AC/DC hasn’t had a new album in eight years but the Aussie band’s website is reporting that the brothers Young are laying down tracks at Bryan Adams’ Vancouver studio complex with a stated expectation of a new album completed for release this year.
Recording at The Warehouse Studio in the red brick boutiqued Gastown district with engineer Mike Fraser and producer Brendan O’Brien, the sessions follow a number of flawed starts since 2000’s Upper Lip album.
That 2000 album was also recorded at Adams Vancouver studio with Fraser and the band’s original producer, and former Easybeats member George Young – brother to AC/DC band members’ Angus and Malcolm.
The Warehouse Studio complex is a hugely popular recording facility, used by a Who’s Who of chart-topping pop and rock stars-from Avril Lavigne and Elvis Costello to Metallica and Chris Isaak.
Since the release of Stiff Upper Lip, AC/DC has signed a long-term deal with Sony BMG for the world excepting Australia where they are remain on Alberts Productions.
Sony has since reissued remastered editions of the entire back catalogue.
In July 2003, the band performed in Toronto with the Rolling Stones on a benefit gig following the SARS outbreak.
The DVD of that performance was released as ‘Toronto Rocks’.
The following year, they performed with the Stones again, this time in Sydney.
While the band has remained pretty much out of the spotlight for most of the decade, the AC/DC brand has been kept alive via DVD. While the band has never released a greatest hits album, the greatest hits DVD Family Jewels achieved 10x platinum in the US.
Last year’s Plug Me In was also a success. It went 5x platinum in the US.
The band, whose only remaining original members are founding brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, has sold more than 150
million albums worldwide.
As a sidebar, engineer Mike Fraser, who works almost exclusively out of The Warehouse Studio, has one of his mixes of “Money Honey” by Juno winning band State Of Shock cresting the top of a Sirius Radio chart in the US this week.
The song is a digital platinum hit for the Cordova Bay Ent. company here in Canada.
