BRIAN People always come up to me and say, “Oh that Angus, he must be a wild one. He must take a ton of drugs and booze it up and fuck a million girls.” And I just go like this…[He shrugs, a non-committal smile spreading over his swarthy, haggard features.] I don’t know if I should burst their bubble—if I should tell them, “No, he’s actually a very quiet, nice guy. A teetotaler. All he does is smoke fag after fag.”

ANGUS I don’t really want the focus to be on me when we’re onstage. I’m only part of AC/DC. If they didn’t do what they do, I couldn’t do what I do. That’s how I’ve always looked at it. I suppose sometimes I wish I could just stand in the back and play. Then you really are “in the band.”

GW I don’t think any of us would want you to stand in the back.

ANGUS No. And I really enjoy what I do. But sometimes I look at Malcolm playing— just that solid rhythm thing he does—and I’m awestruck. But you see that with all bands. The Stones are lucky in that they’ve got their Charlie Watts and Keith Richards. You take those away and all you’ve got left is Mick jumping around onstage. That’s okay. But the other two, they’re the real rock force. They’re the ones that do the pushing. Then you can sit back and enjoy the whole thing. You’ve got two guys to keep your ears amused as well as something to catch your eye.

GW Mick’s solo efforts certainly have not had the same character as the Stones.

ANGUS Yeah, but Keith’s have.

GW AC/DC are sometimes compared to the Stones. You’re both archetypal rock bands that seem to soldier on no matter which way the fashions blow.

ANGUS The Stones have been there from the beginning. You have to respect all the things they’ve done. I think they carved the road for us. I sometimes think AC/DC are more like the Three Stooges.

GW But there are five of you.

ANGUS Well, you get two more.

GW What’s your take on alternative rock?

ANGUS I like anything that’s rock. But I’m always skeptical of the media thing. There’s always some new flavor that people are talking about, and I’m wary of that. At the time we started, people didn’t take as much notice of what the media said. We didn’t have this global fucking communications network that we have now. You’d hear something and say, “I like that.” Then you’d go see the group live, and if you were still pleased by what you heard and saw then, okay, you’d found a new group that you thought was cool. But these days, the look is so much more important. And I’m always wary of that. ’Cause something can look nice, but it mightn’t be so nice. [laughs]

GW AC/DC has lasted when a lot of others have come and gone. For example, now people are saying that the Eighties hard rock bands are dead.

ANGUS I think sometimes people tend to count things out too soon. Sometimes those same things come back and smack them in the face. You see that when you’ve been around for a while.

GW How have you seen AC/DC’s audience change over the past five years?

ANGUS You see different generations now. Older people and younger people come to the shows. For me it’s funny, ’cause you meet some of the younger ones and they’re talking to you and you think, Hey, I’m not your father! I’ve got about the same brain as a teenager.

GW This could be said of AC/DC: you’ve maintained your youth.

ANGUS Well, we just like to kick it out. If you know what you do well and stick with it, I think you can appeal to different generations— strike a chord with them.

GW So, there are no plans to retire?

MALCOLM No mate, no mate. No plans yet.

GW A final request. My wife would really like to hear AC/DC do a cover of “Take a Little Piece of My Heart.”

ANGUS By Janis Joplin. Good song, that.

BRIAN A little while ago I got invited down to hear Melissa Etheridge. And she did a cover of “You Shook Me.”

GW How was it?

BRIAN Fookin’ great! That was the first time I ever heard a band play that song right.

ANGUS [looking hurt] What about us?

This entry comes from Angus Young's classic Guitar World column, "Let There Be Rock."

Last time, we ended the column by talking about your brother Malcolm's rhythm playing and what it adds to AC/DC's sound.

ANGUS YOUNG: Malcolm's really underrated. He makes the band sound so full, and I couldn't ask for a better rhythm player. Sometimes I look at Malcolm while he's playing, and I'm completely awestruck by the sheer power of it. He's doing something much more unique than what I do—with that raw, natural sound of his.

People like Malcolm, Steve Cropper, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards—they're all doing something better than the rest of us. I can't deny that Eric Clapton's and Eddie Van Halen's lead stuff has influenced a stack of people, but for me it's the rhythm thing that's way more impressive and important to a band. Malcolm is a big inspiration to me; he keeps me on my feet.

