Down Under Pressure
Before Bon Scott became a star with AC/DC, he sang with rising Aussie rockers Fraternity. Following the release of a new box set from the band, his old mates from those days tell their story.
Words: Jerry Ewing
Rehearsing in the basement of Hamish Henry’s City Motors.
Fraternity promo photo: (l-r) John Freeman, Mick Jurd, Bon
Scott, John Bissett, Bruce Howe.
MAIN :COURTESY HAMISH HENRY; GO SET: VICTOR MARSHALL; RAVEN, WELFARE SINGLE/REHEARSING: HAMISH HENRY
He was up for anything, Bon. His nickname was ‘Ronnie Roadtest’, a hard-drinking, hard-smoking, rootin’, tootin’ rock’n’roll soldier. That was his public image. It was true of him too. But at the same time he’d be the guy going round in the morning asking if you wanted a cup of tea. He was a genuinely nice fella. He just happened to be a rock star. He had no pretensions. A decent bloke who loved to party.”
Sam See, guitarist and pianist with Australian prog/country rockers Fraternity, is reminiscing about the Adelaide band’s most famous member, Bon Scott, who sang and also played recorder (yes, recorder) with them between 1970 and ’73. For years now, the memory of Scott has tended to overshadow the achievements of Fraternity. A slew of unofficial reissues that appeared following his tragic death in February 1980 have often been credited incorrectly to ‘Bon Scott’s Fraternity’, the band themselves a mere footnote in the larger story of AC/DC, with whom Scott would find fame and fortune after he joined them in 1974.
That history is now being corrected thanks to a new three-CD box set, Seasons Of Change: The Complete Recordings 1970-1974, on Cherry Red. It’s an intriguing tale that takes in the likes of Black Sabbath, Status Quo, Geordie, Cold Chisel and Jimmy Barnes along the way, although musically it’s a far cry from the hard driving rock that Scott would make with AC/DC.
The box set is very much a labour of love for 29-year-old Fraternity fan Victor Marshall, who has painstakingly pieced it together, unearthing a hitherto unknown treasure trove of Fraternity ephemera. Working alongside Fraternity’s early manager and head of Adelaide music set-up The Grape Organisation, Hamish Henry, Marshall has overseen the remastering of Fraternity’s two albums, the aforementioned Livestock, and 1972’s Flaming Galah, released respectively on the Sweet Peach and RCA labels. The icing on Seasons Of Change’s sumptuous cake is a third disc, Second Chance, which updates the Fraternity story with long-lost session tapes and live recordings.