Oz Rock

Two of the music industry’s highest-selling performers originated in suburban Australia. The Bee Gees started out in Brisbane, for instance, and AC/DC – whose Back in Black (1980) has sold more than 50 million copies – played their first gigs at a nightclub in inner Sydney.

Formed by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in 1973, AC/DC exemplify the brand of pounding, guitar-driven rock that was increasingly thrashed out in suburban pubs and clubs from the early 70s onwards. There was Buffalo, with the ‘demented vocals’ of Dave Tice; The Angels, fronted by the rangy, raucous Doc Neeson; heavily-inked hardmen Rose Tattoo; Cold Chisel, sweaty, wired and boozy; and Divinyls, led by the edgily enigmatic Chrissy Amphlett. Each were among the many bands to have built their styles and followings in venues now considered crucibles of a characteristically local contribution to the genre.

Despite their surly, insalubrious breeding grounds – and outré rock ‘n’ roll lifestyles – hard rock bands proved more palatable to the local industry than the innovative homegrown exponents of new wave emerging in the same period. AC/DC in particular distanced themselves from punk. ‘We thought that punk and the new wave thing might spoil it a bit for us,’ AC/DC frontman Bon Scott said in 1977, ‘but people ... want more than someone up there screaming “anarchy” and “rape” and this sort of crap, you know, and we’re it’.

"Gettin’ robbed, gettin’ stoned, gettin’ beat up, broken boned" taken from ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top’. Words and music by Ronald Scott, Malcolm Young and Angus Young. © Copyright BMG AM Pty Ltd/Australian Music Corporation Pty Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is illegal.