With AC/DC Scott performed on the band's first seven albums: High Voltage (1975, Australian only release), T.N.T. (1975, Australian only release), High Voltage (1976, first international release), Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976, not released until 1981 in the United States), Let There Be Rock (1977), Powerage (1978) and Highway to Hell (1979). AC/DC's popularity grew throughout the 1970s, initially in Australia, and then internationally. Their 1979 album Highway to Hell reached the top 20 in the United States, and was their commercial breakthrough.
Sometime during the late evening of 18 February and early morning of Tuesday, 19 February 1980, Scott passed out and died at the age of 33. He had just visited a London club called the Music Machine (currently known as KOKO). He was allegedly left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by his friend Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich. Later that day, Kinnear found Scott unconscious and alerted the authorities. Scott was taken to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The official report of the coroner concluded that Scott had died of "acute alcohol poisoning" and classified it as "death by misadventure”.
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On 15 February 1980, Scott attended a session where Malcolm and Angus Young were working on the beginnings of two songs that would later be recorded on the Back in Black album: "Have a Drink On Me" and "Let Me Put My Love Into You", with Scott accompanying on drums rather than singing or writing lyrics. Young has also claimed Scott played drums on "Hells Bells" while AC/DC drummer Simon Wright has claimed Angus Young played him a demo of Scott playing drums on "Back in Black”.
Sometime during the late evening of 18 February and early morning of Tuesday, 19 February 1980, Scott passed out and died at the age of 33. He had just visited a London club called the Music Machine (currently known as KOKO). He was allegedly left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by his friend Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich. Later that day, Kinnear found Scott unconscious and alerted the authorities. Scott was taken to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The official report of the coroner concluded that Scott had died of "acute alcohol poisoning" and classified it as "death by misadventure”.
In 1994, when Clinton Walker published his book Highway to Hell, it portrayed Scott as moving in drug-heavy circles in his final days in London but was emphatic that even as an alcoholic and inveterate pot-smoker he was not a co-dependent heroin user, and it supported the coroner’s findings. An alternative account of Bon Scott's death, however, has been made by Australian author Jesse Fink in his book Bon: The Last Highway, which was first published in 2017.
The chronology of events on 19 February, Kinnear's account of what happened, and when exactly Scott was found dead was disputed in Bon: The Last Highway. In the book Zena Kakoulli, a heroin user and wife of Only Ones vocalist Peter Perrett, admitted to Fink she was with Scott and Kinnear: "I was there when he died, as I spent the night at Alistair's flat... I went back with Alistair and [Bon] to Alistair's flat. It was very late when we got back and I remember it being very cold. [My husband] Peter [Perrett] did not go with us that night."
Fink then asked Kakoulli if she thought Scott had used heroin: "I didn't see him taking heroin, but both Alistair and Silver were users at the time. I would think it probable that [Bon] did take heroin as I would not have thought somebody that was used to drinking would have been sick. It's well known that if you take heroin when you have been drinking, especially if you don’t normally, it could lead to you vomiting, plus cause you to pass out. But I can only presume that's what caused him to fall asleep and later vomit. He didn't seem unreasonably intoxicated. If he had taken heroin it was with Silver and Alistair at the venue [The Music Machine]; I didn’t see him [take heroin].”
The chronology of events on 19 February, Kinnear's account of what happened, and when exactly Scott was found dead was disputed in Bon: The Last Highway. In the book Zena Kakoulli, a heroin user and wife of Only Ones vocalist Peter Perrett, admitted to Fink she was with Scott and Kinnear: "I was there when he died, as I spent the night at Alistair's flat... I went back with Alistair and [Bon] to Alistair's flat. It was very late when we got back and I remember it being very cold. [My husband] Peter [Perrett] did not go with us that night."
Fink then asked Kakoulli if she thought Scott had used heroin: "I didn't see him taking heroin, but both Alistair and Silver were users at the time. I would think it probable that [Bon] did take heroin as I would not have thought somebody that was used to drinking would have been sick. It's well known that if you take heroin when you have been drinking, especially if you don’t normally, it could lead to you vomiting, plus cause you to pass out. But I can only presume that's what caused him to fall asleep and later vomit. He didn't seem unreasonably intoxicated. If he had taken heroin it was with Silver and Alistair at the venue [The Music Machine]; I didn’t see him [take heroin].”
