Inside AC/DC's Let There Be Rock

In today's preview he discusses "Let There Be Rock": "Recording what was to become Let There Be Rock necessitated the same 'hothouse' conditions as T.N.T. and Dirty Deeds: get in there and get it done, today. As with all the AC/DC recordings with which I was involved, we were working to a tight schedule. Two weeks to write, arrange and record an album. It was a mammoth effort by Bon Scott and Malcolm and Angus Young to put the material together in such a short time. We had a week and a bit to get the backing tracks down, the same time for the vocals, solos and any patching up that was necessary. The studio drill was really an extension of the band live: cut the crap and get on with it. I was bloody lucky. I was getting an amazing inside view on how to put a rock-and-roll record together, and in a f-ckin' hurry, too."

"The high point of the recording was the title track, 'Let There Be Rock.' That's an epic, with drummer Phil Rudd going flat to the boards for the entire six-plus minutes. Watching him cut that one in the studio was amazing. He was set up in the back left-hand corner of the piano room, opposite the wall with all the graffiti, and he just went for it. We did a couple of takes in a row, with just a quick breather between the two, a minute at the most, and away we went again. It's my recollection that we used the second of those two takes. The pressure was really on to deliver a great AC/DC album. And Let There Be Rock was the sound of us stepping up. A hell of a lot had happened to AC/DC since recording Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. All that touring had changed us. Our new back line of Marshall gear gave the band more muscle; we sounded more aggressive, meaner-and definitely louder. There was more of an edge to the sound; it was a bigger, badder AC/DC. It's still one of my favorite AC/DC albums, just behind Powerage and my all-time favorite, Highway to Hell."