A biography for Cliff Williamshasn’t been written yet.
“I don't require too much of anything.”
“The PMRC is infringing upon everything the United States says it stands for.”
“The idea of our concerts is for kids to have a good night and let off steam.”
“My first album with the band was 'Powerage,' and that was 1977. It was all new and fresh, and these people, I didn't know them, and Australia, and I'm from London, and there was the whole fitting in thing. They were great - very accepting.”
“Yeah, I retired at the end of the 'Rock or Bust' tour. I just thought, 'I had a good run, I can't be doing a tour through all of this.' God bless the people that stood in and helped us finish it. But at that point, I was done.”
“If 'Back In Black' has Bon Scott all over it, for me, 'Power Up' has got Malcolm Young. This is for him. And it's the band that we played together with for 40-plus years.”
“My wife and I went and saw John McLaughlin years ago playing at some club, and it made me feel uncomfortable. It made me feel kinda twitchy. Too busy! My wife hated it, so we got out of there. So no, jazz is not for me. I know there's some awesome bass players there, though.”
“AC/DC without Mal isn't AC/DC.”
“We started the 'Rock and Bust' tour without Phil, and it went from there. So it was a slow process for me in my own mind thinking: this is it, I'm done.”
“I like to go on a bit of boating and things like that.”
“For decades, I've used flatwounds everywhere - studio and live. I prefer the punch and the fatness of a flatwound string. I played wires when I was younger, but they have too much clatter for what I want.”
“Our lyrics are supposed to be about fun.”
“I very rarely play with my fingers anymore. Again, with the flatwounds, the pick gives me a really nice solid punch.”
“When you start out, you kind of hope for success. That's what you are working for. But you never really know.”
“We go out and do our thing and hopefully people will like it.”
“Adults take our songs out of context.”
“Because of my father's job, the family moved a lot. I was born in London, but we moved to Liverpool because the company that he worked for transferred him.”
“I played a Fender Precision for a little while, when I originally joined the band. Then - what is that little headless graphite bass that looks like a toothpick? Steinberger. Those were the first active pickups I ever used, and I really liked the sound, but I hated the bass.”
“I had a buddy that somehow got hold of a lot of American blues records, and I'd go over to his place and we'd listen to them, and I don't know who the players were, but it was a type of music that really attracted me. I was definitely in awe of the James Jamersons of the world: In fact, it might have been him who I first heard playing.”
“When I play, I mute with the pad of my hand; it's just a feel thing. If the string is ringing out a little too much, on this note here or there, I'll just mute it slightly, just to keep it all even.”