AC/DC released For Those About To Rock We Salute You on November 20, 1981. Brian Johnson’s second studio album with the band completed their three-album run with producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, following Highway To Hell and Back In Black. The partnership ended with a new commercial milestone: AC/DC’s first No. 1 album in the United States.
“For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)” opens the record at a deliberate pace, building toward a faster finish punctuated by cannon blasts. The song gave the album its name, its cover image and a number that would close concerts for years afterward.
Getting that record made required a change of surroundings. The Paris sessions began at Pathé Marconi, but the search for a workable guitar and drum sound eventually took AC/DC back to H.I.S., the warehouse space where they had rehearsed. A mobile recording unit allowed them to work there. Engineer Mark Dearnley recalled in The Billboard Book of Number One Albums that guitars and drums occupied separate rooms, with a PA also carrying the drums. Capturing the band depended on recognizing when they were ready to play. “The mood has to be right for them,” he explained. Takes could follow stretches spent sitting and talking, rather than an uninterrupted succession of attempts.
The title track’s imagery had roots outside that room. In a 2021 retrospective, AC/DC traced its inspiration to Those About To Die, a book about Roman games that Bon Scott had given Angus Young years earlier. The cannons came from something more immediate: the television coverage of Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding while the band was recording in Paris. That idea reached both the recording and the sleeve. Finding the right recorded explosions took further work; Dearnley recalled that the cannon sounds were finally settled during mixing in London.
The Roman connection nearly reached a promotional film, too. The band’s retrospective recounts a record-company proposal to have them perform the title track dressed as gladiators. AC/DC rejected the idea and used concert footage to promote the album instead.
For Malcolm Young, the song had a specific purpose onstage. Speaking to Mark Blake for Metal CD in 1992, in an interview later republished by Classic Rock, he explained that AC/DC had wanted another substantial live number in the tradition of “Let There Be Rock.” By that interview, the title track had become their main encore. His assessment of making the album was considerably harsher. The drawn-out process had worn down his confidence in what he was hearing: “Everyone was fed up with the whole record.”
Listeners sent the album to the top of Billboard’s U.S. album chart for the week dated December 26, 1981. It spent three weeks at No. 1. “Let’s Get It Up” and the title track were issued as singles in 1982, extending the release’s life beyond its initial album campaign.
The frustration in Paris also shaped AC/DC’s next studio move. They produced Flick Of The Switch themselves in 1983. Malcolm described its quicker, deliberately raw approach as a reaction to the previous album’s prolonged production, with even its simple pencil-drawn cover reflecting the decision to strip things back.
