To mark this momentous occasion we asked rock's finest to talk about their favourite albums by the Australian icons. Over the next 15 pages you'll find Paul Stanley, Joe Elliott, Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Biff Byford, Airbourne's Joel O'Keeffe and many more celebrating the genius of Back In Black, Highway To Hell, Powerage, High Voltage, Black Ice and every other album they made.
Let there be rock...
Saxon’s Biff Byford on how AC/DC’s debut album changed his life for ever.
“Someone gave me a cassette of High Voltage, and the second I heard It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’N’Roll) I immediately ran to the boys [in Saxon] to show it them. I played it in our van for about five months straight! But the band’s whole DNA changed. We liked the energy of punk, because it was fast and furious, but we needed AC/DC for that groove. Put the two together and you get Saxon.
“It’s A Long Way To The Top tells you everything you need to know about being in a rock band. Bon always wrote great lyrics. He was a bit of a gangster, and that stuff is very linked with rock music somehow. When we started out it was a dangerous place! A lot of people from dodgy upbringings, for want of a better word, were always attracted to rock music. About sixteen/seventeen we’d do a bit of shoplifting and nicking stuff from people’s gardens. Bon got that stuff.
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Esta historia es de la edición August 2023 de Classic Rock.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Dream Theater
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Royal Republic
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GOTTA KEEP MOVIN'
In 1968 the MC5's Kick Out The Jams album was a grenade thrown into the music scene. In the decades since, Wayne Kramer acted as guardian of the band's legacy until he died earlier this year, after making one final album.
THE KILLING FLOOR
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BILL WYMAN
WW2 evacuee, RAF airman, Rolling Stone, hit solo artist, bandleader, author, restaurateur, archaeologist, cricketer... Even just his time in The Greatest Rock'N'Roll Band In The World is storied, but there's been much, much more to his life than that.
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
For some people, travelling life's road is easy. For lifelong worrier Myles Kennedy it's anything but. But with his brand new solo album The Art Of Letting Go he's learning just what that title says.
ALL ABOUT BEING LOUD
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The Mötley Crüe bassist on making new music, replacing Mick Mars, work-life balance, learning when to say no...
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Meet the West Midlands singer bringing back upbeat music, fun and fashion of the 70s.
