Gene Simmons recently told Adam Carolla about dining with AC/DC guitarist Angus Young at a restaurant called Ben Frank’s and how it led to AC/DC landing the opening band spot with Kiss.
“He looks up at [the waitress] and says, ‘I’d like hot dogs and beans,'” Simmons said (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). “And then he says, ‘Without the bread.’ I go, ‘You mean the bun?’ And I’ll never forget when the order came in, right away, ahead of the other people, he picked up the hot dog and opened his mouth and started to chew on the side because in the front there were no teeth. It was unbelievable. He couldn’t afford it!”
“So I told him right then and there — ‘You’re coming out on tour with us. The rest of the country doesn’t know who you guys are. You need to be out on tour.’ We took them out.”
“And I will tell you that every night they went out there and played their hearts out like it was the only chance they’d ever get. And you know, we had to go out there and go, ‘Okay, can’t just do this by the numbers.’ You got to go out there because this band went out there and set the stage on fire.”
