The ghost of Bon Scott

Just days before his death, Bon Scott wrote a letter to his sister in which he said he felt “tired but full of ideas.” He was in London, in the middle of winter 1980, with a destroyed liver, his lungs ravaged by years of abuse, and his voice still raw from recent concerts. Still, he spoke of new lyrics, new riffs, an energy that, he said, didn't come from this world.

On February 19, 1980, Bon was found dead in a parked car. Officially, he died of "acute alcohol intoxication," but for many, his death was shrouded in a fog as thick as the ones he sang about on his whiskey-fueled road trips.

What few people know is what happened months later, when the band decided to move on. Brian Johnson, AC/DC's new vocalist, joined the group in the Bahamas to record a new album: Back in Black . It was there that the rumors began.

During the recording process, the sound technicians claimed to hear voices that weren't in the takes. Echoes between chords. A guttural whisper at the end of a rehearsal that no one had broadcast. On more than one occasion, Johnson recounted feeling "a presence" in the studio, something watching him when he approached the microphone. He never said this publicly, but in private interviews, he acknowledged: "Sometimes, it was like Bon was there, guiding me, pushing me. Like he didn't want to let anyone screw up what he'd started."

Back in Black was a monumental success. More than 50 million copies sold. Each song is a roar, a dark celebration, a testament. And if you listen closely to the title track, there's something about the power of the drums, Angus's raw guitar, and that final scream… something that can't quite be explained.

Some say Bon Scott didn't die. That he simply crossed over and stayed there, amidst the amps and ghosts of hot tubes, making sure rock kept sounding the way it should: honest, wild, immortal.