MALCOLM TOLD ME THAT EVERYBODY HAD GOT USED TO THE FACT THAT BON WOULD ALWAYS TURN UP. AND HE SAID TO ME, ‘NOW I’VE GOT TO GET USED TO THE FACT THAT HE ISN’T GOING TO TURN UP.

March 27, 2026 – Issue 55 of Rock Candy Magazine has an in-depth look at AC/DC’s breakthrough album, 1979’s ‘Highway To Hell’, including an exclusive interview with Tony Platt, the mix engineer on this album and the goliath ‘Back In Black’ released in 1980. A witness to rock and roll history, Tony was there when a great band started the climb to legend status… including vocalist Bon Scott who was creating his legacy work with ‘Highway To Hell’ because he was to die in tragic circumstances in early 1980, the band going on with vocalist Brian Johnson to scale the dizzying heights of mega stardom. Talking about the loss of Bon, Tony told Rock Candy Magazine editor Howard Johnson:

“It’s always difficult to know how something like that is going to hit you, but there’s one phrase that for me summed up what Bon’s death meant. I had a conversation with Malcolm [Young] not long after Bon has passed, reminiscing about all the silly things he used to get up to. There were loads of stories of how Bon would often disappear at the end of a gig and go off on his own to get into a bit of trouble. He’d just disappear and then reappear at the next gig 200 miles away or whatever. Nobody ever knew how he’d got there, or what he’d been up to. And Malcolm told me that everybody had got used to the fact that Bon would always turn up. And he said to me, ‘Now I’ve got to get used to the fact that he isn’t going to turn up.'”

Tony Platt worked with producer Mutt Lange on ‘Highway To Hell’ and ‘Back In Black’ and explained that he had guidance from Mutt as to how the mix should sound.

“The overdubs that the guys had to do right at the start of the mixing process helped me quite a lot because we were all sitting around and chatting and listening to stuff as it was being done. I got a feel for what they were after. Mutt insisted that he wanted it to sound like everybody was in the same room. For me Mutt’s major talent is having a clear vision for a project. The work that he’d put in on the songs in terms of arrangement was all about cohesion – and getting a big, fat low end. The bass is pretty much one note all the way through on ‘Highway To Hell’, so you really needed to have that round bass [sound] that just stuck there… I’d worked on a lot of rock stuff at Basing Street [studio], but I worked on a lot of reggae stuff as well, so I already knew the best way of evening out bass guitars so that they sounded really present the whole time.”

Platt also said that the two AC/DC albums he worked on have divided many fans.

“There are definitely two factions amongst the world’s AC/DC fans,” laughed Platt. “there’s the ‘Highway To Hell’ cohort and the ‘Back In Black’ faction. I’ve been in the middle of the debate about which is the better of those two records, and let me tell you it can get pretty heated.”

Also in the detail-rich issue 55 of Rock Candy is a moving but uplifting interview with the laser-focused Zakk Wylde about life after the loss of his friend and mentor Ozzy Osbourne, Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin on what the rocket ride success of their 1991 ‘Lean Into It’ album was like, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell talks about his much loved Riverdogs side project, and long-serving April Wine guitarist Brian Greenway talks about how this fine wine is developing with age and still going strong. All this and much more, including Steve Perry and Ross Valory looking like 70s rock gods in the Frozen In Time feature, a revisit to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1975 ‘Nuthin’ Fancy’ album, and interviews with Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, Faith No More keyboard player Roddy Bottum, and Vicious Rumors guitarist Geoff Thorpe.