If we exclude the beautiful book by his ex-wife Irene Thornton, the figure of Bon Scott has remained shrouded in mystery for decades and essentially fixed to the often partial, if not completely altered, story that came to us through the skimpy oral history handed down to us by AC/DC. The fact that the band, a few months after the singer's death, released one of the best-selling albums in history didn't help. It may make those of a certain age smile, but many of those who discovered AC/DC thanks to certain rock radio have almost no idea who Scott was and don't even have the curiosity to find out. They often almost completely ignore the discography prior to 1980. If you want proof, pay attention to the looks of most people when a piece like Riff Raff.
So who was Bon Scott when he walked off stage? A simpleton drunkard who loved to party? The animal who just needed to sing and get high to live well? Did he have dreams, desires, frustrations? In the book Bon: The Last Highway (released in 2017 and recently translated into Italian) Jesse Fink, known for having published the controversial The Young Dynastyreverses the perspective on Scott: no longer just a dissipated rock icon, but a real, complex, often uncomfortable person. Bon's public image, forged on excesses and legends, is deconstructed into a sentimental geometry made of uncertainties, the need for recognition, the desire for family, pain and a dark nostalgia dripping with authenticity. Therefore returning him to his deepest humanity.
We thus come to know in detail his movements, choices and ambitions: born in Scotland and raised in Australia perpetually divided between the nostalgia of his roots and the desire to escape from the past. His biography is a continuous journey between the United States (which he dreams of reaching as a promised land), London and the Australian province, chasing a dream of freedom which however almost always turns into profound loneliness. His family relationships are a continuous alternation between home and escape: a dichotomy which, in fact, marks his existence. Bon never loses his bond with his mother Isabelle (“I always write to her, I miss her”, he notes in his notes) and with his brother Derek, but at the same time he never finds a place that truly belongs to him, someone he can truly trust. For this reason, perhaps, he continues to change partners, but at the same time he strongly desires to become a father while his life becomes more fragile and his relationships with AC/DC more difficult. His dream will remain sadly unfulfilled.
It is no coincidence that Fink dedicates many pages to Bon's loves and does not do so with a gossipy or morbid intent, but to talk about his fragility and, ultimately, also his purity of soul: the long history with Thornton (who testifies that «Bon knew how to be protective and affectionate, but was often distracted, restless»), the poetic and at times ruthless relationship with Silver Smith (also involved in the last tragic days), the fluctuating and almost secret bond with Holly «In the last two years I saw him wanting to change, he wanted to commit seriously. It spoke of a home, of simple days, of the desire to finally bring order.” Even Pattee Bishop, fundamental in Fink's story, remembers Bon as capable of “an unexpected sweetness… there was a strange modesty in associating with women, almost as if he were terrified of loneliness and always looking for something he never found”.
Not quite the image of the winking, double-entendre macho we thought we knew. The Scott described in the book is melancholic, often unable to manage his feelings. When he suffers he does it in silence. In the diaries and letters we perceive a “heart of cream behind the tough face”, one who showed his softer side only to a few, often on tour or at night, when tiredness had the upper hand over his rocker mask.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
One of the most significant revelations of The Last Highway it's about the relationship between Bon and the other AC/DC. The image of a cohesive and camaraderie group is demolished: the testimonies of roadies and friends meticulously reconstruct the actual climate among the musicians, from which it transpires that Bon lived anything but in symbiosis with the other AC/DC. The Youngs worry about the singer's lifestyle, sometimes they push him away, they organize meetings to talk about the alcohol problem, they consider him too out of control for a band that is trying to make the definitive leap. We thus discover that, at least from a certain point forward, Bon stops seeing his companions outside of work commitments, preferring other companies or complete solitude, between writing and recurring dreams of changing his path once again.
Things end up derailing during the last tours, where the moments of tension are amplified, together with the exaggerations with substances. Scott feels excluded, the crises are ever greater and lead to arguments, episodes of malaise and blackouts multiply exponentially between 1978 and the end of 1979. Scott dreams of solo albums, other projects, he puts forward the idea of dedicating himself to southern rock, but he feels stuck in a role that is now consuming him. Mark Evans, the band's former bassist, confirms that «AC/DC were a family, but Bon was sometimes an adopted son: he didn't always feel really part of the same house». Former roadies Joe Fury and Paul Chapman talk about nights in the van with the silent and distant singer staring out the window with his notebook of poems.
One of the most novel and painful cores of the book is the raw story of addictions and the night of the death of a man constantly struggling with alcohol and drugs and with very dangerous associations. Scott oscillated between total refusal of drugs and unbridled temptation, and even today not everything is known about that night due to the omissions of those who were there. The death was probably caused by a mix of substances which it is useless to investigate maniacally and even Fink's almost obsessive research leads to only one certainty: Bon died alone as he had spent most of his life alone.
More useful and edifying, as well as surprising, is Bon Scott's hunger for poetic expression that comes out of this story. Beyond the lyrics of the songs, Fink finds letters, cards, scattered verses taken from that “book of words” that Bon carried everywhere with him and on which he wrote even in moments of desperation, leaving notes and ideas that he would have liked to use in the lyrics. Ideas according to many, including Fink himself, then germinated into Back in Black. An assertion that is impossible to prove and which offers new insights to fans of conspiracy theories, but which in fact tells us nothing new about Scott's personality.
One thing, however, is clear: the Bon Scott that emerges from the book is a failed writer, a poet obsessed with the desire to leave a trace, but often unable to finish what he began to write. A description that forever changes the perception of the classic rock figure that has been handed down to us: no longer (or not only) a lover of excess, but a person among people, capable of forming bonds, making mistakes, confiding in oneself, always seeking a new meaning in one's path. And ultimately the Bon Scott who remains, after Fink's journey between real cities and emotional cities, between true friends and told stories, is a man who loves and makes mistakes, who feels excluded even when he is in the spotlight, who dreams of a place to call home and who perhaps, precisely for this reason, continues to be different from everyone else.
