New AC/DC Album: Inclusion of Malcolm Young Riffs, Release Date of Single Confirmed

Here’s a whole lotta AC/DC news (sorry, couldn’t resist):

FIRST: AC/DC have announced that they’ll release their new single, “Shot in the Dark,” tomorrow, Tuesday, October 06, at 09:00 pm PDT. That’s midnight for us EDTers. AC/DC may have vastly underestimated the average age of their fanbase, and the ability of people that age to stay up past sundown. That being said, these same fans likely have to get up six times a night to take a piss, so they can probably listen to it then.

SECOND: In a new interview with AC/DCFans.net, Mike Fraser — who has engineered and/or produced and/or mixed and/or mastered every AC/DC album since 1976’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap — confirms three things:

• The new album is called PWR/UP, not Power/Up or Power Up. Which is unfortunate but still it coulda been worse, they coulda called it Reappear in Red or whatever.
• The last riffs ever composed by the late, great Malcolm Young will appear on the record: Fraser says that Malcolm and brother Angus “had written tons of songs before Mal got sick and eventually passed away. So [Angus has] got a whole treasure trove of ideas and riffs and all that.”
• The line-up, as expected, is Angus, Brian John, Cliff Williams, Phil Rudd, and Stevie Young. Which was news to Fraser, who got called in to help make the album on two weeks notice:

“I remember I got the call for this record, but no detail. I had no idea, walking in the first day of the studio, what was gonna happen — who the personnel of the band would be. As far as I knew, Brian had retired, Cliff had retired, and with Phil and some of his problems he’s had in his home country [of New Zealand], who knew if he was even gonna be allowed out of his country. So walking into the studio here in Vancouver the first day, I had no idea what was gonna happen. When I got there, none of the band had arrived yet, but a lot of their techs were there getting things moved into the studio and set up. And one of the guys said, ‘Hey, you know what’s going on?’ And I said, ‘I have no idea. I just know we’re here and we’re setting up.’ And he goes, he says, ‘Well, the whole band’s here: Brian, Cliff, Phil and Stevie, and they’re here and we’re ready to rock another record.’ So, man, it was such a shocking, awesome surprise. It was great.”

So this is mostly good news. I mean PWR/UP. Yuck. But whatever. New AC/DC music Tuesday/Wednesday! HUZZAH!

[via The PRP and Blabbermouth]