Youngs : The Brothers Who Built Ac/Dc (9781466865204) (10 page)

It's an extraordinary outburst and casts the history of The Easybeats and Australian rock music in a whole new light. It also jars with the reverence in which Ted Albert is generally held in the Australian music industry.

As former Alberts A&R vice-president Chris Gilbey says: “I always thought that Ted was a real gentleman in his business dealings. If anything, far too generous, and willing to take things on trust.”

But Talmy's is not an isolated sentiment among people I spoke to for this book—Alberts is not held in universal high regard—and it prompts a question that begs asking: Had Ted Albert actually set in motion the demise of The Easybeats and unwittingly created the incendiary, us-against-the-world atmosphere that would give rise to
AC/DC
?

*   *   *

How did George Young, a Scottish-Australian multi-instrumentalist who could bridge musical and social barriers enough that one of his songs was picked up by the founder of Motown, not get the recognition and material success he deserved while he was still a young man?

“You could put any kind of instrument in front of George and he had that kind of determination that he could play it within half an hour,” says Mark Opitz.

Mark Evans was equally mesmerized by George's talent. His own bass playing couldn't compare to that of
AC/DC
's producer: “They're night and day. While George can play straight, he's capable of being quite busy on the bass. Which is something you wouldn't necessarily relate to the
AC/DC
style. The single ‘High Voltage'—that's George playing. You listen to that; it's very notey. He's a little bit similar to how Ronnie Lane was with The Small Faces. Very loopy and very notey, but he always picks the great lines. My style is based on how he nurtured me.”

Not only was George versatile and talented. He was crafty.

Anthony O'Grady relates a bizarre story about Bon Scott that involved George: early in
AC/DC
's recording career Scott had laid down a vocal track and gone on tour with the band for a couple of weeks only to return to Alberts to listen to the finished product and find lyrics had been added by George to songs he'd already recorded.

“Bon said [
putting on his best impression
], ‘You know what? They changed some of the lyrics … and it really
worked
!' And I went, ‘Bon, that means they would have had to change the vocal as well.' And he said, ‘Yeah!' I took that to mean Bon was saying George would actually replace Bon's original line.”

How would he do that?

“Punching in's no problem. It's the imitation. Bon was saying George could sing just like him.”

Says Mark Gable: “When I first heard The Easybeats I was astonished at the songwriting standard; George was largely responsible for this material. I knew at an early age that this guy was world class and if this band had been from England they would have been much more successful than they were. The Youngs' complete understanding of pop, blues, soul and rock is beyond compare. I remember sitting down and playing a couple of tunes with George on one occasion while he was playing bass and it was without a doubt one of the most magical moments of my life. All three know how to swing, how to take their time and when to beat the living shit out of things.”

Indeed, George was “every bit as talented as John Lennon,” according to Liverpudlian emigrant Snowy Fleet, but didn't get the same exposure because he was Australian. Like the Youngs, Fleet comes from a big family. Six sisters, four brothers. He met George in the Villawood migrant hostel in Sydney.

“The connection was straight away; it was right there. George is a very deep sort of bloke, a nice guy. He was always a quiet, shy loner but he was a little fireball. I didn't realize how talented he was back then until recently. The guy has written over 300 songs. Malcolm Young used to say to me, ‘George is a frustrated Beatle.'”

Fleet hasn't seen George since 1986, when The Easybeats came together for a reunion tour. But even back in the 1960s George was loath to do any publicity; Fleet and Stevie Wright would go to radio stations to do interviews. Since then, he's more or less shut up shop completely.

“These days George is what I've heard is an ‘angel,'” says Opitz. “The Youngs have made a lot of money and what George likes to do is look at projects that need funding and come out of nowhere and help fund them as a silent partner. I believe he lives in Sydney and London a lot.

“When we were mixing ‘Love Is in the Air,' both Harry and George told me how much they hated mixing. They basically
hated
music. They were just over it. I couldn't believe it. And they said, ‘One day you'll understand.'

