Bon: The Last Highway: The Untold Story of Bon Scott and AC/DC’s Back In Black, Updated Edition of the Definitive Biography

By Jesse Fink

An affectionate, honest tribute now updated with new revelations about the rock and roll icon who helped make AC/DC an international sensation

The second edition of Bon: The Last Highway includes a brand new 16-page introduction. Fink examines…

• New information from French media that changes what we know about who was with Bon Scott the night he died
• The London drug-dealing connections of the late Alistair Kinnear
• A possible heroin link involving the late Yes bassist Chris Squire
• Revised theories on how Bon died

With unprecedented access to Bon’s lovers and newly unearthed documents, this updated edition contains a new introduction and more revelations about the singer’s death, dispelling once and for all the idea that Scott succumbed to acute alcohol poisoning on February 19, 1980.

Meticulously researched and packed with fresh information, Bon: The Last Highway is an affectionate, honest tribute to a titan of rock music.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781773059709

Book preview

Praise for Jesse Fink’s Bon: The Last Highway

"After being made aware of the previous poor attempts to tell Bon’s story, I decided to read Bon: The Last Highway. Fink’s book deserves 10 out of 10 for effort in gathering all the information possible. Theory Two [about how Bon died] could not be any closer to the truth. I know, because I was there."

— Joe Fury, Bon Scott’s friend who went with Silver Smith to King’s College Hospital in London when Bon was declared dead on arrival

A fascinating portrait of a troubled man with a serious alcohol addiction . . . the literary equivalent of a road movie.

— Irish Times

Breathtaking . . . biography conducted as a police investigation.

— Toute La Culture (France)

"Bon: The Last Highway by Jesse Fink is one of the most impressive biographies I’ve ever read. It is an absolute masterpiece that features more sources and research than most college textbooks. I was floored by the amount of effort and research that Jesse poured into this project. In the case of Bon Scott, both his tragic death and (potentially) his greatest lyrical work have been totally distorted for the sake of the legends that surround AC/DC. Jesse’s book is one long re-examination of those legends, and he makes mincemeat out of most of the band’s official stories . . . his work here is profoundly impressive."

— Play That Rock’n’Roll (USA)

Fink is a genius author and researcher.

— RockTimes (Germany)

"This superb literary work oozes class and quality . . . Fink leaves no stone unturned and one can only marvel at how much new and fascinating information he has uncovered in his pursuit of the truth. It might seem obsessive at first, but gradually one is sucked into the vortex of madness that was Bon Scott and AC/DC and it is simply impossible to put the book down once you have started absorbing and digesting its content. Bon: The Last Highway is not only powerful and captivating, but also a fascinating portrait of a man who was both larger than life and utterly mesmerising to watch on stage. There was something about Scott that still resonates with fans everywhere and although Fink’s account of what went down and who were involved and so on is not definitive as such, it certainly feels like it is when one reads it. The amount of research undertaken in order to be able to weave this complex narrative together is staggering and downright amazing."

— Eternal Terror (Norway)

Over the years, Bon Scott has become an untouchable rock god; but this book digs deeper. It’s something that hasn’t really been done before . . . it’s a whole new look on the troubled frontman, and a fine biography.

— Vive Le Rock (UK)

Fink’s monumental work is by far the best thing that has ever been produced about AC/DC’s history.

— Combate Rock (Brazil)

One of 2017’s most essential rock reads.

— al.com (USA)

Just like the object of his desire (it is his second book on AC/DC), Fink is prone to perfectionism. He meticulously dedicates himself to the last three years in the life of Ronald Belford Scott . . . Fink’s book is a real gift for the fans of the tragically and much too early deceased singer.

— Classic Rock (Germany)

Fink triumphs where so many other writers have failed.

— InQuire (UK)

"Jesse Fink is not the first writer to suggest there’s something fishy about the official version of [Bon] Scott’s death and its aftermath, but no one else has offered such a plausible or exhaustively researched alternative theory . . . vindicating old-school journalistic rigour, Fink compiled a vast testimony from multiple sources and invites the reader to decide where the truth lies, Rashomon-style. This is no easy task: key witnesses are either dead, like [Alistair] Kinnear, or their memories are clouded by the fog of war, like UFO’s Paul Chapman and Pete Way. But as with his previous book, the absence of co-operation from the AC/DC inner circle has been to Fink’s benefit . . . [he has] effectively undertaken the detective work that wasn’t conducted at the time. It’s a dense, tangled tale but Fink reveals the humanity behind the myth: Bon was a flawed, conflicted character, trapped in a persona, who ultimately chose the path he took and got unlucky."

— MOJO (UK)

Of the 20-plus books written about AC/DC, this one comes closest to the truth about how former singer Bon Scott died and his uncredited legacy as a songwriter . . . not just for fans, this is equal parts cautionary tale and meticulously researched document.

— Courier Mail (Australia)

Fink’s book meticulously explores the man and the many myths about Scott’s life and death, and his hell of a ride in between.

