Former AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd has vowed to perform three Bon Scott songs at the annual Angus celebration of the rock legend’s life.
Rudd’s solo band will headline Friday night at this year’s Bonfest in Kirriemuir and will put three AC/DC songs in the set “for the fans in Scotland”.
Rudd played on all but three of AC/DC’s 18 studio albums and his drums are as much a part of the band’s sound as the Young brothers’ guitars.
He said: “We don’t want to be a covers band, so we just brought in two or three because we’re playing the Bonfest so we’ve got three of Bon’s songs that we’re playing, and hopefully we’ll do them well for the fans in Scotland.”
Rudd recorded and released his debut album, Head Job, with Kiwi musicians Allan Badger and Geoffrey Martin in 2014.
The Australian drummer was a member of AC/DC from 1975 until 1983 and again from 1994 to 2015 before being replaced by Chris Slade due to ongoing legal problems.
Good friends, Rudd took Bon Scott’s death in 1980 badly, but continued with AC/DC until he left the band during the recording of the Flick of the Switch album in 1983.
Rudd described himself as being in “really good shape” ahead of his performance in Kirriemuir on Friday and said he was “playing pretty well”.
He said he would like to be involved with AC/DC again but is not sure he can go to America as he still has travelling restrictions which were imposed when he was convicted of threatening to kill an employee in 2015.
Thousands of AC/DC fans are about to converge on Kirriemuir for the 11th International Bon Scott music festival this weekend.
Bon was born at the Fyfe Jamieson maternity hospital in Forfar on July 9 1946 and his family lived in Kirriemuir, where father Charles Scott worked in the family bakery in Bank Street.
In 1952, when Ronald was six years old the family immigrated to Australia where Bon, as he was soon nicknamed, grew up.
Scott died after a night out in London.
AC/DC briefly considered disbanding, but the group recruited vocalist Brian Johnson of the British glam rock band Geordie.
AC/DC’s subsequent album, Back in Black, was released only five months later, and was a tribute to Scott.
It went on to become the second best-selling album in history.