Even when I'm tired from running around the stage for two hours, I'll look back at what he's doing and it gives me that boot up the backside I sometimes need. [laughs] Also, he can always tell me if I'm playing well or if I'm not. Mal's a very tough critic, and I know that if I can please him, I can please the world.

A lot of people say, "AC/DC—that's the band with the little guy who runs around in school shorts!" But I wouldn't be able to do what I do without Malcolm and the other guys pumping out the rhythm. They make me look good. Mal is really a great all-around guitarist. I know it says "rhythm guitar" on the album jacket, but if he sits down to play a solo, he can do it better than me. Not a lot of people have picked up on this, but in the early days he used to play lead. But then he said to me, "No, you take the solos. I'll just bang away back here." And what's more, he actually plays rhythms. He just doesn't make a noise; he works them out, and he knows when not to play.

What Malcolm plays behind your intro to "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" is a great example of what you're talking about here. It's powerful, yet sparse, complements your part perfectly and is very well thought out.
Yeah, he's right on the money on that one. As soon as he comes in, he kicks the song into a higher gear. He immediately lets you know what it's all about and who it is. I mean, as soon as you hear that first B chord, you know it's him. And, if you listen carefully to what he's doing, he's not just repeating the same four-bar riff over and over. It's different each time around, and that really helps build up the intensity of the intro until the whole band gets going.

To do this kind of thing well isn't easy; you have to be a master of rhythm, and that's exactly what Mal is. My part in AC/DC is just adding the color on top. Mal's the band's foundation. He's rock solid and he pumps it along with the power of a machine. He doesn't play like a machine, though. Everything he does grooves and he always seems to know exactly what to play and when to play it. He's a very percussive player too, his right hand just doesn't stop sometimes. It's scary, it really is!

The first verse riff in "Dog Eat Dog" [Let There Be Rock] is a perfect example of Mal's percussive approach.
Yeah. I play short, sharp stabs while Mal does something a little more busy. He's like a friggin' human metronome. It's all in his right wrist, y'know!

The Foo Fighters have had quite the summer.

Besides announcing and prepping for the release of their new album, Concrete and Gold—which features Paul McCartney among others—the band also performed at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, a performance that was filmed for a Landmarks Live in Concertdocumentary that will air next month.

For all this work though, the band can still have a bit of fun, as evidenced by their performance at BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. During the session, the band decided to tackle the AC/DC classic, "Let There Be Rock." You can watch the band's fairly faithful cover below.

“I wanted it to be the biggest sounding Foo Fighters record ever. To make a gigantic rock record but with Greg Kurstin’s sense of melody and arrangement… Motorhead’s version of Sgt. Pepper… or something like that,” Grohl said of Concrete and Gold back in June.

The album—the band's ninth—is set for release Friday, September 15. You can preorder it here.

This year, Gretsch honors legendary rock icon Malcolm Young with the Gretsch G6131MY-CS Custom Shop Malcolm Young "Salute" Jet.

Malcolm Young is, without question, one of the greatest guitarists in rock n' roll history.

For over 40 years his riffs have inspired generations of rock and metal guitarists.

“Malcolm Young is the best rhythm guitar player in the world of rock…period. His contribution to those who have followed in his footsteps is immeasurable.” —Jerry Cantrell, Alice in Chains

“I never knew what a real rhythm guitar player was until I heard Malcolm Young. There never was or will be one like him again in the world. I've been trying to play guitar with precision like him for years and still haven't even come close. I want to thank Malcolm for giving me something to strive for.” —Larks Frederiksen, Rancid

Powering an endless row of full stacks, Young’s tone is like a hell-bent freight train—driving, deafening and totally unstoppable.

"To me, Malcolm is a one of a kind and the heart and soul of AC/DC. The combination of the riffs he wrote and his rhythm playing are the foundation of who they are.” —Eddie Van Halen

The Gretsch team painstakingly examined and documented the guitar that drove Malcom’s tone—his famed No. 1 guitar: a battle-worn ’63 Jet Firebird, handed down to him by Harry Vanda and elder brother George Young (of Easybeats fame) and nicknamed “The Beast.” Malcolm certainly made the instrument his own, not least by removing two of the three pickups, stripping away the red finish, and pounding out some of the hardest rocking rhythm guitar ever heard in either hemisphere.

