Born on 31 March: Angus Young (AC/DC), always wired at 200,000 volts

His band AC/DC has always been considered Australian, but it was indeed in Glasgow (Scotland) that Angus Young was born in 1955.

The youngest of eight children, his family emigrated to Sydney (Australia) in 1963 in search of a better life. At that time, the Young family struggled financially, and the children's musical inclinations were often satisfied through their ingenuity. Angus fondly recalls that his first guitar was actually a banjo to which he added an extra string. He had to wait until 1970 to finally acquire his first dark brown second-hand Gibson SG, which he played down to the bone.

He was 18 years old when he founded AC/DC with his older brother Malcolm (who passed away in 2017) on rhythm guitar. The duo's antics and Bon Scott's gravelly voice quickly ignited sparks in the land of kangaroos with "High Voltage" and "T.N.T.", two evocatively titled albums released in 1975 that opened the doors to international markets.

Exceptionally effective, incendiary tracks such as "It’s A Long Way To The Top" (featuring Scottish bagpipes evoking their roots) or "Rock’n Roll Singer" dissect their ambitions and the obstacles they face. "Can I Sit Next To You Girl" or "She’s Got Balls" comically depict their still youthful fantasies. All the clichés of the genre are present on their first album, but AC/DC managed to transcend them. The gimmicks devised by Angus allowed them to create a unique image, constructing their legend step by step, solo after solo.

Mainly the band's composer and a demonic electric blacksmith, Angus Young quickly adopted a cheeky schoolboy look, with short trousers and a cap firmly on his head. The first he wore on stage was actually the one he wore to Ashley Boys High School in Sydney when bored at school. At a time when uniforms were still mandatory in strict English colleges, his attire delighted schoolboys resistant to authority. Overflowing with energy on stage, Angus punctuated his most searing performances with a duck-like walk, his famous duck walk...

After being forced to find a new singer following Bon Scott's death, Angus Young and his band AC/DC, on average, released an album a year during their first decade of existence. Among these were the first "Highway To Hell" (1979), "Back In Black" (1980), and "For Those About To Rock We Salute You" (1981).

From the mid-2000s, AC/DC adopted a less frenetic pace; only returning to the studio approximately every five years and spacing out their never-ending world tours. Certainly, one might think that the fates of Angus Young and AC/DC are inextricably entwined, but the guitarist’s loyalty to his beloved band is too rare not to be highlighted. Apart from a duet with Axl Rose (Guns’n Roses) for a rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin at the Coachella festival, he's hardly known for any other notable infidelities…

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Angus Young with AC/DC on stage at Forest-National in Brussels, Belgium on December 6, 1982