(Credits: Far Out / Harry (Howard) Potts)
Tue 24 March 2026 6:00, UK
Almost every band starts with a cover. Some artists like to claim they have no major influences, but I’d bet that on the first day they met in a rehearsal room or someone’s garage, the first thing they played together was someone else’s song. There always has to be that first spark, and AC/DC remember theirs well.
Empires aren’t built in a day. Even if a group will go on to write incredible, timeless hits, that takes time, and so at first, they’re inevitably going to have to rely on others.
Just look at The Beatles as a key example. It took a good while before John Lennon and Paul McCartney began writing their own hits, so at the start, during their first gigs, their set list was majority filled with songs from the likes of Chuck Berry or other early blues and rock heroes.
For AC/DC, when they first formed in 1973, it was another British act that they turned to. Even before the band’s official formation, brothers Angus and Marcus Young were developing their musical chops and slowly getting the courage to go all in and start their band properly, and a major part of the encouragement and motivation was coming from the stereo. Then, later down the line, when Brian Johnson was brought in as their new singer, a mutual early inspiration united them.
“The Rolling Stones’ first album was our bible,” Johnson recalled. That was the case for his earlier bands in Newcastle, as he remembered, “We learned everything.”
For young boys just getting into music, that 1964 debut felt like a crash course as The Stones themselves were still in their covers phase, bringing together legends of rock and roll past from the songs they chose to sing, present from Jagger’s voice crooning on them, and future, as AC/DC were turning in.
“We tried to copy everything. I even saved up to get a set of maracas, ’cause that’s what Jagger used,” Johnson said as the band became not just his blueprint, but a broad blueprint for young kids everywhere, first discovering their desire to make music.
In that one album, The Stones seemed to draw out a gateway, and Johnson was amongst those wanting to go through it, stating to Rolling Stone, “They were our gods.”
But the feeling was mutual between members. Over in Australia, the Young brothers were major fans too. The band inspired their classic riffs in their younger days, making it a total dream come true when the two bands shared a tour.
But the proof of Marcus Young’s deep love for The Stones comes at the end of his life, when he was lying in bed, getting worse and worse. In an attempt to raise his brother’s spirits, Angus hit play on the music he’d always loved.
“One of the last records I ever played him was The Rolling Stones when they were doing a lot of blues tracks [2016’s Blue and Lonesome],” Angus remembered as a foolproof way to cheer his brother up, concluding, “He just thought it was great.”