The G6131MY-CS Custom Shop Malcolm Young “Salute” Jet is a meticulously crafted Gretsch Custom Shop recreation accurate down to every last nick, scratch and dent acquired over Young’s long and raucously illustrious career.

True to form, the instrument has a double-cutaway chambered mahogany body with a maple top, white binding and heavy relic natural lacquer finish. The mahogany set neck has a solid-feeling “U” profile, with white binding and heavy relic lacquer finish, topped by a 12”-radius ebony fingerboard with a bone nut, 23 medium jumbo frets (including zero fret), and pearloid Neo-Classic “thumbnail” inlays.

A single TV Jones TV Classic pickup at the bridge delivers that unmistakable sound, wired up with three “G-arrow” control knobs (pickup volume, master volume and master tone). Other premium features include a Space-Control™ bridge with ebony base, ’60s-style Jet tailpiece, nickel/gold hardware, Schaller® tuners and a vintage-style hardshell case.

Available summer 2017 at select Gretsch retailers.

For more information, visit gretschguitars.com/features/malcolm-young.

For all of Guitar World's 2017 Winter NAMM Show coverage, head here.

Angus Young says it might have been better if AC/DC had quit after his brother Malcolm was diagnosed with dementia in 2014.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, the AC/DC lead guitarist admitted that the long-running band is at a crossroads. Since Malcolm’s departure, the band has parted ways with drummer Phil Rudd. Longtime lead singer Brian Johnson left in March due to hearing problems, and bassist Cliff Williams has announced he’ll retire later this year, following the group’s Rock or Bust tour. Young isn’t quite sure what’s next for the group or for him.

“Cliff made it known before we’d even started touring—this would be his last,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Besides myself, Cliff has been there the longest, since 1977.”

Young also reveals how Axl Rose came to fill in following Johnson’s sudden departure from the tour.

“Axl contacted a production guy who had done stuff for us,” he reveals. “He said, ‘I know these guys. They have a work ethic. They want to finish these dates.’ He volunteered. He came to a rehearsal place we set up in Atlanta, and he’d done his homework. He had a few songs like ‘Touch Too Much’ [from 1979’s Highway to Hell] – ‘Can you play this one?’ ‘No, we never learned it.’ We had never attempted to play it live.”

Speaking about his brother’s condition, Young indicates Malcolm is slipping further away. “It’s hard to communicate,” he says. “I do pass on messages. I can’t be 100 percent sure it goes in there. But I let him know there are a lot of people missing him.”

When asked, “Do you now wonder if it was time to quit when Malcolm couldn’t continue–that you pushed the band too far?” Angus admits it’s possible.

“That might be the case,” he says. “But Malcolm was always one to battle through. He would look at me in times of crisis and go, ‘We’ll just go in and do some work. We’ll sit and write some songs.’ He had that drive, and I feel obligated to keep it going, maybe because I was there in the beginning with him.”

For that matter, Rose has indicated he’d like to continue working with AC/DC and is writing material for the band.

But for now, Angus says, AC/DC is committed only to finishing the tour. And if AC/DC’s is finished, Angus says there aren’t a lot of people he’d care to play with.

You can read the full interview at RollingStone.com.

Today, our vintage video camera drops in on the Bon Scott-fronted AC/DC in the midst of a high-spirited performance of "Fling Thing" (aka "Bonny") and "Rocker," one of many rowdy T.N.T. tracks.

If nothing else, the video answers the "Boxers or briefs?" question and proves that AC/DC are one hell of a live band.

"We try to do everything with a fresh approach," Angus Young told Guitar World in 1984. "We don't like to leave people dry or have them say, 'These guys have left us and gone off to something else.' That self-indulgent thing. So we try and keep it basic. A lot of people say we work a formula, but we don't. We try a fresh approach all the time.

