Youngs : The Brothers Who Built Ac/Dc (9781466865204) (35 page)

During his 11 days of captivity before being released by Aidid, American military helicopters circled the city, looking for any sign of Durant, who was being detained in “a cheap, highway hotel” he called “Hotel Nowhere.”

My injuries continued to sap a lot of my strength, and I had been dozing again when my eyes suddenly snapped open. The sound of a helicopter flying overhead was louder than before, and in addition to the familiar twirling of Black Hawk rotors, I heard something else. It sounded like some sort of broadcast, as if a large stereo speaker were mounted on one side.

It was probably a propaganda effort of some kind, I reasoned. The helo was flying in a large circular pattern and the transmission was difficult to discern, fading in and out with the wind and the changing position of the aircraft. I looked desperately around the room, wishing I had some way to signal them. Now, as the helo turned again, the thin sound of tolling church bells grew clearer.

Bonggg!
…
Bongg!
… and then it faded out for a moment as the aircraft made a turn away from my location.

When I heard it again I raised my head. What the hell is that?

It was, of all things, “Hells Bells.” Durant's would-be rescuers, astonishingly, were playing the opening track of
Back in Black
, trying to find him. They knew
AC/DC
was one of his favorite bands.

 

I sat straight up. My crushed spine sent jolts to my brain, but I didn't even feel it. “Hells Bells?” Somebody up there was playing “Hells Bells?” I rubbed my eyes, thinking I must have lost it … [but] this was sure as hell no accident! I was not dreaming. The Black Hawk made a roaring turn right above the Hotel Nowhere and AC/DC's earsplitting tune about challenging Satan and his forces of evil thundered into my cell and banged off the walls … I smacked my fist into my palm. The Night Stalkers were sending me a message, there was no doubt about it. I had no idea why they were playing that specific tune, but at the time I didn't care—it was music from heaven. Later, I would learn that it was all part of a plan. Suffice it to say that the concept was brilliant.

The Black Hawk moved off and the broadcast faded, but I had blasted out “Hells Bells” in my bunk at the compound often enough and I knew the words by heart …
I hear you, boys,
I thought with an incredible surge of excitement.
I hear you! I don't know what you're trying to tell me, but I'll think about it over and over until I get it!

Pilot Dan Jollota then started broadcasting Durant's name, assuring their captured comrade that he and his colleagues wouldn't leave without him.

 

The broadcast and the Black Hawk faded away. I listened hard for a good long minute, but they were gone. Yet I knew that they'd be back. They wouldn't give up. Soon enough, they would find me. Soon enough, it would all be over.

It was quiet again. The children played and mothers called them home. There was no gunfire. I looked over at the small window of my cell. The orange rays of the setting sun were slanting in through the shutters, and in my mind I could still hear Dan's voice and promise.

“We will not leave without you.”

My spirit was soaring, but I quickly wiped the wetness from my cheeks and settled down. I wasn't going to allow the Somalis to witness the heights of my new hope.

As the sun continued to set on that day, I experienced a wave of powerful feelings. But there was one thing I no longer felt at all …

Alone.

 

“I had a broken leg and back,” says Durant, who has also told his unique story to the
Beyond the Thunder
documentary. “I could hardly roll over. Hearing it did inspire me knowing my friends were out there trying to locate me so that they could launch a rescue mission. I would say it had a psychological effect, primarily. They also had voice recordings from one of my friends. [Dan] was calling my name and saying that they would not leave without me.”

A haunting still of Durant's battered face from a video made by his interrogators ended up on the cover of
Time
magazine and on his return home he was feted as a war hero. He asked
AC/DC
's attorney if he could use the lyrics of “Hells Bells” (no apostrophes for
AC/DC
, cobber) in his book. He was flatly refused.

That was until Brian Johnson found out about it.

“We were just about to give up. Brian found a copy of our request and sent an email to me introducing himself and saying we could use the lyrics for pretty much whatever we wanted. The next day I called his cell and left a message. We were glad to know we didn't need to change the book and I was actually in line at a retail store buying a new copy of
Back in Black
on CD when my cell rang and it was Brian calling me back. He explained he was a big military-history buff and again said we could do what we wanted with the lyrics on this project.”

