this is essentials on apple music acdc music's most influential artists and the stories behind their songs over the course of this show we are going to dive into the impossible how would you pick a selection of essentials from a back catalog as flawless and quality driven as acdc's because you guys don't muck around once you start you start and you go with the exception of a few moments here and there where you
really extend out because you know that the payoff is going to be that much greater and we start with one of those examples thunderstruck this is one of the most interesting arrangements in ac dc history it's a very progressive and innovative arrangement that song it doesn't do what it should do normally you never give everything away at the start of a song and you probably think
when you hear the thunderstock oh well you know they've given it but it doesn't it just keeps building and then the magic of the song as well is that thing that was starting you know that yeah yeah it's a builder and that is sexy that's a good musical term there that is a good musical too but then to come in as a singer i was cold in the middle of it it's just it just marries when we'd been recording that
whole album which was razor's edge malcolm came to me and he said he had a cassette little cassette and he gave me a set of headphones and he he said listen and and hear what we've done to your song and he had added you know the the big thunder choruses you know in the beginning and uh and the chant and he said to me what do you think i said you've given it life we go from
thunderstrike and we go back and back and back and we go back to to tnt error at that moment angus you're an australian band you know we're gearing up to international releases but you've already found your sound we put it together almost in the studio my brother george has said okay what what have you got well aang's got this little intro uh licked together and then as we were playing away george would say
little cuts little cut and so i started doing like a kind of almost a chuck berry kind of little so he's conducting you through the process as you're writing the song and then he's going do your hook build to the hook so that's what we did built we got to the you know the the chorus amazing next verse he would go pull it down a little bit and we would ride along with that and then we go
right up with the hook and then after that he's shouting out solo time he's teaching you as you're going ultimately how to make records whereas most people try to master that before you even get in the room that was how we do and he used to say to me now you're not going to sit and practice that now that would ruin it so that that's how it went highway to hell this is one of the
all-time classic ac dc moments album of the same name i started playing the the beginning the intro but i didn't have anything to sing and i said okay give me a few minutes and i went to the toilet and then i go i think i've got it i've got it i've got it and then i came in and i said i've got it hi where the hell was that the most important and lucrative you ever took throughout your life
[Music] that moment of losing bon which i'm sure never gets any easier to talk about but such an incredible charismatic and unbelievable talent taken way too soon a really horrendous moment for a for a group of young men yeah it was like it put you in shock i don't know what it is when you're in in your youth you don't think of that dying yeah and so it was it was a kind of shock
you know to us all the one element of it that held held it probably together for me is again malcolm he called me and he said uh what are you doing and i just said i i'm just moping about it and he said listen why don't the two of us do what we were doing before which was we we'd been in a rehearsal room it's strange that was one of the last places that we had seen bond was in the rehearsal room and he said
why don't the two of us go back to that and just work on songs and ideas and just sit and and do that and that became back in black and then comes brian and the rest is history how was that knowing that that you'd found somebody who not necessarily step into bonds shoes but put on shoes of his own and move in his own way he was somebody that stood out and he you know and he and he had the
tools to to be able to to do that role you know when i look back on it now it just to be a part of it sometimes you've got to pinch yourself that it was you doing it there was all these fabulous musicians around us you know i've been playing in a local pub band and stuff like that and these were good players and then there's a different different atmosphere there's a different level boy oh
boy does that make you perform better and all that and you know getting in the studio with mutt langer it was fantastic and mutt really did get the best out of us i didn't know i could get that high that powerfully from there you know you went through and been involved in so many important records brian and one of those records that really came through and actually did something really special for the
band was black ice and the song rock and roll train [Music] you tell us a story about that that was another one as soon as you heard it you know when and rock and roll it was just so strong you know i remember doing the whole black ace album had such a great time i think that might have been brendan's first time with us you know nothing brendan was as excited as anyone to be working with
the boys and all of that to see the smile on the face when they suddenly realized i had a guy here that thought just like them i hope you don't take offense that i'm going to make an executive production decision on your own essentials mini selection and put in for those about to rock [Music] sometimes i i go back of something i've read somewhere and there was the writer robert graves i'd
believe his name was yeah he i think he had a book out or a story and it was you know for those about to die and he he went into our day in the coliseum and and this is you know the thing that the gladiators did and i thought hey that might fit gentlemen what a pleasure to be able to see you once again and thank you once again for your time god bless yeah that was lovely me thank you you