Angus Young Reveals His Favorite Gibson SG

AC/DC have been busy of late prepping for the release of Power Up, their first album since 2014, and their first since the death of the band's co-founder and rhythm guitarist, Malcolm Young, in 2017.

And while that new AC/DC album was indeed the occasion that brought Angus Young and reinstated frontman Brian Johnson onto Dean Delray's Let There Be Talk podcast, Young was also asked an intriguing gear question during the interview: if he had to pick just one of his beloved Gibson SGs as a favorite, which would it be?

"It's a vintage one," Young said. "The one that I've always had and [that's] been on every album I've ever done is a guitar that now, because it's been on so many AC/DC songs, I just save it for the studio now. I keep it away because over the years when I used it live it got so many bumps and cracks and I don't want it damaged any more. I want to preserve it and it's there for when I'm doing studio stuff. 

"When I've got that guitar, it's so reliable. I just have to plug it in. I can get all my guitars and line them up, I can go through them all and every one you'll go, 'That's a great sound, that's a good sound" but that one, that's the one. It's just got its own thing to it."

Granular details on the guitar, however, are surprisingly scant. Even Young himself isn't sure when it was built, telling Guitar World "I think it was a '69 or '70, although I had someone else tell me it might even be a '71 or '72. So I don't really know for sure."

Though some have also stated that the guitar is a 1968 model, there's greater consensus around the theory that the vintage SG in question was the first affixed with Young's now-trademark lightning bolt inlays.

Debate aside, you can enjoy AC/DC's hard-rockin' comeback single, "Shot in the Dark," above.