Why AC/DC Asked Steven Tyler to Induct Them Into Rock Hall
When it came time to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, AC/DC immediately thought of one person: Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
Speaking to Billboard that same year, Malcolm Young said Tyler’s name had “sprung to mind straight away” to thank the singer for being good to them back in the day. “When we first came to the States… we were doing sort of club dates and things like that,” he remembered. “[Aerosmith] heard we were in the country and they got us put on as a support act for 'em. And when [Tyler] would do interviews he would talk about us, too. He got us onto The Midnight Special.”
Young – who died in 2017 – continued: “What really sealed it was when we were on a gig with Foreigner, who had a big hit record at the time, and it was a big stadium. Aerosmith was on it, too. Foreigner didn't want us on there for one reason or another, and it was Steven Tyler who said, ‘Well, if you're gonna drop them, we're not playing either.’ I thought that was brilliant. So when we look back we thought he was the man who helped the band when we first came to the States, and we're grateful for that.”
But Young expressed a degree of ambivalence about going into the Rock Hall. "I know we came up for it a few times before and we were rejected, too," he added. "So it's a bit of a sweet thing in a way, but to us it's not an honor. We just had to go through with it, in a way; I think it might have been better if we were ignored again! And there's the other side of it, too; there's not a lot of rock 'n' roll in that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is there? Not true rock 'n' roll.”
Steven Tyler Inducts AC/DC Into the Hall of Fame
AC/DC Perform at Their Hall of Fame Induction