Following the rumours that broke a few months ago that AC/DC were set to announce their retirement, the band revealed that after forty years of life dedicated to AC/DC, guitarist and founding member Malcolm Young is taking a break from the band due to ill health.
Now, the band have cleared that due to the nature of Malcolm’s illness, he will not be re-joining the band, and sadly his break would become permanent.
The news comes as the band officially announces a new album, Rock Or Bust. The record will be the band’s first studio album in six years and features 11 new tracks.
It also follows the immensely successful Black Ice album, which debuted at #1 in 31 countries upon its release in 2008 and has gone on to sell nearly 8 million copies worldwide.
Rock Or Bust will be the first AC/DC album in the band’s history without founding member Malcolm Young on the recordings.
AC/DC will undertake a world tour in support of ROCK OR BUST in 2015. Steve Young, nephew of founding members Angus and Malcolm Young, plays guitar on Rock Or Bust and will accompany the band on tour.
Rumours of Malcolm Young’s sickness first spread when an anonymous source named ‘Thunderstruck’ told Perth radio 6PR that “Malcolm Young has moved himself and his family back to Australia, he’s very, very ill, and AC/DC may be history.” Those comments were backed by entertainment commentator Peter Ford telling 3AW, “we may never hear them perform or record ever again.”
Darryl Mason, an Australian journalist and close friend of the band, wrote a lengthy blog post detailing Malcolm Young’s ailing condition.
“AC/DC is such a tight family,” said AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson earlier this year. “We’ve stuck to our guns through the Eighties and Nineties when people were saying we should change our clothes and our style. But we didn’t and people got it that we are the real deal.”
Malcolm Young recently beat out his younger, school outfit-wearing sibling Angus in a peer-voted poll of Australia’s 25 Best Guitarists, praised by The Rubens’ Zaac Margin as “one of the most under-rated guitar players of all time, and definitely one of the best rhythm players, up there with Keith Richards.”
