AC/DC released “Hells Bells” as a single in 1980, following its appearance as the opening track on Back in Black. The song introduced Brian Johnson on the band’s first album after Bon Scott’s death. Before listeners heard the new singer, though, they heard a bell: a deliberate opening to a record made while AC/DC were deciding how to continue without their frontman.
Written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Johnson, “Hells Bells” also circulated as a seven-inch Atlantic single in continental Europe, paired with another Back in Black track, “What Do You Do for Money Honey.” A German pressing carried November and December tour dates on its rear sleeve. The record connected the new material to the next stage of the band’s recovery: taking those songs out in front of audiences with Johnson at the microphone.
That continuation hadn’t been automatic. In an interview originally published by Metal Hammer in 2008, Angus and Malcolm recalled struggling to contemplate a replacement after Scott died in February 1980. Working together on songs gave the brothers something to concentrate on, while encouragement from Scott’s father helped them consider carrying on. They wanted a singer with his own identity. Johnson, who had fronted Geordie, became that singer, joining a band whose members were still mourning their friend.
The sessions took them to Compass Point Studios in Nassau with producer Mutt Lange. A tropical storm provided an immediate image for Johnson’s writing: the thunder, rain and hurricane imagery that opens “Hells Bells.” The setting supplied something concrete to write about while the album itself acknowledged Scott. Angus explained that the black cover and the tolling bell were both part of that tribute. It was an unusually solemn way to begin an AC/DC record, before the guitars established the song’s weight.
Getting that opening onto tape required a separate trip. Engineer Tony Platt told Sound On Sound in 2014 that AC/DC had commissioned a touring bell from John Taylor’s foundry in Loughborough, England. It wasn’t ready when he arrived, so an attempt was made to record a comparable church bell. Pigeons spoiled the takes: each strike sent them fluttering away, and they returned before the next attempt.
The recording moved to the foundry once the commissioned bell was ready. Using Ronnie Lane’s mobile studio, Platt placed microphones at different distances while the bell’s maker struck it. Those recordings gave Platt and Lange choices when they assembled the introduction during mixing in New York.
The finished song travelled beyond its original album and single releases. AC/DC included it on Who Made Who, the 1986 soundtrack album for Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive. A live recording followed on AC/DC Live in 1992, preserving the song in the concert setting the commissioned bell had been intended for.
There was a difference between the studio introduction and that touring instrument. Platt and Lange slowed the bell recording to half speed, lowering its pitch by an octave. The bell onstage consequently rang an octave higher than the sound listeners knew from the record.
