Former AC/DC Bassist MARK EVANS: 'I Would've Loved To Continue On With The Band'

Chuck Armstrong of Free Gotham recently conducted an interview with former AC/DC bassist Mark Evans about Mark's new book, "Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside/Outside AC/DC". An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Free Gotham: What made you decide to write this book? You were with AC/DC in the '70s, thirty years later, why now?

Mark: I've been approached on a number of occasions to write a book. Obviously, at the outset, publishers wanted me to write basically a tell-all about AC/DC. But it's not a band that you would be in and do that, you know? The timing of the book is interesting. After publishers told me, "You should write about this," I just kept saying I don't think so. I came to a point, though, in my life where there were a couple of things that spun me around on a family level. It just seemed like the right time to sit down and draw a breath, not necessarily to write a book about AC/DC, but write a book, as you know, that is a memoir. It's an autobiography. If I write just about my time in AC/DC, it wouldn't make too much sense because a lot of the things I've done since AC/DC were actually influenced by when I was a kid.

Free Gotham: That makes sense. I mean, the title of the book is inside and outside of the band. It covers everything.

Mark: The majority of the story is with AC/DC. But I was very aware to write about my whole life so far. The timing was right. The time became right for me on a personal level to put my thoughts down on paper. The process was very interesting. When I was writing, man, I was cracking up laughing at some of the stories. We definitely got down to some interesting stuff. There are some great memories, man. I really cherish my memories from my time with the band. We really were a great band. We worked hard, we played hard. There was nothing to stop us. I would've loved to continue on with the band, but that's just the way life is.

Free Gotham: You say you laughed and there are obviously some great stories in the book. There are also some tough stories, though. What was the hardest part about writing the book?

Mark: It surprised me, really. In the book there are a couple of family losses. The one that surprised me was writing about losing my father. I was prepared to write about the other stuff that happened later in life because I've grown to live with that stuff on a daily basis. But, writing about losing my father…you know, it's a memory you'll always have. You'll take that with you. I was 12 years old when I lost my father. But recounting, in detail, what happened say in the last four or five hours, I went right back into pretty sort of graphic detail. I got back into living that. It knocked me around. To go back and relive it, I could even smell things. Part of what caught me on it, though, was at that time my youngest daughter, Virginia, was 12 years old. Looking at that from my father's eyes, I thought about the effect it would have on Virginia. I found that very, very difficult to contend with. And to be quite honest, speaking about it now is not particularly easy. I can feel things welling up. You're writing with an adult sensibility and looking back at that 12-year-old kid and thinking, "Oh my God, what a terrible thing to happen." It was a terrible thing to happen, it's a terrible thing to happen to anyone. The end wasn't pretty, either, you know? In essence, that was the most difficult thing to write about.

Read the entire first part of the interview from Free Gotham.