Out now is "Shot In The Dark" — AC/DC's lead single from the band's first new album in six years, titled Power Up, set for release on November 13th. As expected, the band's late co-founding guitarist Malcolm Young features prominently on the new set, with brother Angus Young, mining the brothers' vault of unfinished and unrecorded song ideas.
Angus spoke to Ultimate Classic Rock and shed light on the new album's songwriting process: "As soon as it starts up, straight away, it’s AC/DC. And that’s what we’ve always been about. It was pretty much written a while back. All of the tracks that we’ve got on the album were written by me and Malcolm. A lot of them were ideas we had that we knew were good AC/DC ideas at the time. But we just never got around to getting them on record. . . (Our nephew) Stevie (Young) is playing Mal’s parts, but the songs, all of the songs on there are songs that Malcolm and myself had."
Frontman Brian Johnson added that he was clueless as to what song should be the first track released to radio: "When I first heard the album, I shot an email off to Ang and I said, ‘I tell you what, man. I’m pleased that I’m not the guy who has got to pick a single from this, because I couldn’t pick one. I suppose you’ve got to get a clear head and not be emotionally involved with all of this stuff and these (record label) guys are good at it."
Once again producer Brendan O'Brien is behind the boards after doing the honors on the band's last two studio sets — 2014's Rock Or Bust and 2008's Black Ice.
Bassist Cliff Williams and Angus Young told us not too long ago why they like working with O'Brien: [(Williams): "We get on very well. He's a great musician himself, and he likes the band and he's great to work with inasmuch as he keeps it rolling, he keeps everyone occupied and involved. . . (Young) He gets his hands dirty. (Williams) Right, he gets right into it."] SOUNDCUE (:15 OC: . . . right into it)
