What can an experimental rock band learn from AC/DC? “The biggest breakthrough was in terms of amplifiers,” grins Black Midi guitarist/vocalist Geordie Greep. While his post-punk peers wonder how to fit their vast pedalboards into the tour van, the Greep (as he is known to his friends) has rediscovered the joy of plugging straight into the amp. And it all started when Geordie decided to channel Angus Young in Black Midi’s live set – playing the intro to Riff Raff, the frenetic opening track to AC/DC’s legendary 70s live album If You Want Blood You’ve Got It.
“There’s not many better guitar sounds than Angus’s on If You Want Blood,” Geordie says. “I was like, ‘Forget the pedals, let’s just start turning the amp up to 10 and using the volume control on the guitar!’ After that we were like, ‘Wow, this is way better. This is the way to do it!’”
This discovery happened as Black Midi began recording their third album . Geordie was using the rig he’d had since 2021 album: an Orange TH-30 run clean with pedals. That was until his fellow AC/DC fan Max ‘Sizzle’ Goulding, Black Midi’s co-producer, spotted