Kakoulli's sister, the late Koulla Kakoulli, who saw Scott that night, also believed Scott used heroin. She told Fink: "Bon had a lot to drink that night. And I would be very surprised if he too [like Alistair] didn’t take a lot of drugs that evening, mainly heroin. I don’t wanna upset anybody this late in the game. End of the day it was a tragic accident. But [speaking] as an ex-junkie, Bon looked stoned." Koulla Kakoulli died in 2018.
But, despite Zena Kakoulli's recollection that she was alone with Kinnear and Scott, an updated edition of Fink's book in 2022 produces new evidence from a 2009 French magazine interview with deceased journalist Guillaume B. Decherf that Zena Kakoulli's husband, Peter Perrett, was actually with Scott, Kinnear and Kakoulli.
Fink writes: "Perrett told Decherf he had met Bon for the first and only time at The Music Machine; that he and Zena had used heroin that night; that neither of them were called as witnesses by police; that he suspected Bon mixed heroin and alcohol, which later caused Bon to throw up; and that he believed Bon was there at the venue to procure heroin, likely from Alistair. Sensationally, Perrett also stated he went with Zena, Alistair and Bon back to Alistair's apartment in East Dulwich.”
In 2024, Fink released Bon: Notes from the Highway, a sequel to Bon: The Last Highway. In the book Fink interviews Liz Elliot, a friend of Kinnear's, who claims Kinnear visited her and her partner's home following Scott's death and admitted to giving Scott heroin.
"We were at home in Ladbroke Grove the day a distraught Alistair came round and told us that Bon had died. I understood it to have happened in the back of Alistair's white van, that they’d been drinking, Bon had had some smack and, unable to wake him, Alistair had thrown a blanket over him and next day found him dead... we were worried for Alistair himself because he had, at Bon's request, provided the heroin. [My partner] Brian suggested it might be a good idea if Alistair dropped out of view for a while although we reckoned that the alcohol would be given as cause of death for the sake of the band and the fact Bon was a teenager's hero.”
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| Statue of Bon Scott, Fremantle, Western Australia |
"When the alcohol verdict was announced we wondered who had paid off who but it was a great relief to all of us, especially Alistair, who’d come round a couple of times in the interim – but I knew he’d never quite forgive himself... I guess they weren't looking for it so much in those days or perhaps they were trying to keep the statistics down – who knows?"
In 2023, Clinton Walker published an expanded third edition of Highway to Hell. The author counters that since all the new eyewitnesses Fink uncovered state they did not actually see Scott take any heroin, and since the fact remains that the coroner found nothing in his bloodstream but alcohol, there is still no hard evidence that heroin was involved in his death.
As part of the funeral arrangements, Scott's body was embalmed by Desmond Henley;[48] it was later cremated, and Scott's ashes were interred by his family at Fremantle Cemetery in Fremantle.
Shortly after Scott's death, the remaining members of AC/DC briefly considered disbanding. However, it was eventually decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue, and with the Scott family's encouragement, the band hired Brian Johnson as their new vocalist.[50] Before his death, Scott had praised Johnson and the performer's group Geordie to his friends, comparing the other vocalist to Little Richard and remarking (according to Angus Young) along the lines that Scott had found "a guy that knows what rock and roll is all about”.
In 2023, Clinton Walker published an expanded third edition of Highway to Hell. The author counters that since all the new eyewitnesses Fink uncovered state they did not actually see Scott take any heroin, and since the fact remains that the coroner found nothing in his bloodstream but alcohol, there is still no hard evidence that heroin was involved in his death.
As part of the funeral arrangements, Scott's body was embalmed by Desmond Henley;[48] it was later cremated, and Scott's ashes were interred by his family at Fremantle Cemetery in Fremantle.
Shortly after Scott's death, the remaining members of AC/DC briefly considered disbanding. However, it was eventually decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue, and with the Scott family's encouragement, the band hired Brian Johnson as their new vocalist.[50] Before his death, Scott had praised Johnson and the performer's group Geordie to his friends, comparing the other vocalist to Little Richard and remarking (according to Angus Young) along the lines that Scott had found "a guy that knows what rock and roll is all about”.
