Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds has shared his love of AC/DC with listeners of the AC/DC Beyond The Thunder podcast, telling host Kurt Squiers “AC/DC’s like a religion.”
Looking back over a lifetime’s ’DC worship, Hinds recalls that, growing up in the US ‘Bible Belt’ he was warned that listening to Malcolm and Angus Young’s band would open up a portal to Hell, but having purchased a cassette of the band’s 1979 album Highway To Hell during a family holiday in Florida, he became a true believer. “It was electrifying,” he recalls.
“Angus [Young] was one of the first guitarists that I was really influenced by,” he reveals. “I heard other guitar players at the same time that were doing stuff that was too complicated-sounding, and I was like, Man, I don’t like that, that sounds like garbage, I like this guy doing his blues thing.”
Hinds had the chance to speak to his teenage hero when he found himself at an awards ceremony with the Glasgow-born, Sydney-raised guitarist.
“I just walked over to him and said, Thank you for your guitar playing because you really influenced me as a guitar player, and you’re the reason why I’m at this awards show right now, because you inspired me to play guitar,” Hinds recalls. “And he was, like, ‘Quit pissing in my pocket!’ I was, like, Alright man, nice to meet you, later!”
We’re going to hazard a guess here that the ever-humble Young’s comment was ‘DC slang meaning “Stop blowing smoke up my ass”, but knowing Brent… well, you never know quite how literal that expression might have been.
Listen to the full interview below.
