Listen: The Final Vocals Bon Scott Recorded With French Rock Band Trust Days Before His Death

When AC/DC started working on their 1980 album Back in Black, the band remained in London, having previously recorded Highway to Hell with producer Mutt Lange. During earlier sessions, Angus Young and Malcolm Young were in the studio working out the music around a few songs and ended up recording demos (without lyrics) for the tracks “Let Me Put My Love Into You” and “Have a Drink on Me” with Bon Scott on February 15, 1980, just four days before his death at 33.

Though Scott was on the two tracks, he wasn’t on vocals. Instead, he played drums so they could get the music down for each song and died before he could contribute any lyrics to anything on Back in Black. “Bon never really got the chance,” recalled Angus Young in 2011. “At the time, me and Malcolm were writing songs, which became the songs for ‘Back In Black.’ We were in London in a rehearsal room, and Bon had come down, too.”

Young continued, “So that was it, really. If you were looking up what Bon had done, it was really just to help us with those demos on the drums. And he even said to us, as we were knocking off in the nighttime, ‘Look, we’ll hook up next week.’ He’d been working on some lyrics, and said, ‘We’ll hook up next week and maybe the three of us can just start going through stuff.’ But unfortunately, he passed before that.”

[RELATED: The AC/DC ‘Back in Black’ Track That Brian Johnson Ultimately Sang and Bon Scott Played Drums on in an Earlier Demo]

Recording with Trust

Days before hitting the studio with Angus and Malcolm for AC/DC, Scott also joined the French hard rock band Trust—which featured Iron Maiden drummers Clive Burr and Nicko McBrain in the lineup at different times during the ’80s—during one of their London sessions for the band’s second album Repression.

At the time, Scott was working with Trust lead vocalist Bernie Bonvoisin on an English translation of the album. Bonvoisin’s vocals were often compared to Scott’s, and Trust had already covered AC/DC’s 1976 song “Ride On” on their 1979 debut Trust I. The band’s 1977 debut single “Prends Pas Ton Flingue” (“Don’t Take Your Gun With You”) also featured a B-side French version of AC/DC’s “Love at First Feel” (“Paris by Night”); Trust also released live covers of AC/DC’s “Live Wire” and “Problem Child” in 1980.

While Scott was in the studio with Trust that day, they asked him to jam with them on “Ride On.” Though Scott would record with Malcolm and Angus Young days later, his recording with Trust was the final one featuring his vocals before his death on February 19 from alcohol poisoning at age 33.

Trust later dedicated Répression, released in 1980, to Scott, and released their 1981 hit single “Ton dernier Acte” (“Your Last Act”), written by Bonvoisin and guitarist Norbert Krief, in memory of the late AC/DC singer.

Photo: Bon Scott, circa 1977, in Hollywood, California. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)