Has there ever been a more heterosexual band than Australian rock icons AC/DC? Well, maybe the band that once wrote a song bragging about how much they liked “Big Balls” has had a few moments where they joked around about queerness, but the “Back in Black” band has always been a staple of jock rock. That’s what makes it all the more appropriate that GAYC/DC exists. GAYC/DC specialize in taking classic AC/DC tunes and tweaking them slightly to make them gay anthems. That is, except for “Big Balls,” of course, which required no tweaking whatsoever.
However, in a new music video and single that they released last month, the band decided to step outside of their usual fare and covered a different band than AC/DC. Instead, they put out a cover of Argent’s 1972 classic “Hold Your Head Up.” Originally a song about spousal abuse, the band turned it into a song of strength and comfort for LGBTQ people who have experienced bullying.
The idea for the cover, unfortunately, came from a tragic story involving legendary music producer Timothy Eaton. “Seven months ago, at midnight on a Sunday night, I received a call from a photographer friend, Ward Boult, who suggested that I contact the band GayC/DC, as he felt that I might be a perfect fit to produce them,” Eaton explains. “(Boult) ended the call by telling me he loved me and I returned the warm salutation. A mere few hours later, I got a call from a Nashville detective who informed me that Ward had killed himself and, in fact, I was the last call on his phone.”
Not to let Boult’s last phone call be in vain, Eaton decided to follow up on his late friend’s suggestion and contacted the members of GAYC/DC with a novel idea. “We met through a tragic experience, but once Timothy saw one of our shows, he was smitten and asked us for a meeting,” the band’s vocalist Christopher Freeman explains. “He proposed an idea that he had to create a music video around the old Argent hit from the early ’70s, ‘Hold Your Head Up,’ but putting it in a new context: a video about bullying. All of that would promote a nonprofit of the same name that would help to fund efforts to combat bullying and violence in the LGBTQIA+ community, like Inside Out Youth Services in Colorado Springs.”
The video, which was directed by photographer Robert Sebree and which stars Lexi Love in the main role, depicts a trans youth being bullied by their high school classmates before finding the confidence to be themselves in defiance of the bullies. The video also includes news clips about the tragic violence that LGBTQ people face, including a clip of a news report about the Club Q massacre. “This song, like the very moving accompanying video, is a journey,” says the group’s drummer Brian Welch, “and like what our current climate is for the LGBTQIA+ community, the scary part passes and Hope swells again. We’ve been down this road before, and we know that love will always win.”
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Photo courtesy of GAYC/DC
