“In America you had guys in bed sheets and placards with prayers on picketing the gigs. I said: ‘Who are they here for?’ And they said: ‘You!’”: The unholy AC/DC classic that riled the religious right – and marked the tragic end of an era

AC/DC posing for a photograph in 1979.

For Malcolm Young, AC/DC’s rhythm guitarist, it was always about the riff. And with one in particular, as soon as he came up with it in the early days of 1979, he knew in his bones it was something special. As he put it, with the kind of bluntness and vulgarity that had always defined the band’s work: “There were hundreds of riffs going down every day. But this one, we thought, that’s good. It just stuck out like a dog’s balls.”

This staccato riff was perfect in its simplicity, reminiscent of Free’s All Right Now. And from it came arguably the most important song of AC/DC’s whole career. Highway To Hell was the title track of their first million-selling album. In the UK it was the band’s first Top 10 hit outside of their native Australia. Most significantly, as guitarist Angus Young said: “That was the album that broke us in America.”