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.
This story is from the August 2023 edition of Classic Rock.
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This story is from the August 2023 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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