"I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought, 'Geez, this is ridiculous.' You just see through all that sort of stuff. I never liked those Deep Purples or those sort of things. I always hated it. I always thought it was a poor man's Led Zeppelin."

Although rumors have been circulating for several weeks, it has been confirmed that founding AC/DC rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young has dementia.

The family of the 61-year-old guitarist confirmed the sad news in an official statement, according to People:

"Malcolm is suffering from dementia, and the family thanks you for respecting their privacy."

"If you were in the room with [Malcolm Young] and walked out, then came back in one minute later, he wouldn't remember who you are," a Young family connection told Australia's Sydney Morning Herald several weeks ago. "He has a complete loss of short-term memory. His wife, Linda, has put him in full-time care."

Michael Browning, AC/DC's former manager, told AAP: "I have friends that are still involved, and they keep me posted, so I have known for a little while. I think [Young's illness] came on very suddenly. It's shocking. It's terrible. Sadly for AC/DC, they're losing their creator, their mentor. He's the genius behind the band."

Young reportedly suffered a stroke last year and did not participate in the recording sessions for AC/DC's new studio album, Rock Or Bust, which will be released December 2.

It has been announced that Malcolm won't be returning to the group due to ill health. His replacement is Angus and Malcolm Young's nephew, Stevie Young. Stevie played on the band's new album, which was recorded at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with producer Brendan O’Brien and mixer Mike Fraser.

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that former AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young has dementia and is being treated in a nursing home in Sydney.

The facility is believed to be Lulworth House in Elizabeth Bay.

"If you were in the room with [Malcolm Young] and walked out, then came back in one minute later, he wouldn't remember who you are," a Young family connection told the newspaper. "He has a complete loss of short-term memory. His wife, Linda, has put him in full-time care."

Michael Browning, AC/DC's former manager, told AAP: "I have friends that are still involved, and they keep me posted, so I have known for a little while. I think [Young's illness] came on very suddenly. It's shocking. It's terrible. Sadly for AC/DC, they're losing their creator, their mentor. He's the genius behind the band."

Young, 61, reportedly suffered a stroke last year and did not participate in the recording sessions for AC/DC's new studio album, Rock Or Bust, which will be released December 2.

It has been announced that Malcolm won't be returning to the group due to ill health. His replacement is Angus and Malcolm Young's nephew, Stevie Young. Stevie played on the new CD, which was recorded at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with producer Brendan O’Brien and mixer Mike Fraser.

Jesse Fink, author of the new book The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC, stated in an interview with WZLX that Malcolm Young will not be returning to the legendary hard-rock outfit.

Malcolm's nephew, Stevie Young, has taken Malcolm's place in the band for the time being, with Fink adding that fans need to accept Malcolm's departure as permanent.

Young fell ill with an unspecified condition in April. The band, in an effort to respect his privacy, have not specified what condition he is suffering from, merely saying he is "taking a break from the band due to ill health."

When pressed for specifics during the interview, Fink also refused to elaborate, saying, "I'm not expecting to see Malcolm return. The important thing is we all let Mal be and hope he can recover. We should all expect that Stevie is in the band now."

AC/DC's Brian Johnson has provided a health update on guitarist Malcolm Young.

As has been widely reported, the band announced in April that Young would step down from the band due to ill health. The news came via a post on the band's Facebook page on April 16, when it was announced Young would "take a break" from the group.

During his recent interview with TeamRock Radio, Johnson said Young is in the hospital and added that he's confident the guitarist will eventually return to the band. "We miss Malcolm, obviously. He's a fighter. He's in hospital, but he's a fighter. We've got our fingers crossed that he'll get strong again.

"Stevie, Malcolm's nephew, was magnificent, but when you're recording with this thing hanging over you and your work mate isn't well, it's difficult. But I'm sure he was rooting for us.

"He's such a strong man. He's a small guy, but he's very strong. He's proud and he's very private, so we can't say too much. But fingers crossed, he'll be back."

Earlier this week, Johnson confirmed that band have completed work on their upcoming album, which is expected to be released later this year.

Before AC/DC's Malcolm and Angus Young took us down the Highway to Hell, they joined their brother, George Young, and guitarist Harry Vanda to form the Marcus Hook Roll Band, a project that never left the studio.

