Ex-AC/DC Bassist recalls Bon Scott as a "mad uncle" with a gentle heart

Former AC/DC bassist Mark Evans says the band's late-frontman Bon Scott was not quite the drunken madman history has made him out to be.

Evans was asked recently by Let There Be Talk's Dean Delray to elaborate on the other aspects of the singer's personality that haven't quite made it into his rock 'n' roll legend. There was a lot more to Bon than drinking and debauchery, he says.

"He was our social director. Within the band, he was called 'the old man' because when I joined the band, I was 19 and Bon was 29," Evans explained. "It was like being on the road with your mad uncle — everyone's got a mad uncle, one who drinks too much at weddings, and it was like that.

"It looked like Fonzie on the outside but inside there was this really a bit of a hippie '60s love child sort of thing in there. It's great fun to be around him, an absolute gentleman..."

Evans was part of the lineup that established AC/DC's classic sound from 1975-1977. He said that drinking too much wasn't Scott's sole purview — all the band members all had their bad days on the road. At home, Bon embraced a more peaceful existence when he got a taste of it.

"Bon used to come around every Monday night and we'd have roast lamb, and he was gonna be washing dishes with my mum. My mother Norma and Bon got on famously. He really missed the domestic family side of things," Evans continued. "It was a great bunch of guys. I can't talk about it without having a big smile on my face. ...You can't be that sharp and that much on the ball if you're wrecking your life."

Listen to the full conversation via the player above!

Bon died of alcohol poisoning in February of 1980 at 33 years old. A friend of the singer told author Jesse Fink in the 2017 biography Bon: The Last Highway that by the late-'70s Bon starting trying to plan his departure from AC/DC. The singer desperately wanted to quit drinking, but didn't think he'd be able to do it if he was still in a touring rock band.

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission