(Credits: Dena Flows)
Mon 23 February 2026 5:30, UK
A solid decade into their career, AC/DC were still widely viewed by legions of uptight, angry parents as a genuine threat to the spongy minds of their suburban children.
In 1985, for example, after the serial killer Richard Ramirez proclaimed himself a big fan of the band, there were renewed protests during AC/DC’s American tour, calling for the banning of their “devil music”, as evidenced by songs like ‘Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be’.
“That song is a joke,” guitarist Angus Young fired back at the time, barely able to contain his frustration, “We’re kidding around. We’re saying if you’ve got your choice between heaven and hell, you might pick hell. In heaven you have harp music and in hell there’s a good rocking band and rocking songs… What happened to people’s sense of humour?”
Flash forward to the 21st century, after those angry parents had become angry grandparents, and acts like Marilyn Manson had raised the bar for outrage, suddenly, nobody had any beefs with AC/DC anymore. Instead, some of the band’s most rebellious, fist-pumping anthems, like ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘TNT’, and ‘Back in Black’, were deemed inoffensive enough to utilise for TV commercials by some of the world’s most ubiquitous mega-brands, such as Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Budweiser, and Coca-Cola.
Don’t feel too bad for the boys in the band, though, for while they might not be dangerous hellraisers anymore, they cashed in on those adverts quite well, both in the form of the original licensing deals and the increased attention it generated for AC/DC among younger listeners. Perhaps even more importantly, this was a group that weirdly owed a pretty big debt to the advertising world already, dating all the way back to 1976.
As rhythm guitarist Malcom Young recounted in a 1992 interview with Metal CD magazine, AC/DC had very little prepared material in the chamber when they headed back to the studio to record their third album, hot on the heels of the highly successful High Voltage. “We didn’t have much time,” Malcom said, “After High Voltage, we seemed to be touring constantly. Then we signed the record deal to go over to England, and just as we’d completed the tour, they told us we had to do another album. All we did was go straight into the studio after doing the night’s gig and knock up some new ideas.”
Young credited his brother Angus for coming up with the new album’s title: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. “It was based on a cartoon character that had the phrase as his calling card,” Malcolm explained, referring to ‘Dishonest John’ in the 1960s animated series Beany and Cecil. Not content to merely borrow their lyrics from old children’s cartoons, though, frontman Bon Scott upped the ante as they fleshed out the title track.
“Bon stuck in the line ‘I’m dirty, mean, mighty unclean’,” Malcolm said, explaining that the phrase actually came “from an advert for mosquito spray that was running on Aussie TV at the time”, adding jokingly, “Yes, we were always a very topical band. We looked at what was happening in the world.”
Rather than selling out in the 2000s, then, AC/DC were actually coming full circle, helping out the advertising agencies in the same way that some Australian agency’s memorable bug spray advert had once helped them out of a jam, giving them the inspiration for one of their biggest hits. If any older Aussie readers remember the brand of the mosquito killer in question, by the way, do let us know.