AC/DC STORIES

AC/DC BON SCOTT ERA STORIES

'Recalling his first actual meeting with the singer in September 1974, Angus

told rock journalist Paul Stenning that, when ‘Bon first came along and saw me

and Malcolm, he sat behind the drums and started bashing away. We said, “We

know a good rock ’n’ roll drummer – what we want is a great rock ’n’ roll

singer,” hence the song we recorded.'

'Kramer told Engleheart that his feeling from the get-go was that AC/DC was a very
independent bunch. ‘They’re a simple, raw, basic, to-the-point rock ’n’ roll band,
a fundamental rock ’n’ roll band that is hard to find …'

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AC/DC BRIAN JOHNSON ERA STORIES

'Brian confessed to Stenning that when

he wrote ‘the line “Knockin’ me out with those American thighs” – I hadn’t been

even in America at the time.'

'Johnson held a deep respect for Scott’s legacy and talent. 'I think he was so clever, and I think he had such a distinct voice as well. He was brilliant.''

''We don’t really like to go into the studio with nothing and try to do it

there. We like to have it done and worked out, so that when you’re recording you

can concentrate on the performance and the sound.''

'Indeed, big brother George’s intuitive understanding of the essentials of

AC/DC’s brand of hard rock helped the band not only in achieving the

minimalist sonics they were after, but also in achieving them at speed. As Angus

explained, ‘We don’t like to spend more than six weeks on an album. We don’t

want to lose the freshness...''

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GUNS N' ROSES STORIES

'It could happen, and it did: look around and you could even see the people

that it had happened to – David Lee Roth, singer with LA’s biggest home-grown

band, Van Halen, ligging with his manager, Pete Angelus, in the Rainbow;

Vince Neil, a Mexican kid from the wrong side of town now somehow singing

his way to platinum heaven with Mötley Crüe, dragging the mud-wrestling girls

from the Tropicana back to his house to party;'

'For Izzy Stradlin, things would get worse before they finally got better. On 27

August he was on a flight from Indianapolis, drunk and tired and obnoxious. He

‘must have’ told a stewardess to ‘fuck herself,’ he later recalled blurrily, before

jumping the queue for the toilet by relieving himself in a bin in the kitchen

galley. The pilot put the plane down at the nearest airport, which was Phoenix,

and Izzy was arrested for public indecency, a problem because he had a prior for

drug possession and could have been jailed for six months. Instead he got

another six months’ probation and had to keep peeing in cups for urine tests to

prove he was clean.'

'‘Welcome to the Jungle’, with the furious intensity of its knife-slashing

opening riff (itself almost cathartic after the tease of Slash’s guitar intro) and its

story of a wide-eyed country boy stepping off the bus and into the alien city, was

an obvious opener. ‘Paradise City’, the upside of the dream, was its perfect

counterpoint to close side one. Then ‘My Michelle’ to open side two, its story

about Michelle Young blisteringly frank and unblinking, was bookended by the

record’s final track, ‘Rocket Queen’, inspired by another of the band’s noir-ish

Hollywood circle, Barbi Von Greif (‘I wrote this song for a girl who was gonna

have a band and she was gonna call it Rocket Queen. She kinda kept me alive

for a while’, as Axl told'

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METALLICA STORIES

'Metallica had been the first of the genre to sign a major label deal (with Elektra in America). 

The first to hook up with big management (Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein).

Now they were also the first to get the opportunity to work with one of the metal greats.

It all opened doors, not only for them, but also for other bands of the genre.'

'From the start, Cliff Burton showed he was his own man, unprepared to compromise without good reason. For instance, he was unwilling to relocate from San Francisco to LA, where Metallica were then based – he persuaded THEM to move.'

'When they weren’t playing guitars together, they were playing poker.

‘We’d go out and play poker for eight hours straight after being up for twenty-four hours,’ '

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MICHAEL JACKSON STORIES

'...By the end of 1969, Michael Jackson, now eleven years old and

reunited with his mother, was a bubbly, energetic and happy

youngster. ‘All I want now is to see how far we can go as a

family,’ he told Soul magazine reporter Judy Spiegelman. ‘I like

show business, Hollywood, and all that stuff, the things people like

Berry Gordy do to make you look good. I'm real excited about

things.''

'By the time Michael Jackson turned nineteen in August 1977, he

was one of the best-known entertainers of recent years, the idol of

many young women. While his brothers often availed themselves

of the sexual opportunities presented to them on the road, Michael

never followed suit. Though much of Michael's music has had a

sensual edge over the years, and his dancing has often been

suggestive, he was not sexually adventurous as a young man.

‘I think it's fun that girls think I'm sexy,’ Michael told me in

1977. ‘But I don't think that about myself. It's all just fantasy,

really.'

'While Michael Jackson was on the road with the Victory tour, he

made further headlines – this time on the business pages – by

purchasing the ATV Music Publishing Company for an astounding

$47.5 million. The purchase, believed to be the biggest publishing

acquisition of its kind ever by an individual, was actually the

culmination of ten intense months of negotiation. The seed of this

venture had been planted a few years earlier when Michael was in

London to record the number one hit ‘ Say, Say, Say’ with Paul

McCartney at Abbey Road Studios.'

