AC/DC released Rock Or Bust in Australia on November 28, 2014, with the North American edition following on December 2. It was their first studio album without Malcolm Young playing rhythm guitar. His nephew Stevie Young took over for the sessions, but the songs still carried the writing credit Malcolm shared with his younger brother, Angus Young.
For Angus, the opening song, “Rock or Bust,” supplied a title that expressed the band’s determination to continue. In a 2014 interview supplied by AC/DC’s label and published by Large, he said the phrase captured the band’s approach from the start. Producer Brendan O’Brien had responded immediately to the song’s central hook.
Getting to that point had involved waiting. Malcolm had retired after developing dementia, and Angus said the band had delayed while hoping his condition would stabilize. Once it became clear he couldn’t return, the decision was whether to carry on. Malcolm wanted them to, Angus explained in that interview. The material gave them a practical way forward: unfinished ideas and unused riffs from the brothers’ earlier work could become songs for the new album.
Stevie had already filled in for Malcolm on tour in 1988. His preparation for the record meant working on the songs outside the studio, too: Brian Johnson recalled passing his hotel room and finding him learning the riffs. In Rolling Stone’s 2014 report, O’Brien described Stevie using the same guitars and rig to preserve the interplay between the guitar parts. “The super-important thing about AC/DC is the left-right thing in the guitars,” he said. Engineer Mike Fraser also heard similarities in Stevie’s physical approach, describing his heavy strings and hard picking in an interview with The Georgia Straight.
The change also altered how decisions were made. At Vancouver’s Warehouse Studio, O’Brien and Fraser reunited with the band after working on Black Ice. Fraser told The Georgia Straight that O’Brien helped Angus sort through ideas, suggested older riffs when a section needed work, and developed the arrangements with him. The producer became someone Angus could turn to with questions he previously would have worked through with Malcolm. They kept the performances direct: the band rehearsed each song, recorded it live and then added overdubs or made small repairs. Fraser recorded to tape before moving the material into Pro Tools. The guitar lineup had changed, but AC/DC retained a studio process built around musicians playing together.
That process moved quickly, though the claim that the album took just 10 days was wrong. Johnson told Ultimate Classic Rock that the group spent roughly four to four and a half weeks in the studio, including several days establishing the sound. Angus then continued working with O’Brien to decide what belonged on the finished record.
The brief running time was deliberate. Angus described O’Brien pushing for shorter, tighter arrangements, with the compact songs of the 1960s as a reference. Fraser said they wanted the length of an LP after the longer running times encouraged by CDs. The finished 11-track record lasted about 35 minutes, making it AC/DC’s shortest studio album at the time of release.
