Angus Young Quotes

We started the band when I was about 19 or 20. At that age, it would have been kind of hard to imagine a lot of the stuff that I've written. We were playing garage rock. I wanted to dash out three chords and scream. But if you do that for 20 years, what's the point?

If you go out and just play the old stuff and never write new stuff, you're not really a complete musician, you're a performer.

On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

I think that every band tries to mature their sound through their existence, you know?

Any band on their first couple records is just trying to keep up with their inspiration.

A lot of times, when a band finds success with a certain style or sound, they have a really hard time breaking away from that to grow as artists.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

I loved the last album, and it was one hundred percent me. But this is like me two years later, who understands a little bit more about music and understands a little bit more about making an album. I wrote a lot more.

'Just What I Am' took me all of 10 minutes to make. 'Immortal' maybe took 30 minutes. It's not hard for me. 'Indicud' is almost what my first album should have sounded like, had I really been able to channel all of the ideas I had into music.

I remember when I wrote songs when I was about 16, they all sounded the same because I didn't know anything. And all the subject matter was all the same because I hadn't actually done much.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind - like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature - that gets in the way of writing great songs.

When I listen to and play the songs from 'Narrow Stairs' now, that record feels like a record where we had established a style that arguably was more our own than it was in the beginning. Going into that record, I felt a lot more confident in my songwriting. It was a fairly prolific time for me.

The danger of a rock band is repeating oneself. It's our greatest fear - that it evolves into the myopia of a semi-successful band that's in love with its own shadow.

Our music is becoming more mature.

You have to grow with the music.

My music's matured so much, I don't have to create any barriers.

The music is the same if you go all the way back to the first albums I made or the middle or whatever. The thing that's different is the lyrics.

The first song that I wrote that I was proud of was probably 'Hunter' from the first record. But I listen that now and I don't know. I mean, it's got a good hook, but still. I'm proud of it. I'm as proud as I can be of all the ideas, but I think 'Party' showed a maturity that I don't think I had on 'Aldous Harding.'

A lot of the songs that I wrote during 'Pt. 1' and 'Pt. 2' are the first songs that I ever wrote that sounded like that. I was in this phase - a certain creative space in my life - personally and musically.

'Drip or Drown 2' is more me, more songs. I enhanced it more, even with the cover itself.

The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.

As you grow older, your music begins to mature and grow older along with you.

I'm just expanding my sound and making it bigger.

I think our music reflects us and has grown with us, and as our fans have grown, too.

I proved myself with 'Smoke Ring.' It was me maturing. I made a good pop record.