“I think it was significant when Alberts held their 100th birthday party—when
AC/DC
were in Sydney—that George didn't go.
AC/DC
didn't go. I didn't go. I wasn't invited. It probably said a lot about what they thought, even if Alberts is still their publishing company. But [the Youngs] weren't ever ones for bullshit. It was arranged as a photo opportunity rather than as a genuine family reunion; as it should have been, because Alberts was always a family company from day one. You always felt that when you were in there. It was us against the world.”

A mentality George took straight into
AC/DC
.

*   *   *

Mark Opitz made a pretty penny off Ahmet Ertegun's executive decision to plant “Good Times” on
The Lost Boys
soundtrack. The first time he got a royalties check for the single from Atlantic, he saw more zeros than he was expecting. He still gets payments to this day. He'd visit the record company's headquarters in New York to be “treated like fucking royalty” and was offered all sorts of projects—some balm for turning down Guns N' Roses'
Appetite for Destruction
, one of his enduring regrets.

But relations were tested between INXS and Jimmy Barnes, who'd come to a deal for a 50:50 split of royalties (Barnes: 50 percent; INXS with its half-dozen members: 50 percent) in Australia, having thought “Good Times” was only ever going to be released there and not anywhere else. But when Ertegun went nuts over it, the split arrangement was farcical. This, remember, was 1987. INXS, who'd gone to #1 with “Need You Tonight,” was huge in America. Barnes didn't even register on the radar.

In Barnes's authorized biography,
Too Much Ain't Enough
, there's a brief and cryptic mention about the behind-the-scenes horse trading that went on over royalties: “Difficult negotiations took place as a song recorded for fun made its way into the international arena.”

“It didn't end well,” laughs Mark Pope, who managed Barnes from 1984 to 1987 and says those were “the most interesting
eight
years of my life, the four years of managing him.”

What is most extraordinary, though, about this resuscitated and re-energized Easybeats classic is that it almost didn't happen, even before Ertegun heard it.

“INXS wanted to do ‘Turn Up Your Radio' by The Masters Apprentices, which wasn't a bad song, and we'd go up on a weekend to Rhinoceros [Studios] and record it,” says Opitz. “Jimmy and I lived in Bowral [in the Southern Highlands outside Sydney]. I remember the night before, Mark Pope came down and he'd got [Australian rock historian] Glenn A. Baker to put together a bunch of songs to listen to, and of course Baker being a sycophant for The Easybeats had of stack of them on there.”

When Pope heard “Good Times” he knew it was a no-brainer: “I thought to myself, ‘Well, that's a fucking killer.' A standout. It evoked the whole feeling of what [Australian Made] was about. Nothing serious. Just a song of fucking celebration, I guess. There was something about ‘Good Times' that was calling it.”

“So by the time we got to the studio,” continues Opitz, “there's INXS, with Jim Keays from The Masters Apprentices, and as the producer I called a meeting with both camps and said, ‘We should do “Good Times.” “Turn Up Your Radio” is a good song but it's a bit too awkward. It doesn't flow as well as “Good Times.” And a good time is what we want to have at this fucking thing.'

“Mark, Jimmy and I felt it was better. We were able to convince Michael Hutchence pretty quickly. And once we had Hutch the rest followed on. Jim Keays sat out there for hours and finally went home. I had the unfortunate task of telling him that we weren't doing it. That we'd give it a shot if we got around to it. But we didn't.”

What Opitz had learned working on
Powerage
with
AC/DC
he brought to bear on “Good Times.”

“I hadn't lost the Vanda & Young ideology. Feel and rhythm are so important to me. I used tons of acoustic guitars, just thrashing it, distorted acoustic guitars—
chunka chunk chunk
—and I still play the ‘Good Times' version without Jimmy's and Michael's vocal in the studio, all the time, just to listen to it. The way Jon Farriss comes out of that drum fill in that first verse, it's
unfuckingbelievable
.”

The best result, though, for Opitz, INXS and Barnes, beyond making a damn fine record and reaping the royalties that would flow from it, was getting a seal of approval from the notoriously po-faced George Young himself.