'On Tuesday, 28 February 1984, Grammy night, the scene at the

Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles was one of pure pandemonium.

Giant klieg lights cut dramatic white patterns in the dark sky

above. Fans in their roped-off areas were ready to scream and call

out the names of anyone they might recognize. When twenty-fiveyear-

old Michael Jackson arrived for his coronation as king of the

pop music world, he wore a spangled uniform with epaulets and

the rhinestoned glove on his right hand. With him was Brooke

Shields.'

'Michael Jackson survived the devastating child molestation

allegations of a decade ago, but it could be argued not without

considerable damage to his recording career. In fact, his record

sales have dipped dramatically since 1993.

In 1995, a double CD was issued, HIStory – Past, Present &

Future, Book 1. The package boasted fifteen of his greatest hits

(‘Beat It’, ‘Billie Jean’, and the rest) and fifteen new songs, such

as the thoughtful ‘Stranger in Moscow’, the elegant ‘Earth Song’

and ‘Scream’ (with Janet, the first single release from the

package). ‘You Are Not Alone’, also included, remains among Michael’s

best songs; it made chart history in America by becoming the first

song ever to go straight to number one on the Billboard charts in

its first week.'

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LED ZEPPELIN STORIES

'...WHOLE LOTTA LOVE - A tour, using the name the ‘New Yardbirds’ was undertaken purely to fulfill old engagements’ through Scandinavia and, that completed, the band promptly became Led Zeppelin, and recorded an album in surprisingly quick time...'

'John Paul Jones has disappeared, last seen looking slightly menacing signing

autographs for the barely pubescent female Scottish Zep aficiandos who seem to

somehow congregate around the dressing-room door, cruising for autographs

and a quick look at what goes on behind the scenes in the glitzy world of rock ’n’

roll...'

' "The audiences were becoming bigger and bigger but moving further and

further away,” Jimmy Page told me. “They became specks on the horizon and we

were losing contact with people—those people who were responsible for lifting

us off the ground in the early days...'

'For the two years following John Bonham’s death, all that existed in the press

about Led Zeppelin was speculation. The band members remained silent,

even to the point of discussing whether Led Zeppelin

would disband or remain together...'

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PRINCE STORIES

'...WHEN PRINCE DIED AT 57 on April 21, 2016, the world turned purple with grief.

The unexpected passing of one of the best-selling recording artists in music history

came as a shock to those who had, in Prince’s music, found a soundtrack to their

youths, an antidote to their loneliness and permission to simply be: if the world could

embrace a man whose every fiber defied easy categorization, then it should be able to

embrace any one of us.'

'In the 1986 film Under the Cherry Moon, an ode to

Hollywood glamour shot in plush, feathery black and white, Prince appears as a pianist

and hustler who falls for snooty rich girl Kristin Scott Thomas. At first, she’ll have

nothing to do with him, and Prince, wounded, decides to get the better of her.'

'That’s charisma. And the only star who had more than Elvis was Prince. His hotness

differed, of course; it came from somewhere else. Cardboard won’t cut it for him. If

Elvis was sex, Prince was a sexual orientation. His own. And it was oriented toward you.

And you. And you...'

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BLACK SABBATH STORIES

'Nowadays, of course, we’re all so jaded that a whole genre of horror films can

call themselves “torture porn” and it’s all fine and dandy, but back then it was a

wholly different story.'

'As Butler told me, “We did the first

album in two days. That’s the way it should be. The second album was done in

five days and the third one in a week, and those were our biggest-selling albums

—and are to this day.” '

'In 1997, Sharon contacted Iommi and asked him if he was interested in

reforming the classic 1970s Black Sabbath lineup for Ozzfest’s second year, and

he agreed.'

'Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career was his first priority in 2006, and why not?

He had outstripped Black Sabbath in terms of sheer sales and media

presence some years previously...'

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BOB MARLEY STORIES

'...Although he lived a short life, only 36 years, Bob penned an enormous

quantity of songs. And unlike some songwriters, Bob was involved in all

aspects of the creation of his music. He worked on each of the instrumental

parts, wrote the lyrics, and had his hand in the control room while the

initial tracks were being laid down, in addition to being involved in the

editing and overdubbing process that yielded the final product. Bob’s

sound was so characteristic of reggae that it virtually cornered the “roots

reggae” designation'

'The year 1975 was that during

November, Bob, Peter, and Bunny reunited for their last time on stage.

American popular musician Stevie Wonder was slated to play a benefit

concert at Jamaica’s National Stadium. The concert was staged to raise

money for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind and Stevie Wonder was

well aware of the Wailers’ material. The reconstituted Wailers performed

at Wonder’s benefit concert and he was blown away.'

'With this more specific diagnosis, Bob was informed that he likely had

between four and five weeks left to live and that he should put his affairs

in order. As a means of relieving the pressure caused by the tumor in his

skull, Bob began receiving radiation treatments to try to reduce the size

of the brain tumor. An unfortunate result of the Sloan-Kettering visit

was that Bob’s condition was leaked to the media. On October 8, 1980,

news of Bob’s cancer was announced on various radio stations in New

York. Station WLIB was the first to announce Bob’s health concerns over

the radio. The news spread quickly and soon Bob’s condition was known

internationally.'

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