Still Electric

If there was a moment when AC/DC felt like an eight-track tape in a Napster world, it was when the venerable rockers found themselves playing to a roomful of . . . Britneys?

The band that has been making devilish, raunchy rock since the Nixon era found itself invited to MTV’s “Total Request Live” last year just before the release of its 17th album, “Stiff Upper Lip.” The band wasn’t sure what to make of the invite or their place in today’s music scene. It’s one thing to be “old school,” but AC/DC is more, well, “old school dropout.”

To make matters worse, the band says that die-hard but scruffy AC/DC fans who had won access to the show were turned away in favor of more telegenic faces. “They pulled in all these little model-actors and wrote ‘AC/DC’ on their shirts with a marker or whatever,” said Malcolm Young, a founding member of the band. “It was a challenge, playing to 15-year-olds who don’t know us.”

And?

“And they loved it. It’s good to know a bunch of old guys can still get up there and rock these kids off.”

That apparently holds true in record stores and arenas as well. AC/DC, the Aussie band that has rattled arenas and morality groups for a third of a century, is back in the black with “Stiff Upper Lip.” The disc debuted, remarkably, in the Top 10 on the U.S. album chart last year, and despite little radio airplay it has sold 724,000 copies in 13 months. The band is now rumbling through sold-out show after sold-out show on a tour that winds its way back to Southern California on Saturday at the Forum in Inglewood and Monday at the Long Beach Arena.

No one was caught more off-guard by AC/DC’s hard-rock renaissance than the band itself. “We were surprised, to be honest,” Young said during an afternoon interview at a hotel overlooking the Ohio State Capitol. Sitting next to him was his brother Angus, the band’s most identifiable member thanks to his two stage traditions: frenzied guitar playing and an Australian schoolboy uniform.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” Malcolm said. “The new stuff today, it’s pop-rock. It’s like that ‘70s period, you know, when things got really stale in rock and everything was polished.

“When we were writing the new record, we thought, ‘This here is going to cut right through all this [expletive] today or we’re going to sink into oblivion with the old rockers from the ‘50s. You know, five years since the last album and things change. We were ready for clubs. Which would have been OK. To be honest, we’ve done well enough anyway, so we thought, ‘Whatever.’ ”

Chain-smoking and laughing, the soft-spoken Brothers Young often finished each other’s sentences during the interview. Their rock journey has been a long and twisting one, and has yielded such classic arena anthems as “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Hells Bells” and “Highway to Hell.”

Along the way, AC/DC has weathered tragedies (popular lead singer Bon Scott died in 1980 and three fans were crushed to death at a 1991 Salt Lake City show), grueling tours, the wrath of religious groups and the disdain of music critics. Still, as with Led Zeppelin and Metallica, AC/DC’s most popular albums remain must-have items for each new generation of heavy-music fans. “Back in Black,” which came out a few months after Scott’s death in 1980, has sold 19 million copies, making it the sixth-best-selling album of all time, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America.

For the record, AC/DC is not about subtlety in music nor metaphor. Most AC/DC lyrics would fit in nicely on the bathroom wall of a pool hall. And the band’s tunes can be boiled down to three chords, delivered with an oddly danceable metal groove that has inspired strippers everywhere.

“It’s the really simple tracks that get the majority of the audience,” Malcolm said. “Very straight-ahead songs with not much thinking that people go for.”

Angus nodded, adding, “It’s the caveman element that jumps up at you, you get that roar.”

The only thing cruder, louder and more obvious than an AC/DC album is an AC/DC concert. And the fans love it that way, appreciating every well-worn gimmick and familiar solo, like “Phantom of the Opera” zealots attending their 40th matinee. And like “Phantom,” there’s more theatrics then menace in AC/DC these days. There are no mosh pits, and with many of their fans graying, families and young children dot the crowds.

“The little kids like that image of Angus, they always focus on him, he charms them,” Malcolm said. “We’ve seen granddads, sons and grandsons hanging out together after the show waiting for autographs.”

That may sound a little odd considering that this band was once railed against as Satan-worshipping sexual predators, but these days the members have toned down the wild life and let the Eminems and Marilyn Mansons of the world take the flak. Said Angus, “Compared to them, they think we’re the [expletive] Beatles,”

Rough Performance

on a Rough Night

If you can judge a band better by a rough performance than a smooth night, the time to see AC/DC was on a recent chilly evening in Dayton, Ohio.

Singer Brian Johnson’s throat was visibly swollen on one side, and because his singing style is more or less a screeching howl, he sounded like one of his beloved race cars leaving too much tread on asphalt. Johnson repeatedly apologized in gesture to the audience, but they didn’t seem to mind anyway. The sellout crowd at the Nutter Arena was on its feet throughout and cheered lustily for the familiar AC/DC concert touchstones: the huge bell and cannons that bring familiar song images to life, the video screen images of female audience members flashing their breasts, and of course Angus’ slow striptease from his schoolboy togs.

Angus Young on stage is a whirling dervish, channeling Chuck Berry with duckwalks and recalling Mick Jagger with his gaunt frame and big-lipped sexuality. Johnson is the lead singer but Angus Young is the star and gets the majority of the spotlight time. “Angus,” brother Malcolm said, “is the icon of the band.”