They released only three singles and one album in the early Seventies. Now Parlophone is releasing the Marcus Hook Roll Band's only album, 1973’s Tales of Old Grand-Daddy, June 3 as CD/vinyl/digital download.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Natural Man," a bonus track from the album. Check it out below and tell us what you think in the comments or on Facebook.

If the Marcus Hook Roll Band had ever left of the studio, travelled the world and promoted their records, AC/DC might not have gotten off the ground.

Dutchman Harry Vanda and Scottish George Young met as teenagers in an immigration hostel in Sydney, Australia. They formed the Easybeats, became a pop sensation, went to London and had a major hit with "Friday On My Mind."

When the Easybeats split up in 1969, Harry and George stayed in London, hoping to make a living as session musicians, songwriters and producers. In 1972, they sent a demo to Alan "Wally" Waller (aka Wally Allen), who was working as a producer for EMI. That June, he got them into Abbey Road studios to record "Natural Man."

The album wasn't made until the following year — on the other side of the globe. Vanda and Young had, in the meantime, accepted an offer from Ted Albert to return to Australia and re-launch Albert Productions. The plan was to build a new studio in his Sydney building, Boomerang House, and kick start the solo career of their old Easybeats band-mate Stevie Wright. But a call came from Waller announcing that EMI’s affiliate in the U.S., Capitol Records, was now interested in single "Natural Man," plus an album from the Marcus Hook Roll Band.

Harry and George had just resettled their young families in Sydney and had no intention of returning to London. So Waller made the trip to Australia, and was delighted to find engineer Richard Lush working at EMI’s Castlereagh Street studios. A fun time ensued in studio A over July/August 1973. A key ingredient was the duty free booze supplied by Waller—Jim Beam’s Old Grand-dad bourbon whiskey — hence the album name.

It was decided not to use any of the London tracks but to start again with a new batch of songs and a new lineup. In an interview for Bomp magazine in 1978, George Young explained to Glenn A. Baker the philosophy behind the Marcus Hook Roll Band:

“We thought it was hilarious, it had just been a joke to us… We had Harry, myself and my kid brothers, Malcolm and Angus. We all got rotten, except for Angus, who was too young, and we spent a month in there boozing it up every night. That was the first thing Malcolm and Angus did before AC/DC. We didn’t take it very seriously so we thought we’d include them to give them an idea of what recording was all about.”

Tales of Old Grand-Daddy Track Listing:

It seems there's some sad truth behind the speculation surrounding AC/DC's imminent breakup due to Malcolm Young's health issues.

The classic hard rock band may not be breaking up, but their rhythm guitarist is, for the moment, stepping down to deal with health issues.

Here's the official statement from the band, which appeared earlier today on their official Facebook page:

"After forty years of life dedicated to AC/DC, guitarist and founding member Malcolm Young is taking a break from the band due to ill health. Malcolm would like to thank the group’s diehard legions of fans worldwide for their never-ending love and support.

"In light of this news, AC/DC asks that Malcolm and his family’s privacy be respected during this time. The band will continue to make music."

Our thoughts go out to Malcolm and his family.

We'll keep you posted as we hear more.

AC/DC, one of the last big holdouts in terms of making their music available on iTunes, have finally relented.

Starting today, the Australian hard-rock band's entire catalog is now available digitally, exclusively on iTunes.

The news was announced this morning on the band's official website:

"From their 1976 debut High Voltage to seminal classic Back In Black and 2008 smash hit Black Ice, every one of AC/DC's 16 studio albums, along with four live albums and three compilation albums, are available for the first time ever on the iTunes Store. All tracks are mastered for iTunes, and fans have the ability to download full albums or simply purchase their favorite individual songs.

"Fans can also choose from two specially packaged digital compilations: The Complete Collection, the complete iTunes-exclusive AC/DC catalog; and The Collection, which includes all 16 studio albums."

It's not clear what prompted AC/DC to change their minds, but they're not the only act to relent: Kid Rock also recently lifted his boycott of the digital service with his new album, Rebel Soul. Other big-name holdouts include Garth Brooks and Tool.

For more information, check out the band's landing page at iTunes, right here.