Beyond Bon
Bon Scott — rock’n’roll singer par excellence, charismatic frontman, the free-spirited larrikin hellraiser whose easy charm earned him the epithet ‘Bon The Likeable’. AC/DC’s 1979 album ‘Highway To Hell’ was the band’s first million-seller, and in the early days of January 1980, when work began on new songs in London, Bon was buzzing; he knew they were on to something big. These new songs were demoed by Angus and Malcolm with Bon playing drums, as he had done in his first groups back in Australia, and he was convinced that they had the makings of an album that would be even bigger than ‘Highway To Hell’. In a phone call to his mother Isa in Australia, he had told her, “This one is going to be it!”
It was only a few days after that call — on February 19, 1980 — that Bon was found dead in East Dulwich, London. He had been out drinking with friends the previous night. Rumours suggested that he might also have taken heroin. In the official inquest, the coroner’s report cited ‘death by misadventure’. Bon was just 33.
It was at Bon’s funeral, in his home town of Fremantle in Western Australia, that his father Chick urged Malcolm and Angus to carry on