— Herald Sun (Australia)

A literary masterpiece.

— Soundanalyse (Germany)

One of the most important publications on AC/DC . . . Fink has become something of an AC/DC detective and shines light on parts of the AC/DC story which have always been dimly lit. Music fans around the world have been waiting for this book — and it does not disappoint.

— Australian Rock Show

"I read this book in seven hours, with a 20-minute break for dinner, and put it down almost breathless at the non-biased, staggering research. Bon: The Last Highway is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read — on anything! And I read a lot. This book goes up to 11! Extremely well done. A magnificent book."

— The late Paul Chapman, guitarist, UFO

Crossing continents and tracking key figures down, Fink’s work is impressive; his book is exhaustively investigative and engrossing.

— Exclaim! (Canada)

Painstakingly researched.

— Dangerous Minds (USA)

Phenomenal.

— Sirius XM VOLUME Debatable (USA)

Brilliant writing, many revelations. A must-read. Astonishingly good reporting.

— SiriusXM VOLUME Feedback (USA)

A great page-turner . . . a riveting read.

— The Rockpit (Australia)

The most extensively researched book on AC/DC ever . . . it’s outstanding. If you thought you knew Bon Scott, think again. This is as close as anyone is ever gonna get to the complete truth behind the legend, warts and all.

— Canton Repository (USA)

The most in-depth investigation into what happened to Bon Scott on the night of his death you’ll ever read.

— Rich Davenport’s Rock Show (UK)

This one-man investigation, born of respect for the truth and for Scott as a human being, blazes a new trail.

— Joe Bonomo, author of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell (33 1/3 Series)

Fink leaves no stone unturned in this deep biography of Bon Scott.

— Publishers Weekly

Amazing . . . the most in-depth researched book on Scott’s final years ever written. The story of Bon’s last days on earth has never been properly told . . . until now. This book is good enough it has me waiting for the movie.

— Classic Rock Revisited (USA)

Hand-on-heart clarity and the haze of memory merge here to do justice to what is both a celebratory and cautionary tale . . . you will learn much on this road trip. You already know the soundtrack.

— RTE (Republic of Ireland)

Jesse Fink is a very courageous writer . . . a fact-rich, exciting book that reads in places like a crime story. Investigative journalism at its best.

— Metal Glory (Germany)

Simply amazing.

— The Metal Circus (Spain)

A fascinating read. You won’t be able to put it down once you get started.

— Chris Jericho, Talk Is Jericho (USA)

Also by Jesse Fink

SPORT

15 Days in June

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Laid Bare

MUSIC

The Youngs

TRUE CRIME

Pure Narco

Dedication

For Silver Smith, Paul Chapman and Pete Way (RIP)

Epigraphs

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

— Nikola Tesla

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation.

— Ephesians 5:18, New American Standard Bible

Rock and roll is not an occupation. It is a disease.

— Richard Barry Wood, road manager for Tommy Bolin

Well you got a choice, alright. Take it!

— Bon Scott, Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Columbus, Ohio, 10 September 1978

Preface to the Updated Edition

R.I.P. (Rock in Peace)

Writing this preface to the updated ECW Press edition of Bon: The Last Highway is bittersweet. Naturally, I’m very happy to see another release of this book in the United States and Canada but saddened that so many people that were interviewed for the original 2017 book have since died: UFO trio Paul Raymond, Paul Chapman and Pete Way; Lonesome No More singer Koulla Kakoulli; and former AC/DC bass player Paul Matters.

In October 2017, just a week prior to the release of the first edition, AC/DC producer George Young died aged 70. Less than a month later, his younger brother Malcolm, the legendary rhythm guitarist of AC/DC, died aged 64. Two of the greatest Australian musicians of all time, two of the architects of AC/DC, gone. It was a huge blow not just to the Young family, especially youngest brother Angus, but to AC/DC’s millions of fans and the music world in general.

But these deaths have not changed the essence of Bon: The Last Highway or the book I wrote four years earlier, The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC (St. Martin’s Press). While both books contain legitimate criticisms of three Young brothers — George, Malcolm and Angus — these works remain above all else a tribute to AC/DC’s musical legacy. The Youngs created not just one of the greatest rock bands of all time in AC/DC but a colossus of world culture.

In late 2020, AC/DC released their 17th studio album, Power Up, and it instantly went to #1 in dozens of countries around the world. Power Up might not be a classic AC/DC record, but even their lesser songs are still manna from heaven for the band’s devotees. None of this global success, however, could have been achieved without Bon Scott, who were he alive today would have turned 76 in 2022.

This new North American edition has benefited greatly from the input of people who contacted me after the original publication of the book.

Their information, though anecdotal in nature, only gives extra weight to strong indications that Bon succumbed to a heroin overdose and not the coroner’s finding of acute alcohol poisoning. It also raises possible questions about the hitherto unexamined presence of Mick Cocks, the late guitarist of Rose Tattoo, during Bon’s final hours and goes some way to perhaps explain why Malcolm Young allegedly tried to punch Cocks after Bon’s death.

