"T.N.T." is a song released in 1975 by Australian

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

band

AC/DC AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...

, taken from their Australian album '' T.N.T.'' and the international version of ''

High Voltage High voltage electricity refers to electrical potential large enough to cause injury or damage. In certain industries, ''high voltage'' refers to voltage above a certain threshold. Equipment and conductors that carry high voltage warrant sp ...

''. It was released as a single in 1976 and was written by

Bon Scott Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was an Australian singer who was the second lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980. In the July 2004 issue of ''Classic Rock (m ...

Angus Young Angus McKinnon Young (born 31 March 1955) is an Australian musician, best known as the co-founder, lead guitarist, songwriter, and the only continuous member of the hard rock band AC/DC. He is known for his energetic performances, schoolboy-u ...

and

Malcolm Young Malcolm Mitchell Young (6 January 1953 – 18 November 2017) was an Australian musician who was the rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and a founding member of the hard rock band AC/DC. Except for a brief absence in 1988, he was a member of AC ...

. It peaked at No.19 on the Australian

Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music historian David Kent from May 1974 through to January 1999. The chart was re-branded the Australian Music Report (AMR) in July 19 ...

Singles Chart. Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until

Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is a trade association representing the Australian recording industry which was established in the 1970s by six major record companies, EMI, Festival Records (Australia), Festival, Sony Music ...

(ARIA) created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent t ...

in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974. The song's title is a reference to the explosive chemical

TNT Troponin T (shortened TnT or TropT) is a part of the troponin complex, which are proteins integral to the contraction of skeletal and heart muscles. They are expressed in skeletal and cardiac myocytes. Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps ...

. A slightly modified line from the song, "Lock up your daughters", was used as the title of AC/DC's first headlining tour of Great Britain in 1976 after the band's move from Melbourne, Australia, to London, earlier that year. "T.N.T." later appeared on ''

Live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film * ''Live'' (2023 film), a Malayalam-language film *'' Live: Phát Trực Tiếp'', a Vietnamese-langua ...

'' and the '' Live: 2 CD Collector's Edition'', with

Brian Johnson Brian Johnson (born 5 October 1947) is an English singer and songwriter. In 1980 at the age of 32, after the death of Bon Scott, he became the third lead singer of the Australian rock band AC/DC. Johnson was one of the founding members of th ...

Cliff Williams Clifford Williams (born 14 December 1949) is an English musician, best known as the bassist and backing vocalist of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. He started his professional music career in 1967 and had previously been in the English g ...

, and

Chris Slade Chris Slade (born Christopher Slade Rees; 30 October 1946) is a Welsh drummer, who is perhaps best known for playing for Manfred Mann's Earth Band from its inception in 1971 to 1978 on eight albums, and AC/DC, for which he drummed from 1989 to ...

providing vocals, bass, and drums, respectively. In January 2018, as part of

Triple M Triple M is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo. The network consists of 45 radio stations with flagship stations broadcasting a mainstream/classic rock music format in Sydney, Melbourne, and B ...

's "Ozzest 100", the 'most Australian' songs of all time, "T.N.T." was ranked number 81.

Personnel

– lead vocals *

– lead guitar *

– rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Mark Evans – bass guitar *

Phil Rudd Phillip Hugh Norman Rudd (born Phillip Hugh Norman Witschke Rudzevecuis, 19 May 1954) is an Australian musician, best known as the drummer of AC/DC across three stints (1975–1983, 1994–2015, 2018–present). On the 1977 departure of bass g ...

– drums *

Harry Vanda Johannes Hendrikus Jacob van den Berg (born 22 March 1946), better known as Harry Vanda, is a Dutch-Australian musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as lead guitarist of the 1960s Australian rock band the Easybeats who wi ...

– producer *

George Young George Young may refer to: Arts and entertainment * George Young (filmmaker), Australian stage manager and film director in the silent era * George Young (rock musician) (1946–2017), Australian musician, songwriter, and record producer * G ...

– producer

Charts

Certifications

Covers

*American

death metal Death metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...

band Six Feet Under recorded a cover version of the song for their album ''

Graveyard Classics ''Graveyard Classics'' is a cover album by American death metal band Six Feet Under. It includes cover versions of such classic rock hits as "TNT" by AC/DC, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, and "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix. Track listing ...

''.

Anthrax version

The

Anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis'' or ''Bacillus cereus'' biovar ''anthracis''. Infection typically occurs by contact with the skin, inhalation, or intestinal absorption. Symptom onset occurs between one ...

cover of this song was released on their 2013 covers EP ''Anthems''. They debuted the song live 21 February 2013 at The HiFi in Brisbane, Australia ahead of

Soundwave Soundwave or Sound Wave may refer to: * Sound, a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave * Acoustic wave, the wave which carries sound Festivals * Soundwave (Australian music festival), an annual music festival 2007–2016 * Soundwave Fe ...

. Later on their tour in the US,

Slash Slash may refer to: * Slash (punctuation), the "/" character Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Slash (Marvel Comics) * Slash (''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'') Music * Harry Slash & The Slashtones, an American rock band * Nash th ...

and

Kirk Hammett Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962) is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Metallica since 1983. Prior to joining Metallica, he co-formed the thrash metal band Exodus in 1979. In 2023, Hammett, along ...

(at separate gigs) joined them for this song.

In popular culture

*The song is used for the

Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The ...

' goal song. *The song was played in commercials for the 2004 film ''

Napoleon Dynamite ''Napoleon Dynamite'' is a 2004 American Independent film, independent Coming-of-age story, coming-of-age comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt (producer), Chris Wyatt and Sean C. Covel (producer), Sean Covel, written by Jared and J ...

''. *The song appears on the soundtrack and the intro to the 2002 skateboarding video game ''

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4'' is a 2002 skateboarding game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision under their Activision O2 label. The game was ported by different developers to various systems. It is the fourth installment in the ' ...

''. *After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, the song was included on a widely circulated Clear Channel employee's list of potentially upsetting songs. *The song is featured in the 2006 film '' Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby''. *

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

coverage ''

NASCAR on TNT ''NASCAR on TNT'' Sports is the branding for NASCAR races broadcast on TNT and formerly TBS both by TNT Sports. Initially on TBS from 1983 to 2000, then later moving to TNT to serve as the cable partner for NBC Sports' coverage of NASCAR from ...

'' used the song as its theme music from 2010 to 2014. *It appears in a

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

commercial for

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

. * The

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers or colloquially Freo, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represen ...

in the

AFL AFL may refer to: Education * Angel Foundation for Learning, a Canadian Roman Catholic charity * Ankara Science High School, a high school in Ankara, Turkey, natively referred to as ''Ankara Fen Liesi'' * Assessment for learning Military * ...

play the song after every home game victory. * The

Northwestern Wildcats The Northwestern Wildcats are the athletic teams that represent Northwestern University, located in Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and one of two private universities in the conference, the other ...

football team plays the song after every home game turnover.

References

{{Authority control 1975 songs 1976 singles AC/DC songs Songs written by Bon Scott Songs written by Angus Young Songs written by Malcolm Young Song recordings produced by Harry Vanda Song recordings produced by George Young (rock musician) Albert Productions singles