📍Fremantle WA 6160, Australia
1956 – 1966“I was born Ronald Belford Scott in Forfar, Scotland, in July 1946, and grew up in Kirriemuir, a small red-sandstone town in Angus. In 1952 my family emigrated to Australia, settling first in Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne, and in 1956 we moved west to Fremantle, the port city near Perth, with its harbour, beaches, old limestone buildings and sea breezes. My parents were proud Scots, and the family soon found its way into the local Scottish community. At school in Melbourne they called me Bonnie because of my Scottish accent, and the name stuck as Bon. In Fremantle I went to North Fremantle Primary School and John Curtin Senior High School, and I joined the Fremantle Scots Pipe Band, where my father played, learning to play the drums and marching in my kilt; I played with them until I was seventeen. I was a cheeky, rebellious lad, and I left school at fifteen and worked as a postman, a barman and a crayfish deckhand. I got into some trouble with the law as a teenager and spent time in a youth detention centre, which made me even more determined to live my own way. I loved rock and roll, especially Little Richard, and I started singing and drumming in local bands. In the late 1960s I sang with the Valentines and Fraternity, and in 1974 I joined AC/DC as their singer, writing the lyrics for Highway to Hell, It's a Long Way to the Top and Whole Lotta Rosie. My life ended much too young in 1980. Fremantle remembers me with a bronze statue at the Fishing Boat Harbour, showing me on a Marshall amplifier, and Kirriemuir has a statue too.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today