Glasgow-born rock musician who founded AC/DC

Born: January 6, 1953;

Died: November 18, 2017

GLASGOW-born Malcolm Young, who has died aged 64 after suffering from early dementia, was the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, joint songwriter, back-up vocalist and mentor of the heavy metal “high voltage” rock band AC/DC. “He was the musical genius behind the band for around 40 years,” said the group’s former manager Michael Browning, who went on to manage INXS.

His family having emigrated from Glasgow to Australia when Malcolm was 10, AC/DC were generally described as an Australian rock band although they returned to base themselves in the UK in 1976 after their initial success.

Malcolm Young drove the band’s music along with his red, double-cutaway 1962 Gretsch Jet Firebird guitar he called “the Beast.” With his younger brother Angus, also born in Glasgow, creating memorable “badass” riffs on lead guitar, the band has sold over 200 million albums worldwide, 70 million of them in the US, where they are still considered heavy metal deities. Their original lead singer Bon Scott, also a child immigrant to Australia, was born in Forfar and spent his early years in Kirriemuir. (Malcolm might like it to be known that in a famous Hampden Park concert in 2009, he was playing not “the Beast” but a Gretsch White Falcon guitar).

The name AC/DC was a clever idea. Firstly, we all knew the term from the plugs or sockets in our homes. The Youngs’ sister Margaret had suggested the name after handling the plug of her sewing machine. Secondly, the term AC/DC had already become slang for bisexual and the connotation fitted their anti-establishment image. The name summed them up perfectly as a band that provided its users with an essential source of power and energy. They played second on the bill for many years to another famous Aussie group, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, but, unlike the Aztecs, went on to worldwide success although Billy Thorpe is posthumously considered one of the great rock guitarists of all time.

The last album Malcolm Young played on was the 2008 Black Ice, named after radio warnings from motoring organisations that the Young brothers remembered from their Glasgow days. But despite the band’s relative lack of proclivity in the studio, they continued to tour and will still do so, with Malcolm’s nephew Stevie Young standing in on rhythm guitar.

Release of the Black Ice album, with its striking cover drawn by Joshua Marc Levy suggesting a runaway train facing a lightning storm, caused major tremors in the music industry. The U.S. Walmart chain set up large stands specifically for the album. Malcolm and Angus Young, two boys from a new housing estate in the east end of Glasgow, could hardly believe it. It was only much later that they realized that being brought up on a housing estate had given them a hard-edged drive to success.

The Black Ice cover, featuring the group’s famous lightning-bolt logo and black imagery, echoed their 1980 studio album Back in Black, which had sold more than 50 million copies and would become the third highest-selling album worldwide. Those two albums would establish AC/DC as one of the most popular heavy metal rock bands in the history of the genre, along with Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motley Crüe, Kiss and other bands some fans may add.

After Malcolm Young fell ill in the Spring of 2014, and was eventually diagnosed with dementia, his nephew Stevie took over as rhythm guitarist on the band’s tours and their 2014 album Rock or Bust. Although the band did not hide the fact that Malcolm was unwell, many audience members thought that Stevie, on stage, was actually Malcolm, given the strong resemblance and the mask of hair cascading to the beat.

Malcolm Mitchell Young was born in 1953 on the new housing estate of Cranhill in the east end of Glasgow, in the shadow of the famous Cranhill Water Tower, to William and Margaret Young. Having lived through two world wars, William took his family by ship to Sydney, Australia, in 1963. Malcolm was 10, Angus eight. (An older brother, Alex, 24 at the time, opted to remain in Scotland and would later form the rock group Grapefruit. Another of Malcolm’s brothers, George Young, became a member of the “Australian Beatles” - the Easybeats - whose biggest hit was Friday on my Mind (1966) with its memorable guitar riffs).

After AC/DC’s success, Angus Young, who liked to wear schoolboy’s uniforms on stage, became something of the “frontman” of the band but his big brother Malcolm was always considered the driving force. Together, the two were considered one of the greatest rhythm/lead teams in rock. The Australian punk rock band Frenzal Rhomb recorded a song and album, both of which were titled Forever Malcolm Young. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth once said Malcolm Young of AC/DC and James Hetfield of Metallica were two of the best three rhythm guitarists in the world history of rock ‘n roll. The third? You’ve guessed it - Dave Mustaine.

Fellow rock guitarists said Malcolm Young’s secret was playing open chords through medium-sized amplifiers at low volume - in contrast to the famous fictional Nigel Tufnel of the “documentary” This is Spinal Tap, whose secret was having amps that went beyond the maximum 10 volume to 11. Malcolm Young also put sweaty socks in the guitar’s cavities to prevent electronic feedback. For the sake of connoisseurs, he usually used heavy-gauge Gibson nickel-roundwound strings.

Malcolm young is survived by his wife O’Linda, their son Ross and daughter Cara.

PHIL DAVISON