If there were any doubt about that, the centerpiece of the tour’s staging is a giant, imitation-bronze statue of Angus, one hand holding a guitar and the other fist raised. During the show the statue sprouts devil horns, breathes smoke and glowers at the audience through shining red eyes. The band members say the statue (also the cover art for “Stiff Upper Lip”) is a monument not just to Angus, but also to the rapport he has with fans. (There is also a winking humor to the idea of Angus towering over a stage--he and his brother are both about 5-foot-3 and have the wiry, lean frames of jockeys.)

The guitarist himself reports that the hulking likeness is sometimes a bit unsettling.

“All I usually see is the big feet behind me, but it is bit strange,” he said. “They say it’s about 40 feet tall. Quite chunky. . . . Sometimes it breaks down before we leave the stage. A piece almost wiped Mal out one night.”

The two brothers laughed and 48-year-old Malcolm suggested that seeing chunks falling from a giant Angus might be symbolic of their advancing age and wear and tear on the genuine article. “You may be right,” 42-year-old Angus chuckled before lighting another cigarette.

The Band First

Performed in 1973

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, but raised in Australia, the brothers first performed as AC/DC in 1973 at the Chequers Club in Sydney. The band’s name, according to lore, was a suggestion of their sister, who saw the letters on a vacuum cleaner. She also later suggested a gimmick for Angus: Why not wear his school uniform on stage?

“We were doing these little clubs and the difference and the excitement was obvious,” Malcolm said. “He took on that role and just went crazy and the audience loved it. After a couple of shows George [Young, their oldest brother, producer of their early albums and ‘Lip’] says, ‘Well I guess the schoolboy suit sticks.’ ”

Angus now travels with a wardrobe of about 20 uniforms, but in contrast to the old days, the current versions are made of velvet and there is a range of blue and black hues for the rocker to pick from. It’s become academic--there are no AC/DC shows without Angus in the short pants. “I’ve tried to get the others to wear it instead. I think the fans would stone me if I just wore jeans. They’d eat me for lunch.”

The band’s early sound was a revved-up rock with a streak of blues and the steady stripe of power chords. Lead singer Bon Scott was a magnetic presence on stage and a wild man off, living the rock life of excess to the hilt. “If there was a town, he painted it,” Angus said. “And if he missed one, he went back.”

Scott’s vocals were featured on the band’s early albums, on such songs as “T.N.T,” “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway to Hell.” Scott died in February 1980 after choking on his own vomit following a drinking binge.

Instead of stumbling after losing the mercurial Scott, the band quickly drafted the similar-sounding Johnson and within four months was recording its most successful album ever, “Back in Black.” While that album’s famous title track and such songs as “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Hells Bells” are fan favorites, Johnson struggled for years to step out of the flamboyant Scott’s shadow.

“When we tour Australia, for example, Bon was their icon and their boy,” Angus said. “So Brian goes out there and fights to prove himself. It’s only the last few tours that we’ve gone in there that they gave him the recognition. He’s won them. But it took a lot of hard work. Sheer persistence.”

Still hurting from the throat condition that vexed him at the Dayton show, Johnson begged out of the Columbus interview to seek cortisone and a doctor’s care. A day later, by phone, he said the wear and tear of the road life only gets harder as the years pass by.

“I look at meself in the mirror every day and I see a 53-year-old man dressed and acting like a young kid. What am I doing? But I’m having great time jumping on the bus with the boys. . . . Who’s going to take the place of this band when it’s gone? Not that we’re any big deal--it’s like we say in the song ‘We Ain’t No Legend’--but we have a good time.”

Johnson said AC/DC’s good times and rawness set them apart from much of today’s music and may explain some of the recent success. “Everything seems so packaged here now, so nice and clean. . . . It’s gone so corporate,” Johnson said. “The excitement’s gone out of music.”

Album Faithful

to Band’s Blueprint

A skeptic would say the excitement is also gone out of AC/DC. In an era when more and more heavy music bands have turntables on stage, the middle-aged guys in AC/DC only have them in their living rooms. Their newest album is so faithful to their blueprint that it could have been passed off as a lost recording from the band’s heyday.

“We haven’t changed really,” Angus said. “For the ones that love you, you’re a toe-tapping rock ‘n’ roll band. For your critics--they say, is that [expletive] still about?”

Yes, AC/DC is still about, and whether you think they make rock ‘n’ roll or noise pollution, they’re becoming elder statesmen from rock’s most blue-collar district. This year they even made it to the final ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

There are other, more oddball acknowledgments these days as well: San Diego Padres star relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman delights fans by using “Hells Bells” to accompany his march to the mound, an all-female tribute band called Hells Belles is playing the club circuit and a banjo-and-fiddle “hillbilly” tribute album to the band’s music will be out soon.

The band members take it all in and shrug. Rumors persist that this is their last tour and penultimate album (they owe Elektra Records one more after “Lip”) but they say they won’t think about that for a while. Right now, it’s too much fun being back in fashion.

“Britney Spears wears a school suit, too,” Angus said, cocking his head and smiling impishly. “She looks cuter in it than me, I’ll give her that. It’s when she starts playing guitar, that’s when I’ll start to worry, I think.”

* AC/DC plays Saturday at the Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, 8 p.m. Sold out. (310) 419-3100. Also Monday at the Long Beach Arena, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, 8 p.m. $35 and $49.50. (562) 436-3661.