AC/DC spent an entire winter in Montreux. From October 1984 to February 1985, the Australian hard rock band recorded their tenth album, “Fly on the Wall”, at Mountain Studios; it was released on 1 July 1985 on Albert Productions and Atlantic. Unusually in their discography, the record was produced by the Young brothers themselves, Angus and Malcolm, with no outside producer. The lakeside studio had by then belonged to Queen for five years.
AC/DC: a winter in Montreux, interrupted by Rock in Rio
The first album they produced alone
AC/DC arrived at Mountain Studios in October 1984 and did not leave until February 1985. Four months, a whole winter spent by Lake Geneva for a tenth studio album.
The stay marks a break in the band’s discography: “Fly on the Wall” is the first record Angus and Malcolm Young produced themselves, with no outside producer. After Mutt Lange, who had shaped “Highway to Hell” and “Back in Black”, the brothers took back control of their own sound.
Claude Nobs had known the band for years. While working for Atlantic, he had organised their first European tour, opening for the Scorpions: “We had a truck that was falling apart… we were hungry, they had no money, so we stopped at a level crossing and asked the crossing keeper to make us something to eat,” the festival’s founder recalled (“Le petit prince du jazz”, Le Matin, 2011).
Three weeks in Rio, then back
The recording was interrupted right in the middle. In January 1985 the band put down their instruments for three weeks and flew to Brazil: they headlined two nights of the Rock in Rio festival, in Rio de Janeiro, before enormous crowds.
Then AC/DC came back to Montreux to finish the record, in the quiet of a casino studio in winter. “Fly on the Wall” was released on 1 July 1985.
The contrast sums up rather well what Montreux offered bands of that stature: a place where you could work for months unseen, a few hours’ flight from the biggest stages in the world.
The free exhibition inside the real Mountain Studios, where Queen recorded seven albums between 1978 and 1995.
Music recorded in Montreux
1985
Fly on the Wall
The Young brothers self-produced this album at Mountain Studios in the autumn of 1984. Australian hard rock in the hushed calm of Montreux, ten years after the band’s appearance at the festival.
