This Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of the death of the Australian vocalist, one of the most iconic in the history of 'hard rock'.
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Bon Scott got hooked on the drink for two reasons. The first is the simplest and, therefore, the most prosaic: simply, he loved to steep his elbow, had a good time with a bottle next to him, whether alone or surrounded by people. He might even feel that the whiskey helped him to make his voice sound more and more torn and virile, characteristics associated with the power that benefited the escalation of popularity of his band, AC / DC , towards the summit of the hard rock of the end of the 70s. "All that is what keeps us fit: alcohol, dirty aunts, sweat on stage, disgusting food , " Scott said when asked about his vicious lifestyle, typical of a star of the rock of yesteryear.
But there was a second reason, perhaps more powerful and that made him always be on the edge of the wire, and that is that alcohol helped him calm down, to escape at a particularly turbulent moment in his life. In 1979, AC / DC was on its way to being one of the most popular bands in the world, they had left Australia behind to make long tours of Britain and the United States in which the rhythm was frantic at all levels -deciplines, chained dates, sex, travel-, and to sleep and to find a moment of rest, Scott preferred the bottle .
In other circumstances, he may have chosen heroin , but he had tried it shortly before joining AC / DC, in 1975, and had an overdose at the first . He had encouraged him to prick a lover he had in those times, one Judy, a beautiful young woman and addicted to opiates, and Scott did not stay 'doll' of pure miracle. Since then, he stayed away from the 'horse' and moderately apart from other social drugs - " he used to make some hairline, like everyone else, and he had his weed , but it was never the case that he would get paranoia if he didn't have his dose, "explained Perry Cooper, one of the Atlantic label record executives who worked on the release of AC / DC-, as he reinforced his love and dependence on whiskey.
However, alcohol is not a safe drug - for many people, it is the toughest of all - and it was what ended Bon Scott's life when the way was ready for AC / DC to jump to the next level after record 'Highway to Hell'. The album had just come out, all the great songs were already made, the tours were like a cannon and his presentation as an animal vocalist and possessed by the demon of rock'n'roll fit perfectly with the knowledge of the blues of the Young brothers , Malcolm and Angus. Bon Scott was going to be a rock giant.
But he arrived on February 19, 1980 and what he did not get the first heroin overdose or his unruly youth - which took him to jail when he was not yet of age; It was there that he set up his first band - he did the most legendary cogorza, possibly, in the entire history of rock. That night, Bon Scott was in London and went to an acquaintance of his, an Alistair Kinnear - whom 10 years ago was known to work in the bar area of Malaga. Scott was drunk as a Cuba and eager to continue. Kinnear, instead of bringing him home, preferred to take him inside a car to sleep the monkey, covered with a blanket.
Bon was very charged and the body responded with vomiting and bleeding, with the bad luck that he choked on his own return. They found him in the morning, in an image as painful as the bodies of Elvis in the toilet and Jim Morrison in the bathtub . The death certificate indicated as cause of death "acute alcohol poisoning", and in accidental circumstances.
1980 was a year of high concentration of deaths of big names of rock. Bon Scott was the first, in May Ian Curtis committed suicide - the leader of Joy Division - and in December John Lennon was killed. Lennon had his career done, Curtis was starting it, but Scott was the one who stayed at the gates of truly fulfilling his dream in a superlative degree. In 1980 he was 33 years old and had been playing in rock bands since he was 17. He had begun to enjoy the life he wanted - tours, party nights, alcohol and sex, facilitated by the omnipresence of the groupies and, apparently, by the enormous size of its member - but it was the alcohol that took the highest toll at an early age.
Brian Johnson replaced him and with it AC / DC shot up into the stratosphere. But there was something Johnson could never achieve: being more charismatic than Bon Scott, or getting into the hearts of the first fans, or improving the repertoire of hymns he had inherited, he couldn't even sing differently. In his own way, Scott had become a myth, a cursed one, whose influence emanated even from the hell he was so hard to reach.
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