{"id":77722,"date":"2018-01-03T09:04:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T22:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=77722"},"modified":"2018-01-03T09:04:55","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T22:04:55","slug":"angus-young-acdc-bio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2018\/01\/03\/angus-young-acdc-bio\/","title":{"rendered":"Angus Young: AC\/DC\u2019s Last Man Standing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Guest<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeff Apter is the author of more than 20 books. His works include\u00a0the biographies of some of the music industry’s finest, including The Finn Brothers, Johnny O’Keefe, the Bee Gees, Marc Hunter, Silverchair, John Farnham, and Keith Urban. His career has also\u00a0included being on the staff of the Australian Rolling Stone,<\/em>\u00a0and writing for The Guardian<\/em> and the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>. His latest book, High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young<\/em><\/a> is the first biography to focus exclusively on AC\/DC’s last remaining original member. Below, Jeff writes about Angus and his new book.<\/p>\n

\n

\"High<\/a>By Jeff Apter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ever wondered why Angus Young of AC\/DC has such a propensity for baring his backside on stage? While not the kind of guy given to self-analysis, he did offer this at a Sydney press conference in the mid 1970s, having just shocked a female journalist all the way out of the room by baring his lily-white bum.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well,\u2019 he figured, \u2018my arse is better looking than my face.\u2019<\/p>\n

Crude, sure, but his comment says a lot about the man, whose life I explore in my book High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young AC\/DC\u2019s Last Man Standing<\/em>. Angus has always been a cut-the-crap type of guy. Much of it stems from his very working-class roots: in 1963, when his parents uprooted Angus and his seven older siblings from the Cranhill housing estate in Glasgow, they ended up in the Villawood Migrant Hostel. It sure wasn\u2019t the Hilton. The conditions were tough, the residents surly and the local coppers would have been on speed dial if such a thing existed back then. The only difference was the weather: when the Youngs left the UK, they were escaping the bleakest winter in 200 years.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, even now, with Angus one of the wealthiest men in rock \u2013 his current fortune is pitched somewhere north of $250 million \u2013 he recently admitted to a journalist that he still sometimes believes that if he doesn\u2019t play, he won\u2019t eat that night, a notion that was way more relevant way back in the mid 1970s. Still, it\u2019s hard to escape your roots, even if the cost of a sandwich isn\u2019t of much concern to Angus Young these days.<\/p>\n

Angus\u2019 entire life has revolved around the band. As a teenager who clearly had no future in academia, his father William insisted he learn a trade. Angus duly obliged, working as an apprentice printer for a week, but he chucked it in when the band\u2019s touring commitments clashed with his day job. And that was it: everything since then has been about AC\/DC. He\u2019s known no other life. Despite being married for more than 30 years, he and his wife Ellen have no kids. AC\/DC is Angus\u2019 baby.<\/p>\n

This might also explain why he\u2019s not been inclined to shut the band down, even after a series of heavy recent dramas. His big brother Malcolm, who started the band with Angus, was diagnosed with dementia in 2014. Then, just as their most recent tour, Rock or Bust, was about to launch, drummer Phil Rudd was sentenced to a stretch of home detention. Roughly halfway through the tour, singer Brian Johnson, who joined the band after the death of Bon Scott in 1980, was told to retire immediately, for fear of losing what remained of his hearing. Then AC\/DC\u2019s bassist of 40 years, Cliff Williams, quietly handed in his notice.<\/p>\n

By tour\u2019s end, Angus truly was the last man standing.<\/p>\n

Where to next for Angus? He\u2019s been typically tight lipped about any kind of future he and the band may have. We\u2019ll find out soon enough, but when you have a band, no, a brand, that can bring in close to half a billion dollars per tour, and still pack stadiums around the world, it\u2019s hard to walk away. Even harder when you\u2019ve known no other life.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the last word about Angus should be left to Aerosmith\u2019s Steve Tyler, spoken as he inducted the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u2018How,\u2019 asked Tyler, shaking his rock star head in wonder, \u2018do such big balls fit in such short pants?\u2019<\/p>\n

\n

High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young AC\/DC\u2019s Last Man Standing<\/em> is published by Nero<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Apter is the author of more than 20 books. His works include\u00a0the biographies of some of the music industry’s finest, including The Finn Brothers, Johnny O’Keefe, the Bee Gees, Marc Hunter, Silverchair, John Farnham, and Keith Urban. His career has also\u00a0included being on the staff of the Australian Rolling Stone,\u00a0and writing for The Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald. His latest book, High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young is the first biography to focus exclusively on AC\/DC’s last remaining original member. Below, Jeff writes about Angus and his new book. By Jeff Apter Ever wondered why Angus Young of AC\/DC has such a propensity for baring his backside on stage? While not the kind of guy given to self-analysis, he did offer this at a Sydney press conference in the mid 1970s, having just shocked a female journalist all the way out of the room by baring his lily-white bum. \u2018Well,\u2019 he figured, \u2018my arse is better looking than my face.\u2019 Crude, sure, but his comment says a lot about the man, whose life I explore in my book High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young AC\/DC\u2019s Last Man Standing. Angus has always been a cut-the-crap type of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":78108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6677,6703],"tags":[356,8224,916,8226,8225,8223],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/HighVoltageSocial.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77722"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78122,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77722\/revisions\/78122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}