A spoiler alert, too, for anyone who hasn’t read the original edition: you might want to skip this preface and return to it after you finish. The identities of the four people who follow are not important — for privacy and legal reasons they will remain anonymous — but the various pieces of their story are significant when put together.

---

At a book signing in Camden, outside Sydney, New South Wales, in November 2017, I ran into a woman who I had met over ten years before when I was married to my first wife. Both are singers. This woman casually mentioned while I was signing her copy that she had been a friend of Mick Cocks and assured me Cocks had told her he had been with Bon the night he died. I asked if she was absolutely sure and she said yes.

This, of course, was news to me — but it was plausible: Cocks was a good friend of both Bon and Joe Fury (a mysterious Australian roadie/guitar tech and acquaintance/employee of the band UFO, as well as a sometime lover of Bon’s former girlfriend Silver Smith) and had been hanging out with both of them in London before Bon passed away.

Months later, I reached out to the woman again, asking her if there was anything else she could remember about the story. She suddenly changed her tune: All I recall Mick telling me was ‘Bon froze to death. They let him fall asleep in the car.’ I wish I had more, but I don’t.

Hang on. She was now telling me another story. I pushed her on it: Was he with them that night? I remember you saying Mick was with Bon on his last night.

"That was said, but on a different occasion and I don’t recall getting him to elaborate . . . all too hazy to remember."

Make of her volte face what you will. Changed stories are nothing new when investigating the life of Bon Scott.

---

Separate to this, I got an email from a man in Florida who claimed decades before he had been a music student of the late Paul Tonka Chapman of UFO. (He died in 2020.) He informed me Chapman had circa 2000 related a story quite different to the one Chapman told me in the first edition of Bon: The Last Highway. Their conversation took place after the airing of the VH1 Behind the Music episode on AC/DC.

"I had been taking lessons from [Chapman] for a while; I would bring him a bottle of Jack [Daniel’s] every now and then . . . we always talked road stories instead of practicing. What Paul told me is that he, Bon and Paul’s guitar tech [Joe Fury] and someone else had been drinking whisky at Paul’s flat. Paul had just a little bit of smack that he shared but wouldn’t share with his girlfriend [sic; Chapman was married at the time to a woman called Linda Melgers]. She got pissed and went to bed. After it was gone, they wanted more and Bon said he knew a place close by.

Bon and the guy took off, leaving Paul and his guitar tech. They waited a long time and his tech said he was leaving. Paul fell asleep and awoke to a phone call saying Bon was dead. Paul said he sat there in disbelief, staring at Bon’s half-empty whisky glass that he’d intended to finish when he got back. Paul said he called [late UFO bassist] Pete Way and got a number to inform AC/DC. I am under the impression that he called whomever [sic] called him [Fury] and gave them the number.

The pointers would suggest that someone else was heroin user Cocks, who had been socialising with Bon and Joe in the weeks prior. Way had mentioned Bon’s Australian friends.

---

A third person, a writer and former heroin user in 1970s and ’80s London, said he knew Alistair Kinnear from the drug scene and Alistair had been a full-time dealer as well as user, known for always having high-quality gear.

Gear, of course, is heroin.

A good reason for Bon, then, to seek out Alistair if he were going to buy smack for his friends. Alistair worked in tandem with another dealer, who again for legal reasons shall remain unidentified.

He was a bit of a double act with Alistair, probably one of his suppliers, Cockney bloke, bit of a heavy, but liked having a foothold with more middle-class users where Alistair would have been useful. Alistair always claimed he was really a musician who just happened to be able to get things for friends sometimes. No idea if [name redacted] is still around or alive.

But it was what this fellow said about two other people who feature in the saga of Bon’s final 24 hours that was most startling.

I hadn’t realised before that [names redacted] were involved in Bon Scott’s last night. Their presence should be a big alert and clue to what likely went down that night: both [name redacted] and [name redacted] were heavily involved in dealing coke and heroin at the time.

---

Finally, a fourth correspondent offered some tantalising extra leads in the story of Bon’s death but advised me to abandon my investigation.

"I lived in London and worked in the music business from 1979 to ’86. I was also a heroin user and familiar with many of the people you spoke to for your book, including Silver Smith and the [Peter] Perrett clan. Frankly, you could not use [smack] in London in 1979, 1980, and not know those people.

"I say this as an addict myself — the truth will always be hidden by the curse of addiction. It was fascinating to read the fake truths, the half-remembered truths, the honest mistakes and the dishonest mistakes of Silver [Smith], Zena [Kakoulli], [Pete] Way, et cetera. I bear them no malice, but as someone who was around those people in those [East Dulwich] flats you write about, you will never get to the truth of what happened that night. Paul Chapman’s revelation about the unnamed member of AC/DC scoring heroin held a good clue . . . I would add Silver Smith’s and Phil Carson’s other client, Chris Squire of Yes, into the mix. Such a long time ago, such a mess.

