WHAT’S THE STORY?
IF he had been spared, today would have been the 75th birthday of the legendary Bon Scott, lead singer and frontman of one of the world’s greatest rock bands, AC/DC.
Born on July 9, 1986, at the Fyfe Jamieson maternity hospital – it closed in 1993 – in Forfar in Angus and raised in Kirriemuir, Ronald Belford Scott emigrated to Australia with his parents Charles and Isabelle, née Mitchell and younger brother Derek at the age of six. The family settled in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine before moving four years later to Fremantle, Western Australia.
It was while he was in Sunshine Primary School that he acquired the nickname Bon because there was already a Ronald in the class and his classmates called him Bon after Bonnie Scotland. It stuck and Bon Scott he remained.
HE WASN’T REALLY SCOTTISH, WAS HE?
HE most certainly was a Scot and proud of it. One of the first things he did when moving to Fremantle was join the local Caledonian Scots pipe band, along with his dad, known as Chick, where Bon learned to play the drums. He would later learn to play the bagpipes and sometimes featured them on recordings and in videos.
Early in his career he was being interviewed by a radio DJ who for some reason told his listeners Scott was from Liverpool. Scott interrupted him to say “Kirriemuir, I’m from Kirriemuir” and then had to explain where Kirriemuir was.
Scott had a patriotic tattoo, a Lion Rampant with Scotland Forever etched on his arm. He did lose nearly all trace of a Scottish accent, and always credited Australia for the opportunities it gave him and his family, but always spoke proudly of his Scottish ancestry and birth.
TELL US ABOUT HIS CAREER
AFTER dropping out of education at 15 and working in various jobs, Scott had a brush with the law which saw him spend months in a young offenders institution, a spell that also cost him the chance of joining the Australian Army. While working as a postman and barman in Fremantle, in 1964 he began his own band, The Spektors, which later merged with The Winstons to form the Valentines which had some minor success before splitting in 1970.
Moving to Adelaide, Scott joined the rock band Fraternity who also had some successes such as touring the UK as support to Status Quo. But the band stopped operating in 1973 and Scott had to find work in a fertiliser manufacturing plant by day and write music at night.
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Fortunately for Scott, in 1974, two other Sydney-based Scottish-born musicians were looking for a singer to front their band AC/DC who specialised in a harder form of rock music – they have been classed as heavy metal and blues rockers but the band always just say they play “rock n’ roll”. Malcolm and Angus Young were originally from Glasgow and the three Scots bonded quickly, forming a songwriting team.
Angus Young later recalled that Scott “moulded the character of AC/DC. Everything became more down to earth and straight ahead. That’s when we became a band”.
The AC/DC “sound” had materialised and the timing could not have been better. They quickly became successful all over Australia and toured internationally with some pundits even crediting them with being the founding influence for punk and new wave.
Their first two albums High Voltage and TNT were critically well received, and they began to gather international attention.
They toured the UK and Europe and during the tour to promote their album Powerage, they famously recorded a live track at the Glasgow Apollo in 1978.
They has just made it big in the US it their sixth album Highway to Hell when tragedy struck.
HOW DID HE DIE?
MARRIED and divorced, Scott’s use of drugs and alcohol developed over several years until on the night of February 18, 1980, the singer visited a London club and was left to sleep off his intoxication in the car of his friend Alistair Kinnear.
The next morning Bon Scott was found dead in the car, the coroner recording a verdict of “acute alcohol poisoning” and “death by misadventure”.
The debate still rages as to exactly how he died.
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While the Young brothers wanted to disband, they were persuaded to hire Brian Johnson as his replacement. Five months later they released the momentous album Back in Black in tribute to Scott, and they duly went on to become one of the biggest bands in the world.
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