Throwback to the collaboration between horror master Stephen King and Australia’s biggest rock band AC/DC.
Back in 86, Stephen King released his debut directorial film Maximum Overdrive. Based on his short story ‘Trucks’, the plot revolved around the offending radiation storm on Earth. With it, machines saturate with malevolent consciousness. That moment machines turn against humanity and wow, the movie just goes somewhere else.
Blink of an eye and then, there is a band of survivors trying their best to hold off a gang of homicidal trucks. The movie was something else. It was just horrible. Rotten Tomatoes rated the film at 15%. It was a total bust. About it, King said, “The problem with that film, is that I was coked out of my mind all through its production, and I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
The movie was something that kicked off between King and AC/DC.
AC/DC was one of King’s favorite bands. That was the reason he wanted them to create the soundtrack for his debut directorial feature, Maximum Overdrive. However, AC/DC had no experience in terms of film soundtracks. In the mid-80s, the creativeness was dry with AC/DC. Brian Johnson also opened up about the project. He said,
“It was an interesting thing. It was the first time I’ve been involved in anything like that. The lads said it was a bit like moving mirrors because they had to be watching the clips spot on.” At the same time, Angus added, “It certainly was different for us to work with film. It was also good to make a video for ‘Who Made Who,’ because you have the chance to put your own input into it”.
‘Who Made Who’ is made up of six AC/DC tracks. It consists of six already released AC/DC tracks and two original instrumentals called ‘Chase The Ace’ and ‘D.T.’. The album was created after the band was reunited with producers George Young and Harry Vanda.
The album peaked at number 33 while the title single was at the top of the chart. It also opened a path for 1988’s Blow Up Your Video album which was very successful. However, for King, Maximum Overdrive was a bit too much. It was not loved.
But, the performance of the movie didn’t really affect the band or King. Now, Stephen has a great library of movies like Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption. It also worked as a warning for AC/DC to never go into the way of movie soundtracks because the movie was a disaster. But as mentioned earlier both the band and Stephen were not really affected.
Be sure to watch the interview of Stephen King and AC/DC.