“At the time I was recording Hoodoo Gurus'
Blow Your Cool
at Alberts, and with great dread and trepidation I took an acetate over in the morning before I started the sessions to play it to George and Harry,” remembers Opitz. “In the past I'd played them David Bowie's cover version or Rod Stewart's cover version or whoever's cover version of Easybeats songs, and they'd go, ‘Nah, that's crap, that's crap, that's crap. No, it's
crap
. That's fucking
shit
.' So I took my cover version to them and both of them were sitting in Fifa Riccobono's office and they said, ‘Oh, g'day, mate.' And I'm very sheepish. So they're treating me as such, lounging back, looking at me. ‘
Yeah
, what do you want?' I said: ‘I've got this cover version of INXS and Jimmy Barnes.' I played it to George and Harry and I sat with them, played it once, and they went, as if they were unimpressed, ‘
Mnnn mnnn
.' And I said, ‘Well, I'll just leave my copy with you.'

“At eight o'clock that night, I was doing a guitar overdub with my engineer, Allan Wright, and in through the door stumbles a very drunken George. I never saw George pissed, at all, ever in my life before that time. He goes past Allan and shoves his hand in my face. ‘I just want to shake your hand. It's the best fucking recording of any of our covers.
Ever!
'”

*   *   *

Nearly 50 years after laying down the song's original vocals for The Easybeats, Stevie Wright remains nonplussed.

“I liked our version,” he wheezes, his body and voice, if not his mind, paying a heavy price for all those years lost to heroin and alcohol addiction. “It's now become a standard rock 'n' roll song. If you can't cut your teeth on that, you shouldn't be playing rock 'n' roll.”

Ahmet Ertegun is dead. Mark Opitz continues to produce music and get checks in the mail but his heyday is behind him. Jimmy Barnes is still performing, though his voice has diminished. INXS, the greatest band to come out of Australia since
AC/DC
, is no more, having called it a day in late 2012 after conspicuously failing to quickly record an album of new songs with a new singer when their charismatic frontman unexpectedly passed away.

George Young, of course, made sure his two younger brothers didn't make that mistake. As always, he was far too clever by half.

 

2

STEVIE WRIGHT

“Evie” (1974)

The Youngs get a bad rap from some people who've come into their orbit. There's no denying it. But if you wanted an example of how kind and selfless they can be, there's no looking past George Young and what he did for two members of The Easybeats who were dealing with personal tragedy.

The first recipient of George's kindness was Harry Vanda. In 1966, just 20, newly married and the father of a baby boy, he'd come home and found that his young wife, Pamela, had overdosed on sleeping pills.

“When The Easybeats went on their very first tour of England, Harry's wife committed suicide the night before,” says Mark Opitz. “And George put his arm around him and said, ‘Don't worry, son, you're with me.' And that's the way it always was. From that day on, George had his arm around Harry's shoulder the whole time. And that's not to say Harry wasn't a valuable part of their partnership. I like to call George the heart and Harry the soul of that situation.”

The second was his old writing partner Stevie Wright, who, concealing a hidden drug addiction and stuck in a career lull after the disbanding of The Easybeats (at one point he sold men's apparel), was gifted probably the best song Vanda & Young ever worked on in their lives, the 11-minute and eight-second, three-part epic “Evie.” It was written (according to legend) about George's own daughter, Yvette, and Chris Gilbey confirms this is true: “George talked at that time about ‘Evie' being inspired by his daughter, yes. But I tend to think that it was more about attaching a name with two syllables to a brilliant song idea.”

In an interview with
The Age
in 2004, Vanda would not be drawn on its meaning: “Over the years, everybody keeps asking what the song is about, and we've never answered it, and we're not going to now.”

It was a song, though, that was never intended to run so long. It started life originally as three separate songs but it became one organically in the studio.

Like “Good Times,” then, “Evie” was effectively a hit by accident. But it was a much more significant one in the context of Vanda & Young's songwriting career, having been offered to their old bandmate under the benevolent watch of Ted Albert. Their selfless gesture went some way to make up for the hurt Wright had felt in being shut out as a songwriter for The Easybeats, when Vanda had emerged as George's go-to creative partner.