AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams has confirmed that he will be stepping out from the band after the current tour in a new video.
“It’s time for me to step out, and that’s all”, says Williams. “Not because we’ve lost Mal, Phil or Brian. I mean, everything changes when something happens like that. When Bon [Scott, vocals] died, it changed then. You know, everything changes, so it’s not that. It’s just… I’m just ready to get off the road, really, and do what I do…
“In between tours, we take a few years off, so I know how to do that, I know what I’m gonna do. Again, it’s just my time. I’m happy. I just need to… Family time now… just chill out and not do this.
“I mean, I couldn’t have asked for anything more, being with the people I’m with and have been, and being in this situation with this band, playing this music.”
Last year, former drummer Phil Rudd was sentenced to eight months of house arrest after he was found guilty of taking drugs and making threats to kill a former employee. In 2014, the band announced guitarist Malcolm Young‘s retirement from the group after he was diagnosed with dementia.
And the recent departure of singer Brian Johnson, replaced on tour by Axl Rose, means that most of the people he’s spent the past four decades with are no longer there.