AC/DC
's unfailingly generous singer also helped John Wheeler when he heard
A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC
, which contains “Hells Bells.”

“Cliff Williams hired us to play a party for him the year that the album came out,” says Wheeler. “I say ‘hired' because he insisted on paying us even though we tried to insist on playing it for free. I've spoken to Brian on the phone a few times. He actually talked about us a lot to the press in 2001 during their
Stiff Upper Lip
tour in the States. His endorsement rather silenced a lot of the critics who were very much inclined to trash our record at first. I can't thank Brian and the rest of
AC/DC
enough for being good sports, sincerely.”

AC/DC
's new record company, Sony, was less charitable. Hayseed Dixie's name had originally been AC/Dixie but lawyers representing the band forced them to come up with another name.

“
AC/DC
loved my first record—they were incredibly supportive of it and for that I could not be more grateful. But it was explained to me by ‘legal people' that [the band doesn't] control the trademark to their own name; rather, it's licensed to their record label. This situation is quite common for bands on major labels; hence situations like Prince not owning the rights to use his own name for performance for several years and going by that wacky squiggle symbol—which looked remarkably like a middle-finger salute to me—for several years.

“Even though I believe we could have won a lawsuit with Sony in court, we would have still essentially lost because it would have cost a fortune that I didn't have. And it wasn't a fight worth fighting. Sony has a team of lawyers on retainer just sitting around looking for something to do every day that might help justify their wages to their employers. I couldn't see any compelling reason to help them do that.”

So he only ever heard from Williams, Johnson and the band's lawyers, not the Youngs?

“Correct. I've never met Angus or Malcolm. Although I know that Brian speaks for the band a good deal of the time in the press, but he doesn't say anything that they don't all agree with him saying when it's tour press.”

*   *   *

It's an odd thing about “Hells Bells” but Mike Durant's harrowing experience in Somalia isn't the only time the song, written in memory of Bon Scott according to Angus and Malcolm Young, has been used by the US military as so-called “acoustic bombardment” in the theater of war.

“Hells Bells” also makes an appearance in Dexter Filkins's 2008 book
The Forever War
, which opens with the author describing the Battle of Fallujah in 2004 and hearing the song coming from PSYOP (psychological operations) vehicles while “minarets were flashing by the light of airstrikes,” “rockets were sailing on trails of sparks” and “bullets poured without direction and without end.” The aim of PSYOP in Fallujah was to drown out the call to arms coming from the mosques. The Iraqis, the thinking went, hated rock 'n' roll.

“A group of marines [sic] were standing at the foot of a gigantic loudspeaker, the kind used at rock concerts,” he wrote. “It was
AC/DC
 … I recognized the song immediately: ‘Hells Bells,' the band's celebration of satanic power, had come to us on the battlefield.”

Filkins, a writer for
The New Yorker
, didn't want to be interviewed for this book. But Australian photographer Ashley Gilbertson, who was with Filkins and won the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club for his images of the battle, was happy to talk.

“The US military—the Marines and the Army—often uses
AC/DC
, particularly ‘Highway to Hell,' ‘Back in Black' and ‘Thunderstruck,'” he says. “But the first two are the favorites. So I'd been at a couple of battles in which that had taken place. Fallujah was a little stranger than all the rest because the minarets, which are kind of like a belltower in a church where they call to prayer, were playing a call to arms for the insurgents at the same time. So on one side you had the American Marines playing
AC/DC
and on the other side you had the insurgency playing the Islamic call to arms.

“It was the first night of the actual attack. After that it was really all on foot and the only vehicles we would see were to resupply the Marines. Otherwise it was all house-to-house combat. So when Dexter and I were with 1-8 Bravo and we crossed into the north side of Fallujah that was the last time we had vehicles around us. Of course, we had tanks for the first half-day but they disappeared pretty quickly. So it was all the more eerie. There was white phosphorus coming down illuminating everything. It was the soundtrack to one of the strangest and most unlikely scenes you ever want to be in.”

