An inspiration: The musician Dave Grohl called his “guitar hero”

Any rock and roll fan usually has always dreamed of being in front of a huge crowd with a guitar strapped across their back. As much as it might be fun being the singer or laying down a groove behind the drumkit, there’s something magical about being able to rip out an amazing guitar solo and have the entire audience applaud as you annihilate the fretboard. Dave Grohl was always of a different mindset when it comes to guitars, and for his own Guitar Hall of Fame, he has a lot more respect for the rhythmic side of players like Malcolm Young.

For someone included among the greatest of all time, though, Malcolm was known to be fairly quiet whenever he played in AC/DC. His licks are far from the most imaginative things in the world, and usually, half of the solo work that catches people’s attention is reserved for his brother Angus when he’s lighting up the stage.

If you pay attention to the sound rather than the look, AC/DC would not exist if it had not been for Malcolm. Sure, he didn’t play anything too flashy, but the crux of his strength came from his internal sense of rhythm. Whereas most people want to jump right into the solos, Malcolm thought it would be best to hone his talent by making the band swing, taking only a handful of chords and punishing his strings whenever he played.

Just take a song like ‘Back In Black’. It’s just three chords that don’t seem like that much out of context, but when you add the space to it, it becomes one of the greatest rock and roll riffs of all time. While most guitarists were now looking to make the most technical solo possible, Grohl still had a love for what Malcolm did.

As opposed to the shredders of the world, Grohl thought that Malcolm towered above most of them, saying, “I’d call Malcolm Young my guitar hero before Yngwie Malmsteen. It’s like, man, you can shred as much as you fuckin’ want, but if you can’t make my ass move, then fuck off, stick that thing somewhere else. The most important thing is feel. All that tablature, all those lessons… fuck that shit. Play like you feel”.

That’s not all that different from what Grohl does whenever he makes a Foo Fighters record. While Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear definitely add other sonic colours, Grohl is more concerned with playing the riff straight up the middle and getting everyone grooving, whether that’s the pummeling groove of ‘Best of You’ or building a guitar orchestra on ‘The Pretender’.

In fact, it’s not all that dissimilar from how Grohl approaches the drums. When talking about his technique, Grohl looks at the guitar like different parts of a drum set, equating the high strings to cymbals and the low strings to bass drums and snares. It’s not like Grohl is alone in shouting Malcolm’s praises, either.

The whole point in having a solo rhythmic technique is half the reason why Eddie Van Halen worked so well on Van Halen’s early records, always emphasising the sense of rhythm before he had the chance to go off on a tangent. AC/DC might get the tag of making simple music occasionally, but if they manage to get the job done, is that really a bad thing?