Dave Evans, the original singer of AC/DC, left the group in 1974 after just two singles, but he remains an active musician and vocal commentator on the state of rock music.
In a recent interview with Mexico’s Rock 111, Evans claimed rock music’s popularity has waned “because they’re not playing it on the radio.”
“The last rock band signed by a major label was about 20 years ago,” Evans said. “I’m not talking metal; I’m talking about rock and roll, rock music. There hasn’t been a rock act signed for 25 years. So if people are not hearing it, how can they like it? You play it to them, they love it.”
Evans distinguished between rock and metal acts, offering criticism of the latter. “Rock and roll is an attitude – a real attitude, not a pretend one,” he said. “Metal is a pretend attitude – they get up there and go, ‘Rahrahrahrahrah’ – it’s nonsense. They get up there and paint their face and ‘Yeahyeah’ and they go home to their mamas: ‘Mama, what’s for dinner?’ But rock and roll is real.”
Evans also shared his views on modern music. “A lot of [modern] music’s pretty clinical — it’s very clinical,” he said. “You go back and listen now to bands like Led Zeppelin and Free — that’s when you’re feeling it, man. Really feeling it. This music today, it’s boring to me because there’s no humanity. There’s no humanity with that music… It might be clever and dexterous, and [they might] play all the chords and all that sort of stuff, but there’s no feel. That’s the humanity, the humanity of music. And those guys that do all that [busy shredding] stuff, there’s no humanity in that whatsoever. It’s just a fact. Like [Carlos] Santana — he plays one note… That’s the humanity in music. Not [playing a lot of notes at high speed]. That’s what you’re supposed to do at home so you can play melody.”