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"There's very few rock & roll bands," Malcolm Young



"There's rock bands, there's sort of metal bands, there's whatever, but there's no rock & roll bands – there's the Stones and us," he chuckled. When asked by the interviewer to explain the difference between rock bands and rock & roll bands, he replied, "Rock bands don't really swing ... a lot of rock is stiff. They don't understand the feel, the movement, you know, the jungle of it all."




Few rock & rollers have ever understood "the jungle of it all" like Malcolm Young, and fewer still have ever been as single-mindedly devoted to its perpetuation. From 1973, when he formed AC/DC with his younger brother Angus, to 2014, when dementia and other health issues forced his premature retirement, Malcolm never once allowed the band to deviate from its swinging, swaggering, riff-driven course. During Malcolm's tenure, AC/DC's recordings featured three different lead vocalists, three different bassists and five different drummers; and yet, the band's musical aesthetic remained so stubbornly consistent as to make the Ramones look like flighty trend-jumpers by comparison.

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