AC/DC set to rock NZ

Hard Ocker rock doesn't come harder than guitar heros AC/DC. James Wigney reports on the business end of the band's bombast and their 2010 Australasian tour.

They Weren't exactly down to  their last flannelette shirts but  last financial year was a relatively quiet one for the  money-making juggernaut that  is AC/DC Inc.

The Aussie hard rockers, regular fixtures on the Australian BRW magazine's annual list of the Top 50 entertainers, only just limped into the top 10 for 2007-2008, with a paltry $12 million, a whopping $28 million behind the top-placed Wiggles.

On reflection, it's not a bad result, given that the band hadn't released an album or played a show for the best part of a decade. But when this year's figures are released, expect them to be a lot higher.

The veteran quintet is again one of the hottest bands in the world, thanks to its latest release, Black Ice, which was the second-highest selling album in the world last year (behind Coldplay's Viva la Vida) and a tour, coming to Australia and New Zealand next year, which has sold out arenas and stadiums around the world in minutes.

The last time the band released an album, 2001's Stiff Upper Lip, their earnings surged from $4 million to $20 million and the way the world has embraced the latest effort will cement their position as one of the most popular - not to mention richest - bands in history.

The journey of the Young brothers, Angus and Malcolm, who form the heart of the band, from the smoky pubs of Sydney to global superstars with an estimated fortune of $125 million each, is extraordinary.

The band has survived changing line-ups, the death of a beloved frontman, indifferent critics, drugs and  alcohol, accusations of  satanism and countless  musical trends to sell more  than 200 million albums in a  career spanning four  decades.

Fuelled by the relentless riffs of older brother Malcolm, the duck-walking, manic onstage energy of Angus and hits including "Highway to Hell", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "TNT" and "Who Made Who", Acca Dacca now rivals the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Eagles for albums sold.

Their 1980 monster hit, Back in Black, the first featuring current vocalist Brian Johnson, who replaced Bon Scott after his death the same year, is closing in on 45 million copies, second only to Michael Jackson's Thriller.

But behind the bombastic live shows, double-entendre lyrics and the raucous rock, lie shrewd heads for business and a determination to do things their own way in all aspects, from recording and touring to merchandise and ticket prices.

The band brokered a deal for Black Ice which meant that in the US it was available only through Wal- Mart stores, and have defied modern music trends by not making their back catalogue available as singles on iTunes - the biggest music retailer in the US.

Angus explained last year that the decision was artistic as well as financial.

"We don't make singles, we make albums," he said. "Way back in the 70s, we drew these figures on the back of an envelope for our record company.

"We showed them how much they earned from us if we sold a million singles and how much they earned if we sold a million albums.

"The difference was staggering. That was to get them off our back, because we only very grudgingly release singles. Our real reason is that we honestly believe the songs on any of our albums belong together."

The decision has been a winner. According to Billboard magazine, AC/DC has sold 26.4 million albums since 1991, second only to the Beatles, who have also resisted the lure of the online site.

Last year, the band became the first act to have six albums in Australia's Aria Top 50 albums chart simultaneously, when Sony BMG released some of the classic albums to ramp up interest in Black Ice.

Yet, when not on tour, the band members lead relatively normal lives.

Angus, fiercely protective of his private life, has long spoken of his crazy, mooning, stage wildman as a persona he leaves behind as soon as the uniform comes off.

"When I walk away, I try to leave 'him' somewhere else," he said.

"I don't want to go home and live it. I like quiet and I'll hide. I mean I am out there, I'm in the world. I just wander about and I am lucky in that sense. But sometimes if people start staring, I quickly move away."

Angus divides his time between his luxury mansion in Sydney's south and his even bigger, recently completed house in the Dutch town of Aalten, the home town of his wife of 26 years, Ellen.

Malcolm, a father of two, lives mainly in England, but returns often to his $15 million home in the ritzy waterfront Sydney suburb of East Balmain.

Johnson and bass player Cliff Williams live in Florida and drummer Phil Rudd lives in Tauranga.

Critics say Acca Dacca has been making the same, blues-based hard rock album again and again for decades.

"You want them (fans) to hear that and go, 'That's AC/ DC'," Angus said. "But you also want them to hear it and go, 'But it's AC/DC playing something new'.

"That, for us, is always the challenge. You hope that your songwriting, the way that you're doing it, is getting better."

And if the critics don't like it - the band continued a 30-year losing streak at this year's Grammys - then so be it.

"The critics have always been a little flippant with AC/DC about Angus and the school suit and it's always easy to have a quick little joke or a dig at the expense of it, the easy riffs and such and such and they're all dead wrong," Johnson said.

"The easiest riffs in the world are the hardest ones to write, because they are very few. 'Highway to Hell' is easy but you ask a guitarist, it's not that easy."

At a point in their lives when they could all comfortably retire - Angus and Rudd are the youngest at 54 and Johnson the oldest at 61 - why do they continue to do it?

"They are artists and the buzz they get out of being on stage is incredible," says their long-time Australian promoter Garry Van Egmond. "They have such great fun."

Or, as Johnson told British magazine Q last year: "It gets harder but there's something about it when you finish and you look into the crowd and you've driven them into this sweat-soaked state. They're looking at you, going 'Who's gonna give first?' And it's not gonna be me."

* For further information on AC/DC visit: www.acdc.com

* For further information on the AC/DC New Zealand tour visit: www.acdctour.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News