A new Bon Scott biography claims to solve the mystery of how he died.
Bon Scott was born Ronald Belford Scott in Forfar in 1946 and lived in Kirriemuir until 1952, when his family moved to Australia.
Once there he became part of one of music’s biggest success stories after joining Glasgow-born brothers Angus and Malcolm Young in their band AC/DC in 1974.
On February 19, 1980, aged 33, Scott passed out after a night of heavy drinking in a London club and was left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by former friend and neighbour Alistair Kinnear.
The following morning, Kinnear found Scott lifeless, and alerted the authorities.
Scott’s body was taken to nearby King’s College Hospital.
The coroner concluded that the vocalist had died due to acute alcoholic poisoning.
However, a new biography promises to divulge “startling new information about Bon’s last hours”.
The Last Highway: The Untold Story Of Bon Scott And AC/DC’s Back in Black will be out November.
Author Jesse Fink previously penned The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC.
The press release stated: “At the heart of Bon: The Last Highway is a special — and unlikely — friendship between an Australian rock star and an alcoholic Texan troublemaker.
“Leaving no stone unturned in a journey that begins in Austin, 1977, and ends in London, 1980, Fink takes the reader back to the end of the ’70s, a legendary era for music that saw the relentless AC/DC machine achieve its commercial breakthrough but also threaten to come apart.
“With unprecedented access to Bon’s lovers, newly unearthed documents, and a trove of never-before-seen photos, Fink divulges startling new information about Bon’s last hours to solve the mystery of how he died.
“Music fans around the world have been waiting for the original, forensic, unflinching, and masterful biography Bon Scott so richly deserves — and now, finally, it’s here.”
Jesse Fink was born in London in 1973 and raised and educated in Sydney, Australia.
Already a seasoned journalist and writer, Fink credits the music of AC/DC as the catalyst which possibly saved his life.
Fink was struggling to get over a divorce and was “almost suicidal” when he opened his laptop and ‘Gimme a Bullet’ from AC/DC came on.
He said: “Of course, Bon is talking about his heartache over a woman he can’t have, and for me it was kind of like, this guy’s reading my mind, he’s kind of singing about my own life.
“And it was just this moment of epiphany really, and it was like, I get it. I understand AC/DC.
“I think it really kind of saved my life that night.”