"It’s time to leave all this alone. It’s done. In the past. Bon isn’t coming back. No offence, you have done an amazing job. But you will never get to the bottom of the cover-up — about the death, the royalties, the lyrics. Nobody will. There are layers upon layers, and when you add junkies into the mix that’s a whole other layer of complication, lies and unreliability. I know; I was one. I say this without malice: I would not trust Pete Way to sit the right way ’round on a toilet seat.

You got as close as anyone ever will. Oh, and don’t be fooled by [Phil] Carson’s bonhomie. Phil was and I’m sure still is one of the good guys, but he knows where a lot of bodies are buried and he’ll never talk. Sorry for my cryptic ramblings. Your book stirred up a lot of stuff for me — not all of it good. Good luck to you.

Yes bassist Chris Squire, who died in 2015, was certainly a fresh name in the mix. In a 2014 interview with Classic Rock magazine, he referred to Silver Smith’s heroin-using friend Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy sneakily giving him a line containing smack to snort, which he thought was just cocaine. Intriguingly, too, Geoff Barton’s seminal 2005 article about Bon’s death in Classic Rock quotes Chapman referring to an unnamed rock star (whom Barton disguises as a top British prog-rock musician) collecting heroin from Joe Fury (referred to as Joe King, one of his known aliases) without getting out of his automobile.

I remember when [Squire] pulled up in a Rolls-Royce outside. The flat was on the second floor, and Joe [Fury] dangled the smack down — it was attached to a piece of rope, and he had a rock in the bag to weigh it down — and he dangled it through the sunroof of his Roller, and this guy just drove off.

It almost sounds like a scene out of Bruce Robinson’s film of druggie 1969 London, Withnail and I.

---

Silver Smith, Alistair Kinnear, Mick Cocks, Koulla Kakoulli, Paul Chapman and Pete Way are all dead, leaving Zena Kakoulli, Joe Fury and (as I will come to) Peter Perrett as presumably the only known survivors who played a part in Bon’s last day on earth — from the time he left his apartment in Victoria to when AC/DC got the news he was dead.

Though Joe, significantly for a man who is averse to any form of public exposure, did leave a post on my Facebook wall (under another alias) one time regarding his old friend Chapman: I love the guy but his memory ain’t that great. That said, it’s way better than Pete’s.

A couple of days later Joe sent me an email, where he was at pains to point out that he had only good memories of working with UFO but Chapman and Way had got their stories all wrong. He reaffirmed that he was never backstage at the Hammersmith Odeon on 7 February 1980 and he certainly was not with Bon and Chapman on 18 February, the night before Bon’s death.

"One thing I could not expect you to factor into Bon’s story is the implication [sic] age difference had between Bon and those who were part of those final years. At the time you can’t see it, but later when I got to 30 and was still working on the road in the United States . . . you get pulled to places that aren’t consistent with the person you were and need to believe you still are. You drink to remember; you drink to forget.

"UFO, I love those guys . . . I remember the first time I met Paul and Pete. They were already touring, something had happened, and they were in need of crew. They were at the Glasgow Apollo and I got there the afternoon of the show. It was snowing for the load out [of the equipment]. Paul remembers me in Europe; no, I left the tour after the England leg, had a bit of a dispute with the [UFO] management [Wilf Wright], and that’s when Paul hired me to mind his wife [Linda Melgers], who was not well at the time.

[Chapman’s] memory of a long night and a glorious sunrise did happen [on another occasion], but we weren’t waiting for Bon to return; remember, London was full of famous rock stars at the time. Pete still talks about me being at the Hammersmith shows, but his description is of someone he didn’t know, not an ex-member of his road crew. His mental image of his so-called ‘Joe’ was not me, but as Paul’s original story was ‘Bon and I went from the Hammer back to his place’ Pete remembers a Joe at the show . . . I was not at the Hammer shows for reasons mentioned earlier: management and I were not on the same page. I only have fond memories of Paul Chapman, and I know there was no malice intended in [his and Way’s] stories.

I wrote back to Joe, asking him some follow-up questions that might shed further light on what happened, but he never replied.

In June 2020, when I emailed Joe to tell him of Chapman’s passing, this time he got back to me: I did not know [of his death], and more saddened than I expected, despite comments I may have made to you during previous conversations. Paul was one of the few stars I worked with at that time who genuinely cared for others more than himself. He gave his soul to rock ’n’ roll, and joy to those who were lucky enough to be there to hear him play. Hope you’re still finding the passion to bring truth to people. I’m drifting more towards, fuck ’em, pearls before swine, [Bob Dylan’s] ‘Idiot Wind.’ Thanks, Joe.

Months later, when Way died, I emailed Joe to inform him again. He didn’t reply. That’s just the way he likes to roll.

