Power Age

BJ: Judas Priest! That's it, mate. I'm gettin' old, me memory's gone. But he said they'd gotten ahold of them an' transformed them into all wearin' leather. But the album was crap! As me father used to say, "Ya cannot polish a turd." An' we just threw the guy out an' told him to never come back again, an' if he did, it would be at serious risk to his health. An' it was tough for a while, especially with no exposure on radio or TV. MTV avoided us like the plague. If there was any excuse, they'd take it. They'd be like, "We can't show that video because ya can see part of a woman's breast." An' we said, "Yeah, but she's got clothes on!" An' they'd say, "No, no, it's too suggestive." An' then these rap videos would come on an' there's chicks with their whole asses hangin' out! So we caught on quick that they just didn't wanna know about us. But we kept pluggin' along, an' thankfully, people came with us.

WW: Are there some changes in your music that perhaps your fans haven't noticed? Or do you try to make sure those changes don't sneak in?

BJ: We definitely try not to let them sneak in. Obviously, ya change some from album to album: different songs, different feel, different time an' all that. But the basic engine room of the music, Phil an' Cliff an' Malcolm, who are just drivin' the whole AC/DC train, is pretty much the same. So it's a very subtle difference. An' it gets more and more difficult to write a new song just from the basic chords, ya know?

WW: Especially when you know the new songs will be compared to the old ones. Does that make it harder -- to know that after you play a new song, you'll be playing "Back in Black"?

BJ: Ya hit it right on the head there, mate. Ya have to strive fer that elusive riff, because I believe these days there ain't riff-makers anymore. You get these duh-duh-dum things, an' they're nothin'. But a good riff is fabulous, an' kids love 'em! An' in the late '60s an' early '70s, ya had yer Jeff Becks an' yer Black Sabbaths an' people like that who came up with these superb riffs. But just a few people can do it now.

WW: So where have all the great riff-makers gone?

BJ: It's a puzzlement to me. But I never cease to be amazed by what Malcolm an' Angus come up with. We usually meet up in London to lay the seeds fer somethin' new, and they'll play me somethin', an' I'll go, "Where did you pull that from?" An' ya can imagine what it feels like, bein' the first person in the world to hear it. That's the big thrill.

WW: "Stiff Upper Lip" is part of a long and proud history of AC/DC songs that play off phallus references. What is it about the subject that keeps you guys coming back?

BJ: We're all from workin'-class people, an' swearin' was never allowed in the house -- absolutely nowhere. Me father never swore in his life. So workin' men used these little phrases all the time to say what they're really thinkin'.

WW: Like "stiff upper lip," but with a big pause after "stiff"?

BJ: Absolutely. Ya see, there's a million things you can do with it -- an' that's half the fun. Of course, the English have always been fabulous at satire, from Monty Python an' so on, an' our sitcoms have always been the best. The problem with American comedy is, it lacks irony. There's always a message at the end -- like, "The bruiser really was a bully," and by the end of the show, he's an angel. Jeez...

WW: Is our lack of irony one of the reasons some people decided your music was satanic?

BJ: I love America. I live here now, an' it's the greatest country in the world, as far as I'm concerned. But unfortunately, ya have some of the biggest looney tunes, meanin' the religious right. They're just nutcakes, an' if they can get advertisin' for themselves, they'll pick on somethin' people are enjoyin' just because they're enjoyin' it. An' of course they never listened to our lyrics, because there's nothin' satanic in there. Like "Highway to Hell," which we explained was about a three-day drive across a desert in Australia. Which was hot, ya know? Like hell? But these people, they've got so many gullible followers down in that Bible Belt. They'd say if ya play the record backwards, ya can hear evil things -- like, "Grrrrrrrr." An' I would think, "Jeez, I didn't know the devil sounded like that. I thought he was coherent, like the rest of us."