Holding it Down- AC/DC’s Cliff Williams Lets There Be Feel
It’s easy to hold bassists who shred in high regard. Bass players who dance around the fretboard instead of simply walking it. Bass players who know and use all the possible combinations of thirds, fifths, inversions, octaves, and whatever the hell Michael Manring is thinking about when he plays. We all love them. The bass players who don’t get enough credit are the workmen and women who hold it down. Those without whom songs are merely guitar players showing off, singers howling and growling, and drummers counting to four under their breath. This series is for them- The bassists who hold it down so everyone else can fly.
If you happen upon a group of bass players ( a “thump” of bass players is the scientific name) in the wild and you listen to them for any length of time, you will soon hear the name “Cliff” thrown out, followed by lots of semi-sexual grunts, moans, and headbanging.
That Cliff is not this Cliff.
Which is too bad. Because this Cliff rocks too.
Cliff Williams has been the bass player for AC/DC since 1977. And just about everything you can say about AC/DC as a band, you can say about Cliff Williams as a bassist.
The songs are simple./The basslines are simple.
Every album is the same,/There’s no innovation in the bass playing.
There is very little difference between a “good” AC/DC song and a “bad” one./There is very little difference between any of Cliff’s parts.
But the most important thing you can say about both AC/DC and Cliff Williams is- They both fucking rock.
Listen, I know every single AC/DC album is the same. AC/DC know that every single AC/DC album is the same. That’s the point of AC/DC. If aliens landed tomorrow and wanted to know what rock and roll sounds like, you hand them a copy of Back in Black*. This act will save the human race. The aliens will hear it, immediately note how simple it is, how every song is about sex, even the songs about partying or drinking, and how serious the band are about having fun with these things, and they will insist they are shown AC/DC in concert. They will watch AC/DC in concert, not be able to fathom why these five tiny old men rock so hard, even when measuring them with their advanced alien technology, and will be forced to give up and give in to the power of ROCK that is the heart and soul of AC/DC. Planet Earth will be saved and Angus Young will finally be able to return to Hobbiton and finish his uncle’s book.
Cliff Williams, Phil Rudd, and Malcolm Young are the heartbeat of that band. I’m not stating this as fact, but as a feeling- there are no drum fills in the first seven AC/DC albums. And in the remaining eleven albums there are a total of *checks feelings* six drum fills. And because of that there are no flash bass parts. There are no bass fills. That’s not Cliff’s job. His job is to make Angus sound good while he duckwalks across the stage playing a guitar part that sounds tricky but actually isn’t. His job, along with Phil and dear departed Malcom, is to be the engine and keep the time.
This does mean, and let’s be honest here, AC/DC songs are not that fun to play as a bass player. At least, not alone in your room. Shoveling eighth notes for four minutes at a time with the occasional passing note can get old. But I assume playing the songs on stage, in a cover band, when the crowd catches those first few notes of “Shook Me All Night Long” and wakes up, that has to be fun. Because AC/DC isn’t about playing All The Notes. It’s about driving the rock and roll bus through the center of someone’s heart. And anyone could play those parts. Anyone can follow the greatest rock and roll rhythm guitarist in the world. But not everyone could do it with the feel, that impossible-to-describe it, that Cliff does it with. Not only that, but often bass is about subsuming the ego for the greater good of the whole. Cliff knows that AC/DC is what matters, and his job in AC/DC is to hold it down. And hold it down he does.
*I love the Bon Scott era too, but this is the fate of the world we’re talking about. Later on we show them Dirty Deeds and Highway to Hell.
Doug Robertson is the editor of The Bass Blog, the blog component of The Bass Channel, your one stop YouTube channel for all things bass. His number one is a Mexican Geddy Lee Signature Jazz and his boomer is a BEAD tuned T-Bird. Find books by Doug here. If you’re interested in contributing to The Bass Blog please reach out to Doug at doug@thebasschannel.net. We would love to hear from you.
