AC/DC’s first singer Dave Evans is proud to be a part of the band’s history – but wishes his former colleagues would be more up-front about their early years.
He feels he and original drummer Colin Burgess have been unfairly written out of the Australian giants’ official story.
And he regrets his next band, Rabbit, never got the chance to share a stage with them, because he believes they’d have bested his old outfit.
Evans was replaced by Bon Scott in 1974 ahead of the outfit’s climb to fame. The material he recorded with them has never been released outside Australia – and the Welsh-born singer says that annoys him and AC/DC fans.
He tells NRK: “They to pretend the first history of the band never existed. In most of the interviews it’s like Bon was there from the very beginning.
“But the cat’s out of the bag. The early history is important – there would be no AC/DC without me, no AC/DC without Colin Burgess. When they didn’t include us on the Family Jewels DVD many fans saw that as spite and got disappointed in them.
“It’s part of the history and everyone knows. Are you going to keep spite for all this time? But it’s up to them.”
Evans’s departure came after a breakdown in relations with the band’s then manager, Dennis Laughlin. That followed Burgess becoming the first band member to be sacked months previously.
“The manager was ripping us off blind,” Evans insists. “Nothing has been proved, but we were starving while doing the best gigs in the country. We’ve got a hit record and we’re trying to pull money at table to buy a fucking hamburger – and at the same time he’s flying across the country, getting his hair permed, buying new clothes and all that stuff.”
He labels the suggestion his departure came after he missed shows as “bullshit,” stating he was present at shows he couldn’t perform because of voice problems, when Laughlin stood in. “The manager got up with the band, and people walked out,” he recounts. “It was crap. Any normal band would have cancelled. I was there. I was watching.”
But he says there were no hard feelings between him and Scott, with whom he shared an “interesting” conversation “which will remain private.”
Evans went on to front Rabbit and enjoyed five hit singles with them. “Unfortunately I never got to play on the same stage as them
AC/DC,” he reflects. “I wanted to blow them off the stage – and we would have.”
He finishes: “AC/DC will always be my legacy. I can celebrate that I am one of the founding members, and I’m proud of that.”
-Classic Rock Magazine
You must log in to post a comment.