---

So perhaps, incredibly, there is even more to the story of Bon’s death than what is revealed in this book. Other stories I’ve heard — that Alistair drove Bon’s body to his father Angus’s home before he went to the hospital (this came from someone who says he knew a member of the Kinnear family and had heard it directly from that family member); that Bon’s blood-alcohol reading was only .208 (found in an old newspaper clipping) — have only made me more emboldened to keep open this cold-case file.

In 2018, I received a letter from a reader of the French edition (published by Le Castor Astral), Patrick Beaumont, alerting me to two French-language interviews by late journalist Guillaume B. Decherf in Les Inrocks 2, a Paris music magazine, in June 2009. I had not been aware up to that point of their existence. Decherf was killed in the terrorist attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in November 2015.

The first, titled Assez Décédé, was with Zena Kakoulli’s husband Peter Perrett (with added phone contributions from Zena); the second, In Bon We Trust, with Bernie Bonvoisin, lead singer of French band Trust.

The Perrett interview confirmed what I argued all along in the first edition of this book: the spectre of heroin in Bon’s death.

Koulla Kakoulli, who was working as a dominatrix in Brighton, England, when we spoke, had asked me to disguise one of her quotes about heroin in the original edition of the book, namely: Bon had a lot to drink that night. And I would be very surprised if he too [like Alistair] didn’t take a lot of drugs that evening, mainly heroin. I don’t wanna upset anybody this late in the game. End of the day it was a tragic accident. But [speaking] as an ex-junkie, Bon looked stoned.

Now that she is dead (the coroner recorded an open verdict on her cause of death, various drugs being found in her system when her body was discovered in her home dungeon), I no longer have to protect Koulla. Which, of course, begs the question: Who was she trying to avoid upsetting?

---

Perrett told Decherf he had met Bon for the first and only time at The Music Machine; that he and Zena had used heroin that night; that neither of them were called as witnesses by police; that he suspected Bon mixed heroin and alcohol, which later caused Bon to throw up; and that he believed Bon was there at the venue to procure heroin, likely from Alistair. Sensationally, Perrett also stated he went with Zena, Alistair and Bon back to Alistair’s apartment in East Dulwich, where Alistair’s girlfriend Janice Hayes (revealing her surname) was babysitting Zena’s and Perrett’s son Peter Jr. I now believe Janice is the infamous Leslie Loads.

Bon was left in the car, where he had passed out and couldn’t be moved, and Perrett and Zena picked up Peter Jr. and went home nearby. The next morning, they received a call from Alistair that Bon was dead. Perrett uses the description the morning after. Perrett said Alistair then came to their house and they all felt guilty that they hadn’t done more to fully rouse Bon from his drug-induced coma the previous night. It is unclear whether Perrett is referring to the morning of the 19th or the 20th. Could Alistair have driven to the Perretts’ home with a dead Bon in the car or was he talking about a visit after Bon’s body was taken to King’s College Hospital? If it were the 19th it would seem to support Paul Chapman’s story that he found out that morning.

It’s a perplexing account from Perrett. It doesn’t explain why Silver told me that a sick Janice was in hospital, why Zena told me that Perrett was not with her and Alistair in East Dulwich, why Zena told me she stayed the night at Alistair’s and why Zena told Decherf in the same interview that Bon was dead drunk but informed me he didn’t seem unreasonably intoxicated — all key discrepancies.

Perrett also had an opportunity to tell me what he knew about Bon’s death when we made brief contact during the writing of the first edition. He chose not to and only informed me, Zena is ill in hospital at the moment. But it does underline two things: (1) heroin was in abundance at The Music Machine and, more disturbingly, (2) the possibility that as many as four people were available to move Bon inside Alistair’s apartment when he was left on Overhill Road in Alistair’s Renault 5: Alistair, Peter, Zena and Janice.

Bonvoisin, meanwhile, told Decherf he had lunch at Bon’s apartment the previous day (it is not clear whether this is Sunday the 17th or Monday the 18th), which Bonvoisin said still contained packing boxes from Bon recently having moved in. After Bon’s death, when it was discovered everything in Bon’s apartment had been cleared out, the Frenchman went with Silver to AC/DC manager Peter Mensch’s home, where the pair was informed there was nothing left of Bon’s things, including notebooks containing Bon’s English translations of Trust songs. When she was alive, Silver told me a different story: she phoned Mensch to receive the news and made no mention of being in the company of Bonvoisin.

---

For the following three years Beaumont, at his home in Pays de la Loire, kept writing to me periodically in sometimes difficult-to-follow Franglais, his emails peppered with caps and exclamation points. But he proved remarkably useful, sending me PDFs of French-language materials on Bon that were not easy to obtain and not seen in English. You might call them The French Connection in the Bon Scott story.

From what he had gleaned from French-language interviews with Bonvoisin, there were slightly differing accounts from the French singer of Bon’s movements before his untimely death, the most interesting being that Bon wanted Trust to know he could be found from 11 p.m. at The Music Machine on the evening of the 18th with someone called Alistair.

