AC/DC Returns with “Power Up”

by Kevin Johnson Saturday, November 14th, 2020

AC/DC: Power Up After a tumultuous period that saw the band nearly broken for good, AC/DC is back with a new album called Power Up. The idea for the album began in 2018 when things were at their darkest. Vocalist Brian Johnson was forced to leave following hearing loss, Phil Rudd left after legal problems, and bassist Cliff Williams bowed out for health reasons. Most devastating of all, guitarist and founder Malcolm Young had died following a battle with dementia. This left band management to approach Angus Young about making a new album from music he and his brother had written, but never got around to recording.

“We always thought, ‘Well, we’ll get these on the next album,’ but never (did),” the lead guitarist told USA Today. “So I thought, ‘This is probably a good time to get some of them, see if they need any vamping up and put them out there.’”

Power Up features the band’s classic lineup once again with rhythm guitarist Stevie Young filling in for his uncle Malcolm. Williams holds down the low end with his pulsing eighth notes. For him, reuniting for the album was an easy choice.

“If ‘Back In Black’ has [late AC/DC singer] Bon Scott all over it, for me, ‘Power Up’ has got Malcolm Young,” he told Dean DelRay on the “Let There Be Talk” podcast. “This is for him. And it’s the band that we played together with for 40-plus years. And I wanted to do that — I wanted to come back and do that. We did some rehearsals earlier this year before this darn COVID thing popped up, and we had great rehearsals,” he continued. “The band was playing really well. So [they asked me], ‘Do you wanna do a few shows? ‘Sure’. A few shows. We were planning on doing that. Everyone goes home to their respective homes, and bang, we’ve been here ever since [because of the coronavirus-related shutdown].” He added that he is only committed to doing a handful of shows in support of the album due to his physical issues.

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