(Credits: Far Out / Harry Potts)
If there was ever a guitarist you pick out in a line-up through sound alone, it’s Angus Young. Those iconic AC/DC lines remain just as fundamental to rock music now as they were when they were initially released. His approach to music is simple but effective, with the intention of putting together music which is hard-hitting and pulls no punches, but not remotely flashy.
This ushers in an interesting debate that has been raging since the dawn of the electric guitar: Are all the bells and whistles available to musicians these days holding them back? When the electric guitar was first invented, the rationale behind it was simple: people playing in large jazz bands could be heard better when soloing. While this sounds simple enough, some people were furious at the development.
It all goes back to romanticism in art and how an artist should be deeply affected by what they create. In other words, if you play a song that is supposed to be sad, then you should also grow sad while playing that piece. The same goes for emotions across the spectrum; the feelings conveyed within the piece should equally impact the person who wrote it.
When the electric guitar was created, there were people who said that this artistic idea was null and void, given that people can take shortcuts to convey that emotion without feeling it themselves. While we have learnt since that the electric guitar merely enhances a person’s ability to play as opposed to limits it, you can understand where some of these concerns stemmed from.
That being said, arguments comparable to these which surrounded the electric guitar still rage on, just taking new forms. Angus Young himself leads one of these arguments, as while he enjoys playing rock music that shoots straight down the middle, he believes that some guitarists who rely heavily on various effects limit themselves as players and set a bad example.
“I just plugged it into the amp and played,” he said. “I never used any of those ‘wangy’ bars of stuff like that. Those things never appealed to me. If I want to get a similar kind of sound, I just de-tune the strings.”
In hindsight, when you listen back to AC/DC’s discography, their guitar sections are surprisingly devoid of any kind of unnecessary effect. Granted, distortion is on full display throughout; however, other effects such as the wah-wah, tremolo and phaser are nowhere to be heard. Not only does Young not use these tools, but he also believes that guitarists who do are setting the art form back, as they rely more on effects than they do on playing.
One guitarist whom he singles out as someone who has set the art form back is Hank Marvin, who used to play a lot with Cliff Richard. “Cliff Richards used to have this guy in his backing band, Hank Marvin,” said Young. “Who used that thing on almost every note.”
Continuing his rant, Young said Marvin was akin to a carbon copy of guitarists past than anything original in the modern day. “He was like a Buddy Holly clone, he used to do these silly little steps,” Young concluded. “Guys like Hank set the music world back 20 years. I couldn’t believe guitarists like Beck looked at him as inspiration. Whenever I saw guys like Hank Marvin, I would always go in the complete reverse of what they were doing.”
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