Although the drummer for Darkness claims to have spent 10,000 hours trying to imitate Malcolm’s method, most mortals cannot match the unstoppable AC/DC guitarist’s technique.
My brother Justin was the one who introduced me to AC/DC. I recognized the beats right away as something I could perform. I thought to myself, “Gosh, I might actually be able to do that,” when I heard this guy play. Malcolm had a hip approach, but he was also combative and irate.
“He wasn’t having fun. Although his parts are primarily open chords, they look simple at first listen and are actually highly complicated. To put it plainly, I find it difficult to perform barre chords! I listened to Malcolm’s music exclusively for two years, with the sound panned hard left.
“I spent ten thousand hours attempting to imitate him. I failed to some extent, but it gave me the opportunity to find my path. If you attempt to follow in his footsteps, it’s like sports: one mistake and everything is lost.
However, Malcolm never made a mistake. He was punctual all the time. He would follow the rhythm section if they started to stray and then bring them back into alignment. That is audible on
Malcolm typically used Marshall Super Bass amps to drive his Gretsch guitars. Were his performances more influential to you than his tone?
Without a doubt. His tone lacked a lot of high gain. Since I switched from an acoustic to an electric guitar, my brain was somewhat resistant to distortion. Those large open chords with minimal overdrive were appealing to me. You need to be precise and employ palm muting in this situation since you can’t allow things go out of control or else someone will hear you!
Have you ever purchased a White Falcon or Gretsch Jet to emulate his sound?
“To be really honest, I never really got into the Malcolm signature that I had for a while. Again, this speaks highly of Malcolm, but it wasn’t the simplest instrument to play. It becomes a clang fest very quickly if you don’t palm-mute correctly because it’s so bright and chimey. Additionally, I had been playing Les Pauls for a long time, so I couldn’t go back.
“A band like The Darkness sounds better with a Les Paul fattening things out. In the past, I have utilized a Marshall Super Bass. Recently, I borrowed one in Australia that was identical to Malcolm’s in every way. They’re warmer than you might think and pretty growly. Because the Super Bass would balance out the lower frequencies, the Gretsch could be harsh, which is why his setup worked so well.