Why did the US military choose to use
AC/DC
?

“It motivated the Marines. They love music. It pumped them up. Inside the Humvees it was more American punk-rock and rock but on a PSYOP vehicle the band I can only really remember is
AC/DC
.

“The weird thing is I actually came to love the band. I used to hate them with a passion. I thought it was bogan music. But now I will actually often put it on in my office [in New York]. It's really bizarre. Now the music motivates me. I feel like PSYOP worked on me. It might not have worked on anyone else but it worked on me. Now I enjoy it. So many of those memories are not happy so I should really despise it all the more. But it has the opposite effect. I think part of it is the fact that I made it home.”

Mogadishu, Fallujah … it doesn't end there. In 2009 “Hells Bells” was also revealed as having been highly favored for interrogation purposes in US military prisons, including the notorious Guantanamo Bay. A Pentagon spokesman called it a “disincentive” rather than torture.

Which is ironic, given that in a
Rolling Stone
interview with David Fricke in 1980, Brian Johnson made it plain what he'd like to do to reviewers, who were then scathing of the band: “I'd like to lock 'em up in a cell with
AC/DC
music for a week. They'll be crying, ‘Let me out, let me out!' Then I'll put on a week's worth of disco music—and I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of shit they'll be hung by their own belts. With
AC/DC
, at least they'll come out singing the choruses.”

*   *   *

With its foreboding tone and dark imagery, “Hells Bells” was the starting point for more than three decades of a very different
AC/DC
, one that had only been hinted at by “Night Prowler” off
Highway to Hell
. The old standby themes of sex, alcohol and rock 'n' roll were rapidly superseded by sex, guns and the National Rifle Association's brand of liberty: “Shoot to Thrill,” “Guns for Hire,” “Big Gun,” “Fire Your Guns,” “Heatseeker,” “War Machine.” With Scott missing from the line-up, Huerta's sharp-edged logo has never seemed more sinister or militaristic. It's no accident that
AC/DC
was considered a perfect fit for
Iron Man 2
. Tony Stark's full body armored superhero is probably the most martial and seriously packing figure in the Marvel Universe.

Explained the film's director, Jon Favreau, before its release in 2010: “When I was watching
AC/DC
with my wife and my son and they were playing ‘Shoot to Thrill' at The Forum [in Los Angeles], I thought, ‘You know,
this
is how he should show up, right in the middle of this and take the armor off. That's the Tony Stark version of doing things.'”

Yet to be fair to the Youngs, who never would have intended for their songs to have such negative associations as violence, torture and death,
AC/DC
is frequently played at American, Australian, British and European sporting venues and used as entrance or celebration music by athletes and teams.

“It really does go beyond the military,” says Durant. “I've often remarked at how many times you'd hear ‘Hells Bells' being played during sports venues over the years. It's just good, hard-driving rock 'n' roll. Not so much today, but in years past, we lived by the ‘work hard, play hard' rule. I think the band symbolizes that same mentality. I've always liked their music and still listen to it today. Like many people, for me it brings back memories of good times and good friends working hard and playing hard.”

Stevie Wright, no Johnson man, even considers it his favorite
AC/DC
song: “I love ‘Hells Bells.' The whole thing. The atmosphere. Brian sings really well on it, as he did on ‘You Shook Me All Night Long.' Johnson did some really good songs.”

But is it, as Filkins flippantly suggests, a “celebration” of Satan? Pull the other one.

*   *   *

While
AC/DC
has long been harassed by “God botherers,” scrutinized by paranoid loons convinced its name and song titles have hidden codes and nefarious meanings, targeted by Pope Benedict XVI (in 1996, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he reportedly described their music as “an instrument of the devil”) and unapologetically appropriates infernal iconography and themes in its music, album art and concerts (Angus Young is well known for sticking two fingers above his head while playing live), the band's association with the netherworld is nothing but a harmless lark, a fun prop.