As Beaumont rightly pointed out, all these stories seemingly conflict with Chapman’s story that Bon had gone out that night to score smack and come back to Chapman’s. Why would he invite Trust to meet him at The Music Machine with Alistair Kinnear if he was going back to Chapman’s to snort heroin?

Since no ambulance was called or dispatched to the scene of the tragedy, we will never be certain that Alistair had come from his home in East Dulwich, wrote Beaumont. "In other words, in this matter no competent legal or moral authority can attest or certify that it is true. For all that, if there was to be a police investigation in the neighbourhood, witnesses could very well have been found in order to confirm (or not) the presence of an unconscious person in a car parked outside 67 Overhill Road — how simple.

The suggestion that Bon died alone in a car — we simply just don’t know. In a sense it could be viewed as a very convenient script for every drug addict, restricting the scope for any investigation and there is every indication that we’re confronted with such because, quite naturally, if Bon had died at somebody’s place, a thorough search and an ensuing police investigation could have been carried out properly. It’s a very convenient script for Alistair to say Janice was in hospital. It would explain why Alistair took his own Renault 5 to drive a dead Bon to the hospital, instead of calling an ambulance.

All good discussion topics for an amateur detective, but they don’t change anything. Chapman’s story may still be right. Short of an admission from the person (were he or she still alive) who gave Bon the heroin he took that night, how much remains to uncover? It is clear Bon’s death has haunted other people around the world as much as it has haunted me. At a certain point, though, it becomes obsessive.

Beaumont, however, did turn up some interesting insights into Bon himself while he was on tour in France in late 1979. They came from two print articles, Le Bout de l’Autoroute (Best magazine, April 1980) by Michel Embareck and an undated Décibels rock column/obituary titled Le Chanteur Rock d’AC/DC Décédé by the late Rémy Kolpa Kopoul in the newspaper Libération. The articles suggested Bon was planning on wrapping up his time with AC/DC after making enough money as possible from touring, happy to let the band find a new formula (evidently with a new singer) and, when it was all over go, wait for it . . . fishing.

With so many conflicting details and various players involved, I’m not sure the whole truth of Bon’s death can ever be known, but the conclusion of the first edition of Bon: The Last Highway has not changed: heroin in combination with alcohol killed Bon Scott.

The two theories at the end of the book for how he died I hold to be the most plausible (and I have made some modifications to mine since the book was originally published, taking into account new revelations regarding Perrett) but there are alternative scenarios. Feel free to come up with your own. Beaumont sent me his, which is worth considering.

"After the night out at The Music Machine, an impromptu meeting for a drug deal is arranged by Bon. It all takes place at Bon’s apartment. Bon snorts some heroin. Then tragedy: Bon dies suddenly. The people there will not call for an ambulance; they’re panicking, as they’re heavy dealers and the lead singer of AC/DC is dead on the floor. Bon’s body lays there until they come up with a plan. They decide to take Bon’s body to Alistair’s apartment in East Dulwich and exit the flat, making it look like Bon had just been there, leaving the lights and music on, and putting his door keys on the mat inside the front door. They bundle his dead body into the car and drive to 67 Overhill Road.

"They wait 16 to 18 hours. They choose to wait that long to stand the best chance of the heroin in Bon’s system being undetectable. It is decided between them that Alistair shall deal with the authorities by driving to the hospital. Maybe Silver is not directly involved but she covers for and supports the others. Everybody knows everybody; it’s a ‘family affair’ and the myth of 67 Overhill Road is born. The late Mark Putterford had it right all those years ago in AC/DC: Shock to the System: ‘What is certain is that very few people know the full truth about what happened to Bon that fateful night, and those people are determined to make sure it stays that way.’"

Like many of the others already mentioned, Chris Squire is dead. Wilf Wright never responded to me. When I wrote to Chapman before he died, asking him if he knew where I could find Linda Melgers, he too didn’t reply, which was odd given our relationship up to that point had been very friendly. I do not know what happened to Alistair’s girlfriend, Janice Hayes. I wrote to Zena Kakoulli and Perrett in 2021, asking them to clarify what happened that night, for the record. Perhaps tellingly, they did not reply.

As I have made a point of mentioning several times in press interviews, investigating Bon’s death is like venturing down a rabbit hole with no idea how to ever get out. It has consumed years of my life without attaining definitive answers, but I am confident that what follows in this book is the most complete account ever published of the road Bon took during his final years, as well as the most accurate and honest telling of what really happened on his last day alive.

On a final note, I was greatly pleased to read that a former bandmate of Bon’s in Fraternity, Sam See, had told Classic Rock magazine in 2021 that Bon was ready to quit AC/DC at the end of 1979: He said to me he’d had enough of the whole circus.

It only backs up the two French articles Beaumont sent me and the long story you are about to read.

