Every AC/DC album has been recorded with an SG, and although Angus doesn’t know how old his favourite is, he generally favours late 60s and early 70s models. Not only do the SG cutaways match Angus’s Highway To Hell devil horns, the tone seems purpose built for his style. Like AC/DC’s songs, there is no excess fat on the SG’s tone, just a razor edge for delivering precision powerchords. The neck is set out further from the body than most guitars, so Angus’s wild vibrato is possible even on the highest frets.
Angus’s touring SG, a Walnut model, suffered a broken truss rod in the late 70s, which was repaired with a new neck by Birmingham luthier John Diggins of Jaydee Guitars. After that, AC/DC relied on Jaydee any time one of Angus’s guitars got seriously fubared. As AC/DC toured Back In Black, Angus sweated so profusely that he rotted the electrics of one SG. It was beyond repair, so Jaydee rebuilt it from scratch, adding the now iconic lightning bolt inlays. It’s the world’s most recognisable SG and, thanks to its appearance on every subsequent AC/DC album, the one heard by the most people.