How AC/DC's Bon Scott impacted the life of Mastodon's founding guitarist, Brent Hinds
To the late Brent Hinds, Bon Scott was a character, a lifestyle, a cautionary tale, a hero and more, all rolled into one
The Beyond The Thunderdome podcast launched in 2021 with a mission to discuss all things AC/DC. Those who've appeared on the show include Airbourne, Simon Wright, Chris Slade, Chris Jericho, Scott Ian, Slash, Dweezil Zappa and Dee Snider, and in March 2021, late Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds was interviewed. Below, podcast co-creator Kurt Squires remembers the encounter.
When we spoke to Brent Hinds , he was exactly who you’d expect Brent Hinds to be. Before the day was over, he’d invited us onto Mastodon ’s tour bus, shown off a freshly inked AC/DC tattoo, and asked which song we’d like him to play on his Gibson SG while we filmed the band that night. We chose The Czar . He grinned and obliged.
None of it was surprising. By then, AC/DC, and especially Bon Scott, had been woven into Hind’s life for decades. In fact, his Bon Scott story began beside a swimming pool in Florida. The first AC/DC music Hinds ever owned was a Highway To Hell cassette.
“I was about eleven years old,” he recalled. “I rode my bike off, bought it with my allowance money, took it down by the pool and listened to the whole thing over and over again.”
And the experience was unforgettable. “It was electrifying,” he said. So electrifying that Hinds became so absorbed in the music, and he forgot he was lying under the Florida sun. By the time he got back to his family’s cottage, he was badly sunburned everywhere except for one perfect white rectangle where his Panasonic portable cassette player had rested on his chest. His first encounter with AC/DC had literally left a mark.
Like many musicians of his generation, Hinds discovered that Bon Scott wasn’t just a singer. He was a character, a lifestyle, a cautionary tale, a hero and more, all rolled into one.
Even decades later, Hinds measured his own excesses against Bon’s.
“Every time I’ve ever overdone it partying and woke up feeling like death, my body’s been like: ‘Brent, you’re gonna die like Bon Scott right now. Get up and go puke.’”
The line is funny because Brent tells it like he’s telling a joke. For all the mythology surrounding Bon Scott, and there has been plenty of it over the decades, Hinds understood that there was a cost attached to the party. Yet the admiration never faded.
“To this day, What’s Next To The Moon on Powerage is probably my favourite AC/DC song.”
That choice says a lot. Hinds gravitated toward one of Bon’s most colourful and overlooked stories, a reminder that beneath the riffs and swagger was a gifted storyteller.
Like Bon, Hinds left us too soon. He passed away in 2025 at the age of 51, leaving behind his own devoted following of fans, musicians and friends. Yet the mark Bon left on him was still there for everyone to see, tattooed on his skin.
Kurt Squiers is the brains behind the podcast AC/DC: Beyond The Thunder . He was hooked by Highway To Hell at the age of ten, had his first live AC/DC experience in 1985, and finally met the band in 2000, a relationship he has since maintained. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is the author of the upcoming book AC/DC: Every Dirty Song .
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