— Jesse Fink

OPENER

Shot Down in Flames

It was a hot summer’s afternoon, three days before Christmas 2014 in Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia. I’d just left a café with my father, Fred, and a friend of his visiting from Perth, David, whom I’d gifted a copy of my first book about AC/DC, The Youngs. As we walked back to our car, David was flicking through the pages of the book. He’d watched a DVD of AC/DC’s Live At River Plate, the concert film of the band’s sold-out 2009 concerts in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"I’ve never seen a crowd move like that in my life," he said, not realising that we were no more than a couple of hundred metres from the Hampton Court Hotel in Bayswater Road, where in early 1974 AC/DC, only together a few months, had played a short residency to a room of drunks and hookers. Forty years later, there was very little of the original building left, having been turned into residential apartments. AC/DC had come a very long way to be able to fill out football stadiums in South America.

Fred, David and I got in the car and were about to drive off when I noticed a small man approaching. He had brown-grey hair to his shoulders under a Panama hat and was wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans and black sneakers. What was unusual about him was that he was walking arm in arm with a much younger male Pacific Islander, and he seemed to be relatively youthful, not old enough to appear so frail.

I had no doubts at all who was in front of me. I’d finally come face to face with Malcolm Young, the creator of AC/DC. The undisputed hardman of the world’s most popular rock ’n’ roll band, reduced to walking with a carer. A man who for months hadn’t been publicly seen or photographed since an official announcement had been made that he had dementia and wouldn’t be coming back. AC/DC had gone on and released their first album in 40 years without him, Rock Or Bust. They’d embarked on a world tour that was expected to be their last.

I’d spent years of my life researching and writing about the man known to rock fans around the world by just one name: Mal. I couldn’t get anywhere near him through AC/DC’s management or other official and unofficial channels, even though I’d been told by a member of his family that he and his wife, Linda, had read The Youngs, and now here I was, buckled up in a Mazda3 with the world’s greatest living rhythm guitarist just metres away. Biographer meets subject. A one-in-a-million chance encounter. My mind was racing, and by now Fred and David had twigged who was heading towards us. I simply could have chosen to get out of the car and walk straight up to Malcolm and introduce myself, ambush him, but it didn’t feel right. The man was sick. Would he even know who I was or what I was talking about? It was a no-go. So, silently, the three of us just sat in our seats and watched him disappear in the rear-view mirror. It was the closest I ever came to meeting him.

I have been hesitant to write another book featuring AC/DC in which one of the main characters in the story, Malcolm, is now deceased. I’m cognisant of that, just as I’m cognisant of dredging up things from the past when the man himself can no longer respond. But had he been in good health before his death in November 2017, there’s no reason to think Malcolm would have cooperated anyway. The Youngs are one of the most private and secretive families in the music business. They have a long history of not telling their stories to biographers, perhaps with good reason.

This, above all else, is a book for a man I’ve long admired, Bon Scott — not for AC/DC. It’s also for people who bought Back In Black or heard Bon’s apogee Highway To Hell over the closing credits of the Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man 2 and want to know the story of a man whose weaknesses and addictions finally destroyed him. The history of AC/DC, the very existence of the band itself, is anchored in the story of one exceptional but ultimately wasteful man: Bon. Malcolm’s death doesn’t prohibit the writing of that history. As he said himself in Sheffield to a New Musical Express reporter in 1978 (a quote even used in the Bonfire box set released by AC/DC in honour of Bon), I’m sick of reading shit. You will print the truth.

May you rest in peace, Mal. If you want blood, you’ve got it.

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The world’s collective memory of Bon deserves the restoration of some honesty and truth, not more mythologising. Official accounts of AC/DC’s history, such as Australian ABC Television’s Blood + Thunder: The Sound of Alberts (aired on the BBC as The Easybeats to AC/DC: The Story of Aussie Rock) or VH1’s Behind the Music: AC/DC, are designed only to reinforce prevailing myths about him and the band. How can these myths seriously go on being unchallenged when David Krebs, a man whose management company, Leber-Krebs, oversaw AC/DC between 1979 and 1981, the period when they released their most commercially successful albums, doesn’t think Brian Johnson wrote the lyrics for Back In Black?

As he told me from his home in Malibu, California: "I was really amazed because when I read The Youngs I went and looked up the AC/DC discography and, yeah, Back In Black is written by the brothers and Brian Johnson. I don’t believe that."

There was also an element of personal whimsy involved. I wanted to take readers back to a time when AC/DC was the most exciting rock ’n’ roll band on earth, not what it is today: a corporate brand with only one original member — Angus Young — left standing from the lineup Bon himself knew in the 1970s. I wanted to recreate — in words — a small part of what I regard as the greatest era of rock music: the late ’70s, a time that gave rise to the genre we now know as classic rock. Record stores sold vinyl. MTV didn’t exist yet. The internet with its services that would change popular music — YouTube, Pandora, Spotify and iTunes — was decades away. So many of the great bands of the 1970s have either stopped playing music altogether or perform without their original lineups in casinos, wineries or on passenger liners. A special time for music has been lost forever.

