Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen chatted about jamming with AC/DC, the late singer Bon Scott and more in the latest issue of Classic Rock. During the chat, Nielsen revealed something about Angus and Malcolm Young.
Nielsen said that though AC/DC was a bar band back when they were playing with Cheap Trick, they were not trying to be something they weren’t and that everything about the band was perfect.
Although he believed the band was flawless, there was one imperfection that Nielsen, too, shared. He revealed:
“Angus and Malcolm weren’t trying to be flash. They weren’t doing the shenanigans a lot of other guitarists were doing at the time. I’m not pretty when it comes to playing guitar, and neither are those guys. And Phil Rudd is the perfect drummer.”
Nielsen shared that no one else but him jammed with AC/DC and shared his memories with Bon Scott:
“Bon was a pirate. He had the snarl, he had the attitude, he had the tough-guy appearance, but he had a wink in his eye too. He reminded me of Alex Harvey, who had the same thing going on. I guess it must have been a Scottish thing. They were the kind of guys you’d see drinking and fighting on the docks on a Friday night.”
The day that Scott passed away, the guitarist not only lost his friend, but he also lost his house in a fire. Having dealt with two heartbreaking incidents on the same day, the rocker reflected on his thoughts on that day:
“I was the first person to ever take Bon out for Mexican food. He’d never tried it before. I remember he had tacos and Scotch. The same day that Bon died, there was a fire at the house I’d bought that Angus and Malcolm came to. The house burnt down, but I cared more about Bon than the building.”
Earlier, the guitarist opened up about the same day he took Scott to dinner for Mexican food and revealed that AC/DC visited his house that day. That day bonded the band and him and formed a decades-long friendship.
Cheap Trick is now on tour, scheduled to end on October 22 in Nevada. See the dates here.
