By Brett Ratner

A slight chill shivers its way up your spine as you hear that first hearty "Aye thar" from the legendary Aussie rocker on the other end of a phone.

Despite a disarming and friendly demeanor, one can't help but be slightly in awe of a person who has only a handful of peers in personifying that which is rock and roll. At the same time, you wish you were at a pub somewhere tippin' a Fosters with the man (although we here at Gibson.Net don't condone drinking on the information superhighway, or any road for that matter).

As the conversation progresses, it becomes apparent that Angus Young the man lacks any pretense just like the music he makes. As he speaks, his delivery is simple, straightforward and from the heart.

While guitarists seem notorious for constant tweaking, always hoping to find that elusive "voodoo tone," Young knew early on what his voice was to be, and how his music should sound.

"Since we started, it's just something that we've always played," Young said, noting a strong influence from blues and early rock and roll.

"When I grew up and even when I was playing, the music I was into then was the early rock and roll thing," Young said. "You know, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and also a lot of blues music. It was never music that was popular with the mass audiences. That's what I was listening to then and I'm still the same now. I'm very much a big fan of Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters. That's the music that I always tune in on."

Young says that his musical direction came out of necessity.

"In the beginning, when Malcolm and me even first would in the studios, and somebody would say for the first time "play a guitar solo," that's what you would steer towards," Young said. "You would say "what if I tried a bit of this style of playing," not copy it, but this style. "How would this work?" This is more or less what you had practiced on, and you tried it. That was basically it, that was the one thing we learned by listening to a lot of these people playing. They didn't work out things note by note. They played as how they felt the tune should go."

Young needed little time to settle on his signature Gibson SG through Marshall stack tone as well.

"I think it was the first time I plugged an SG into a Marshall," Young said matter-of-factly. "I was about 16 years old."

While Angus and brother Malcolm's approach seems simple, they have very strong ideas on how guitars should sound in the context of a rock band. Surprisingly, it's a quite opposite approach to that of the now typical hard rock/metal sound.

"If you've got a lot of dirt, rather a distorted sound, it's harder to clean that up," Young said. "So we try to start with the cleaner sound first. It's just a case where you creep in a bit of distortion until it's comfortable. Especially on my brother's sound, to get it to cut very clean. He tries to thin out all of that "fizz" as we call it. For rhythm, you actually get a bigger sound than say, if it was a distorted sound and it just turns to mush. Contrary to myth, Marshalls don't work on eleven. They never had eleven. They get past halfway and they start to break up."

In studios, I've gone between 100 watts and 50 watts, it depends a lot on the room. I like a lot of these old 50 watt tops. That's like a solo thing. For like rhythm tracks, and I would try for a cleaner thing, maybe the 100 watt or maybe if I had a couple of different 50 watt heads, find the cleanest one and use that if it was a full sound. On stage I'll use 100 watt Marshalls.

In the case of Young's trademark stage persona, you guessed it, that came naturally too.

"Well for us, we get on stage and music is why we're doing it," Young said. "That's what we concentrate on first. Especially for myself, I follow the guitar. If the guitar says left, I go left. I'm a little guy(Angus notes that he's 5'2" tall). If you're a big guy and you've got big fingers, your fingers bend the strings. With me. 'cause I'm little, my whole body's got to bend the string."

Decades later, the dual Young attack is alive and well on Ballbreaker, arguably the most authentic-sounding AC/DC album in recent years.

"In the case of this album "Ballbreaker," we wanted a tough album," Young said. "We tried to stray away from the modern day sound. And capture something a bit more of the live sound in the studio, worry more about the room acoustics than technical gadgetry."

Young says producer Rick Rubin was instrumental in achieving a raw sound.

"When you're working with someone who allows you to get your sounds and doesn't say "well, listen guys I hear your guitars full of Wah (pronounced "Wow" in Angus speak) pedals for phrasing and things."

Angus laughs when asked about the possibility of him ever plugging into an effect of any type.

"I've never bothered with effects," Angus said. "I always think that there was too many things going on with them like batteries."

While he doesn't own too many stomp boxes, Young certainly has no reservations about picking up extra Gibson SGs in his spare time.

"It must be well into the 50s now," Young said, noting that he favors models from the late 60s. "Plus I found a whole stack I had at home that I put away over the years."

Young cringed at this journalist's request to sum up the message behind AC/DC's latest effort. As if his guitar didn't do the talking. But being the gentleman, Angus gave us his best impression of a car salesman.

"We're not a band of messages. I would say you'll like this if you're into toe-tapping rock and roll, hopefully with songs that will stick around for a long time," Young said, before returning to his true form. "It's either that or you can say, buy it or I'll clobber you!"