To do all this with any effectiveness I had to immerse myself in everything that was available to me. But when it comes to AC/DC, impenetrable to outsiders, a band that strikes fear into the hearts of former members and employees because the Young family remains so rich, intimidating and powerful, information is not easy to come by. A friend of Brian Johnson warned me, "They are all way, way past any possible human tolerance on having their words or actions distorted just to sell a story. Another insider told me that the secrecy around the band is worse than the CIA, worse than the Church of Scientology."

He wasn’t kidding.

Says Grahame Yogi Harrison, a legendary Australian roadie who worked with AC/DC in Sydney in 1977 and knew Bon socially: It’s not a bad thing you didn’t have access to them because you wouldn’t know what they were telling was the truth. They cover their arse all the way into the ground.

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Biographers don’t have access to the band, as I see it, because the truth is uncomfortable for some people. Talking to biographers, people whose job it is to look under the surface of stories to obtain something closely approximating the truth, in effect legitimises whatever they uncover. It’s easy to reject a book’s conclusions when you can say you didn’t cooperate with the author, just as it’s easy to predict AC/DC’s fans will rally around their heroes when a halo or two has been knocked off.

Inescapably, there are also commercial reasons not to talk. The tell-all autobiographies or official biographies of major stars can be sold for millions of dollars to publishing houses in London and New York. Never before have these stories been so in demand, as we have seen with recent multimillion-dollar advances to Phil Collins, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen. Nearly as much money is spent again in marketing. The value of these book projects is diminished, can even be rendered worthless, if these celebrities have already told their story or expounded in detail on a controversial topic elsewhere.

So musicians and their agents are increasingly aware of the value of their words. They are not about to help a stranger — a biographer — when they can profit directly from their reminiscences by releasing a book themselves.

Perhaps as a portent of things to come, AC/DC released its first official photo book in 2017. Collectors with deeper pockets had the option of buying a leather-and-metal version with a light up slipcase. Then in 2021, Brian Johnson released his autobiography, The Lives of Brian. It was the first by an existing band member and likely won’t be the last. While ghostwriters, hagiographers and vanity publishers thrive, traditional biographers are becoming an endangered species in music writing.

But in any event this book was never intended to come from the point of view of the band or Bon’s two brothers and their families. AC/DC has spoken about Bon in the press before. So has Bon’s family. We have those views on the record and they aren’t about to change.

If anything, Bon: The Last Highway benefited from not being beholden to their involvement, oversight and approval. That’s because the real story — not the preferred, sanitised, legacy-friendly story — lies somewhere else, well away from the proprietorship of the band, the Scott family and its lawyers. It’s a story some people don’t want told.

There’s a clear reason why so many mooted AC/DC feature films have never seen the light of day. Unless the band can control the narrative, they will never license their music. Nor will you ever read the truth about AC/DC in a magazine or hear it in a radio or TV interview when the band has an album to promote. Specially vetted print journalists, radio announcers and TV presenters play by the rules of the media game, both spoken and unspoken. Angus mumbles his way through another tour interview, giving away very little of substance, and fans, starved of genuine insights, lap it up.

It is actually quite remarkable that the real story of Bon’s final years has been concealed for so long. My wish all along with Bon: The Last Highway was to write his story without any prejudice or confirmation bias, without pandering to vested interests, and above all else to keep an open mind.

Bon is one of the most adored rock musicians of all time, especially outside Australia where he’s arguably more recognised than any other Australian entertainer, living or dead. In 2004, most notably, he placed #1 on Classic Rock magazine’s 100 Greatest Frontmen of All Time list, ahead of Queen’s Freddie Mercury, The Doors’ Jim Morrison and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant.

But he was not the rock ’n’ roll Danny Kaye he’s made out to be from the tin figurines and commemorative memorabilia peddled on eBay.

Sydney Morning Herald TV critic Doug Anderson once described him as a dangerous individual who gave the impression he didn’t know who he was or where he belonged, and as early as 1984 the same writer alluded to more than alcohol being involved in his demise: Bon Scott succumbed to recreational substances.

Anderson was closer to the mark than even he knows. Bon could be unpredictable and destructive. He used drugs, including cocaine, Quaaludes and heroin. If that upsets AC/DC or its management, the band’s fans or the Bon Scott Estate, it’s unfortunate, but there is compelling evidence for it. It is not treasonous to tell the truth; it is a privilege and responsibility. Writing biography can be unkind to our popular heroes.

Among Bon’s friends and acquaintances in Australia, it has also become a kind of bragging right to say that they knew him best. Yet it is mostly empty rhetoric. Live Wire: Bon Scott, a Memoir by Three of the People Who Knew Him Best, Mary Renshaw’s book about Bon, is one example. Renshaw met Bon in 1968 and remained friends with him until his death. She claims that her book (published in Australia in 2015 and co-written with Bon’s friends John and Gabby D’Arcy) is a way of remembering the real Bon by the people who knew him best and to clear up a lot of the rubbish out there. Mary may have known Bon but in my view it didn’t even come close to either presenting the real Bon or debunking the myths of Bon and AC/DC that simply won’t go away.

Live Wire glossed over the grubby