Five Things We Learned From Angus Young’s Rolling Stone Interview

Since founding the band in 1973, Angus Young has been AC/DC‘s lead guitarist. In recent years, the band’s gone through a number of changes, first with Malcolm Young having to quit in 2014 after suffering from dementia and, more recently, frontman Brian Johnson needing to be replaced by Axl Rose to save his hearing. Young has given an interview to Rolling Stone in which he discusses the band’s present incarnation, the future and how his brother is coping with his illness.

Axl Rose wanted to play some obscure tracks
The Guns N’ Roses frontman isn’t exactly well known for being punctual or particularly fussed about what anyone else wants to do, so him stepping in to front the band once Brian Johnson had to step down could have been a disaster. According to Young, though, he’s been “really good”. “He prepares himself, ready to go. We sit and chew the fat before we get on, work out what songs we want to do,” he said, adding that Rose has been swotting up on some of AC/DC’s more obscure tracks. “He had a few songs like ‘Touch Too Much’,” Young said. “‘Can you play this one?’ ‘No, we never learned it.’ We had never attempted to play it live.”

Young’s nephew sounds uncannily like his brother
When Young’s brother Malcolm had to leave the band due to dementia, they drafted in his nephew Stevie to take over his rhythm guitar duties. It looks like he’s been a valuable replacement, too. “Sometimes I do a double take,” Young revealed. “I hear the sound behind me and think, ‘That sounds so Mal.’ When Stevie was younger, he really focused on what Mal did. It’s not an easy thing.”

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He hasn’t thought about the future yet
With two of his bandmates having to quit performing in recent years, you might think Young would have been prompted to consider what he might do in the near future. Try and continue with AC/DC? Hang up his school uniform for good? Form a new band? Turns out he hasn’t thought about any of it at all. “At this point, I don’t know. We were committed to finishing the tour. Who knows what I’ll feel after?” he reasoned.

He’d like to play in a band with Keith Richards
If he did decide to embark on a new musical endeavour, though, he’d like it to be with The Rolling StonesKeith Richards. “He’s a rhythm guy like Mal,” Young explained, saying a lot of the other musicians he’d like to play with have already sadly passed.

He passes on fan messages to Malcolm
“It’s hard to communicate,” Young said when speaking of his brother’s illness, but said he passes on messages to him, even if he doesn’t know if he gets what he’s telling him. “I can’t be 100 percent sure it goes in there,” he said. “But I let him know there are a lot of people missing him.”

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