Rumors have been circulating all week that the Australian hard-rock band AC/DC was about to announce its retirement. After four decades, AC/DC’s future has been cast into doubt by health issues faced by one of its founding members and songwriters, Malcolm Young. It has been reported that Young suffered a stroke earlier this year that left a blood clot in his brain, rendering him unable to play the guitar well enough to take the stage. Peter Ford, an entertainment correspondent for the Australian radio station 3AW, said, “The suggestion being put to me is that … we will never see AC/DC perform again or record again.” On Wednesday, however, Brian Johnson, the band’s lead singer, denied the rumor, telling the Telegraph, “We are definitely getting together in May in Vancouver … [to] see if anybody has got any tunes or ideas. If anything happens, we’ll record it.” Johnson did hedge those comments, though, saying, “I’m not ruling anything out. One of the boys has a debilitating illness, but I don’t want to say too much about it.” Later that day, the band posted a brief note on its Web site, saying that Young was “taking a break from the band due to ill health.”
This is tough news for longtime fans of the band, but it should not come as such a surprise. Many of the big rock acts of the sixties and seventies—those that survived, at any rate—have arrived at the same late-career crossroads. Some are handling it better than others. Though they no longer make records together, the Rolling Stones have defied the grim reaper, looking quite sprightly at their Hyde Park concert last year. The indefatigable Bruce Springsteen lost his sidekick Clarence Clemons in 2011, but he continues to put out strong records and play three-hour concerts. On the other hand, Black Sabbath reunited for a tour and an album in 2013 that were decidedly uneven.
Having made their fortunes celebrating the liberties of juvenescence, these aged musicians are now confronted with the indignities and depredations of failing health and weakening bodies. In no other case is the contrast between a band’s thematic stylings and the dwindling constitutions of its members as stark and poignant as it is for AC/DC. The direct heirs of Chuck Berry and B. B. King, the members of AC/DC do not make up a reflective band. They don’t do ballads or odes to the Welsh countryside. They don’t do protest songs or lullabies inspired by their children. They do rock and roll. Their entire oeuvre celebrates the young, tough, hard-drinking, hard-rocking, law-flouting, womanizing way of life. A glance at their song titles tells you everything you need to know: “Problem Child,” “Riff Raff,” “Sin City,” “Rock ’n’ Roll Damnation,” “Bad Boy Boogie,” “Smash ’n Grab,” “Love Hungry Man,” “Have a Drink On Me.” When the most soulful song in a group’s catalogue is about gonorrhea (“The Jack”), good citizenship, clean living, and family values are not high on its list of priorities.
Onstage, the embodiment of this attitude is (or, should I say, was?) the lead guitarist, Angus Young, Malcolm’s younger brother, who has, since 1974, performed while wearing a schoolboy uniform, complete with a cap and tie. (Offstage, Angus is a renowned teetotaler.) As a typical AC/DC show progresses, a sweat-soaked Angus disrobes, item by item, until he is left with only a pair of shorts and his guitar. A diminutive, charismatic, and frenetic performer, Angus carried this act off for decades. But next year he will turn sixty. As his hair has grayed and his hairline retreated, the outfit has come to look increasingly ridiculous. He seems trapped by the gimmick. I’m not arguing that Angus should show up at the next concert (should there be one) wearing polyester slacks and a golf shirt, but the standard aging-rocker garb of jeans and a black T-shirt would do just fine, and would take nothing away from his blistering solos.
The last time AC/DC faced a crisis of this magnitude was in 1980, when its first lead singer, Bon Scott—who was famously not a teetotaler—died of alcohol poisoning after a night out with his friend Alistair Kinnear. In “Louder Than Hell,” an oral history of heavy metal, Phil Rudd, the band’s drummer, recalled, “Nobody believed it could happen to us. We were so depressed. We were just walking around in silence.” Some of the comments that I’ve read about Malcolm Young’s stroke echo this kind of shock.
Scott did much to establish the tone and persona of AC/DC. Mischievous and reckless, profane and wonderfully bawdy, he had a gritty, bluesy voice that recalled Faces-era Rod Stewart. After losing Scott, AC/DC not only opted to look for a new lead singer—eventually hiring Johnson—but also overcame the tragedy by recording its most successful album, “Back in Black.” That record, a landmark of hard rock, has sold more than twenty-two million copies in the U.S., making it the sixth-best-selling record in American chart history. Since then, AC/DC has released eight more top-selling studio albums. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
If this is indeed the end for the band, AC/DC’s last record, “Black Ice,” released in 2008, would be as forceful and consistent a parting statement as it could hope to make. Less bluesy than in its early years, late-stage AC/DC still features all of the components of the band’s formula: jagged guitar riffs, a propulsive rhythm section, and Johnson’s scalding vocals. The lightning-bolt in the band’s logo remains absolutely on the mark.
Assuming Malcolm Young is indeed unable to play the guitar, it is hard to see how AC/DC could continue without him, as it did without Scott. It’s also hard for me to understand why anyone would want it to. While Scott was “like family” to Angus, Malcolm is family. A fan of the band for nearly four decades—“Whole Lotta Rosie” was the first riff I learned to play on the guitar—I am pained to think that there may be no more albums or tours. Nevertheless, I would much prefer that outcome to the sight of a diminished AC/DC attempting to live up to its legacy. Any lineup that didn’t feature Malcolm on rhythm guitar would be a diminishment. It may seem incongruous to speak of dignity in this context, but retirement under these circumstances would be as dignified an end as a band like AC/DC could aspire to. It would also terminate the speculation and make it easier for people to respect Malcolm’s privacy, as the band requested on Wednesday.
In “Louder Than Hell,” Angus Young spoke about the pitfalls of stardom and the aftermath of Scott’s death. “At first, when you’re young, a lot of temptation comes to you,” he said. “Some people get attracted and figure, ‘Oh, there must be some gold there.’ There’s that feeling of eternal youth going. That doesn’t work for me. I think what’s eternal is getting a good song.” AC/DC have written more than enough good songs to call it a day.
Photograph of Brian Johnson, at left, and Angus Young by Robert Vos/EPA.
