34 Facts About Bon Scott

Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott was an Australian singer and songwriter.

Bon Scott moved to Australia with his family in 1952 at the age of six, living in Melbourne for four years before settling in Fremantle, Western Australia.

Bon Scott formed his first band, the Spektors, in 1964 and became the band's drummer and occasional lead vocalist.

However, on 19 February 1980, Bon Scott died after a night out in London with former musician and alleged drug dealer Alistair Kinnear.

Ronald Belford Bon Scott was born on 9 July 1946 at Fyfe Jamieson Maternity Hospital in Forfar, Scotland, to Charles Belford "Chick" Bon Scott and Isabelle Cunningham "Isa" Mitchell.

Bon Scott grew up in Kirriemuir and was his parents' second child; the first-born was a boy, Sandy, who died shortly after birth.

Bon Scott's parents ran the family bakery in Kirriemuir's Bank Street.

The Bon Scott family emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1952.

Bon Scott joined the associated Fremantle Scots Pipe Band, learning the drums.

Bon Scott attended North Fremantle Primary School and later John Curtin College of the Arts until he dropped out at the age of 15.

Bon Scott subsequently worked as a farmhand and a crayfisherman, and was later a trainee weighing-machine mechanic.

Bon Scott attempted to join the Australian Army, but was rejected and deemed "socially maladjusted".

In 1966 they merged with another local band, the Winstons, and formed the Valentines, in which Bon Scott was co-lead singer with Vince Lovegrove.

Bon Scott moved to Adelaide in 1970 and joined the progressive rock group Fraternity.

Bon Scott stormed out of the venue, threw a bottle of Jack Daniel's on to the ground, then sped off on his Suzuki GT550 motorbike.

Bon Scott suffered serious injuries from the ensuing motorcycle accident, spending three days in a coma and a further 18 days in hospital.

The boys ripped through all these classic numbers and then finally, with enough pressure from Vince, Bon Scott climbed onto the stage.

Bon Scott's appointment coincided with him working as a chauffeur for the band at the time until an audition promoted him to lead singer.

Bon Scott met Irene Thornton, from Adelaide, in 1971 while he was the lead singer for Fraternity.

On 15 February 1980, Bon Scott attended a session where Malcolm and Angus Young were working on the beginnings of two songs that would later be recorded on the Back in Black album: "Have a Drink On Me" and "Let Me Put My Love Into You", with Bon Scott accompanying on drums rather than singing or writing lyrics.

Days earlier, Scott had gone with Mick Cocks to visit their friends the French group Trust in the Scorpio Sound studio in London, where they recorded the album Repression; Scott was working on the English adaptation of texts by Bernie Bonvoisin for the English version of the album.

Sometime during the late evening of 18 February and early morning of 19 February 1980, Bon Scott passed out and died at the age of 33.

Bon Scott had just visited a London club called the Music Machine.

Bon Scott was allegedly left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by his friend Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich.

Bon Scott was taken to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The official report of the coroner concluded that Bon Scott had died of "acute alcohol poisoning" and classified it as "death by misadventure".

The chronology of events on 19 February, Kinnear's account of what happened, and when exactly Scott was found dead has been challenged by Jesse Fink's 2017 book Bon: The Last Highway, which quotes the late UFO guitarist Paul Chapman as having been informed early that morning by Scott's friend Joe Fury that Scott was dead.

The issue of whether Bon Scott's lyrics were used, uncredited, on the album remains an enduring topic of debate.

That includes one journalist in Australia who claimed that Bon Scott had already scribbled most of the words to the album in one of his notebooks before he died.

The thing I loved most about Bon Scott, was his almost unique self honesty.

In 2004, the song "Highway to Hell" that Bon Scott co-wrote with Malcolm and Angus Young ranked 254 on Rolling Stones The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Singer and guitarist Dave Mustaine talked about how much Bon Scott had influenced him.

Fink's book claims that Bon Scott died of a heroin overdose, while Walker backs the coroner's finding of alcohol poisoning.

The controversial point that he and Walker both agree on is that many of Bon Scott's lyrics were co-opted, uncredited, into Back in Black.