After the success of AC/DC's 2008 album, Black Ice, it was a no-brainer for the hard rock band to hire Brendan O'Brien back for their latest album, Rock or Bust. The producer spoke with Ultimate Classic Rock recently about the record, which was released in December. O'Brien talked about his favorite tune on the album as well as how long the effort took to record.
"I can't remember how long we spent on the last one, on Black Ice, but they seem remarkably similar as far as the amount of time. We got it done a little more quickly this time, but I think we did less songs, actually," he said, Blabbermouth notes. So I think the last time we may have done ... we may have had 15 or 16 songs we did ... I could be wrong about that. They both went fairly smoothly. These guys work very hard; there's no slacking. They're very workmanlike. As far as when it comes to showing up at the studio, they're there on time every day, ready to go, so that kind of has a lot to do with it."
O'Brien's favorite track on the album is song number three, "Rock the Blues Away," which was the first one the band recorded when it got into the studio.
"It sounds like these guys," he added. "Both times I've worked with them, stuff was getting set up the first day, especially on Black Ice. And they're out in the studio, and I'm out there with them, usually, but I'm in the control room at this point and kind of making sure it sounds the way it's supposed to sound, all that kind of stuff. And as I'm running something down, I'm kind of going, 'That sounds like AC/DC. That's kind of great. So we're halfway there.' So as soon as we kind of get that part of it going, the rest of it sort of seems to fall into place."
The album is the band's first without Malcolm Young, who is currently suffering from dementia.
