AC/DC released Black Ice in the United States on October 20, 2008, ending the eight-year gap after Stiff Upper Lip. The band recorded the album at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver with producer Brendan O’Brien and engineer Mike Fraser, with “Rock N Roll Train” leading the release.
Angus and Malcolm Young had spent part of that interval developing songs together in London, stepping away when the work began to feel stale. Angus told Guitar World that “Rock N Roll Train” started as one of his ideas, but Malcolm recognized its potential and worked out a chorus melody. O’Brien, working with AC/DC for the first time, also encouraged the brothers to give the vocal melodies more attention alongside the guitar rhythms.
Once the full band assembled, the sessions moved quickly. Fraser told Sound On Sound that the Young brothers played their ideas from a computer, explained the chords and structure, and worked through O’Brien’s suggestions before recording. Angus, Malcolm, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd played the backing tracks together, while Brian Johnson sang guide vocals in the control room. A few run-throughs and three or four recorded takes were often enough to capture a song. They worked on three songs at a time, moving from backing tracks to vocals, solos and backing vocals before starting another batch. That kept Johnson and Angus from facing weeks devoted solely to vocal or guitar overdubs. Fraser recorded the basic performances to analogue tape before transferring them to Pro Tools for overdubs and mixing; recording and mixing took eight weeks.
For Johnson, getting comfortable required more than a good backing track. He told Classic Rock that he had asked O’Brien to be honest if his singing was no longer good enough for the band. Standing at a fixed microphone had become frustrating; he wanted to hold the mic and move as he would onstage. O’Brien kept the vocal sessions to about an hour a day and set him up in a glass-fronted office behind reception, where people could see him as they entered. The setting gave Johnson some of the human contact he missed in a recording booth. “Scared the receptionist every day, poor girl,” he recalled. Hearing the results, he said, reminded him of his younger voice.
O’Brien pushed Angus to revisit an unlikely detail, too. As Angus explained to Guitar World, the demo of “Stormy May Day” included slide guitar played on an acoustic resting across his lap, using a cigarette lighter as the slide. Angus had treated it as a background part, but O’Brien heard something worth keeping and encouraged him to record slide leads for the finished song. Even with years of preparation behind them, the band kept accepting new material: Malcolm presented “Anything Goes” when the album was nearly complete.
The finished album contained 15 tracks. Its U.S. release was sold exclusively through Walmart, Sam’s Club and AC/DC’s website, and it reached No. 1 on the American album chart. The band began the Black Ice World Tour in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on October 28, 2008, putting the new material into their live set.
“War Machine” later earned AC/DC their first Grammy, winning Best Hard Rock Performance in 2010. Black Ice was nominated for Best Rock Album at the same ceremony.
