Back in 1983, just before the Tipper Gore crackdown on pop culture, when it seemed like rock music was literally going to hell, an interview with AC/DC in The Pittsburgh Press read like an interrogation.

Were they in fact Satanists?

What Dirty Deeds were they doing for dirt cheap?

What access did they have to this highway to hell, and how many of our children did they plan to take along for the ride?

Singer Brian Johnson, 36 at the time and just three years into the band as replacement for late Bon Scott, did his best to make the case they were just regular guys, with church-going children even, and that the shows were all in good fun.

"People forget everything: they have a damn good time for two hours," he said. "I just look at the faces in the audience, and it feels good. They're breaking away from everything that bothers them."

Twenty-five years later -- now that we've survived Motley Crue, Marilyn Manson, Norwegian death metal and all varieties of hardcore -- AC/DC's devilish antics all seem rather quaint.

And downright classic.

The Australian metalheads, playing their first Pittsburgh concert since 2000 Wednesday night at Mellon Arena, arrive not as one of those washed-up dinosaurs ready for the rib festival, but still very much in the thick of things, even with a 61-year-old singer and demented schoolboy guitarist Angus Young at 53.

AC/DC has bled into the culture as much as any metal band in recent years. Their songs ring out in sports stadiums, no more so than in San Diego, where every trip to the mound by career save leader Trevor Hoffman was accompanied by "Hells Bells." Jack Black paid loving homage to them in the movie "School of Rock." And, of course, the songs bring a necessary element of raunch to video games like Rock Band.

The result is that a new generation of fans are wearing the AC/DC shirts from Wal-Mart and flashing the devil horns to such AC/DC classics as "You Shook Me All Night Long," "Back in Black" and "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)."

AC/DC is second only to the Beatles in U.S. catalog sales over the past two years and, since 2003, the band has sold a combined 23 million albums and DVDs.

The Ice-ing on the cake is that earlier this year, five years after its induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, AC/DC not only topped the charts with "Black Ice," it had the second biggest one-week sales of the year, at 786,000 million units in the States.

"Black Ice" blew away Guns 'N Roses' more hyped "Chinese Democracy" (261,000 in the first week) partly because Wal-Mart outdid Best Buy (which had the GNR exclusive), and partly because it's a better album that's more true to the original spirit of the band.

You could slip tracks like "Rock N Roll Train" or "Big Jack" onto your AC/DC playlist alongside "Back in Black" and never know they didn't come from the same era.

AC/DC's further reward for staying in tip-top rock shape is a 42-date, sold-out tour that started in October and runs through January, starting off the new year in Pittsburgh in the right way.

Asked how an old band like AC/DC can sell out a show here in a day, Sean McDowell, longtime deejay at WDVE, says, "I think part of it has to do with the fact that people know exactly what they're getting when they go to an AC/DC show. It's exactly the same lineup since 1980 ('Back in Black'), and they haven't changed their style or their presentation over the years, like so many other artists have, including Guns 'N Roses, Van Halen, Kiss, The Who and Lynyrd Skynyrd."

Lou Hetzer, a local promoter and manager of metal bands, points to the iconic quality of AC/DC. "No way am I surprised AC/DC has lasted this long. Rock 'n' roll is supposed to be about danger, sex, partying, and AC/DC has always stood by that. They brought the sex, drugs, rock 'n' blues attitude and made it cool again in a time of disco and punk. They were to the '70s in my opinion like the Stones were to the '60s; they were dangerous."

And now the current AC/DC ... same as the old AC/DC. No power ballads, nothing trendy, nothing that over-reaches. You're going to get ear-shattering guitar songs about girls, rock and the man downstairs.

"They didn't put on flannel and make a grunge record," Hetzer says. "They didn't release a dance album, they haven't mashed with Jay-Z or Lil' Wayne ... they stayed true to themselves."

They even know enough to stay away from politics, McDowell points out.

Although there aren't a lot of bands these days adopting a sound similar to AC/DC -- after all, it's been done -- there should be plenty of 13-year-olds in the Arena with their forty-something dads.

"With games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, AC/DC are once again gaining young fans that didn't have 'that' kind of band to look to," Hetzer says. "People complain that those video games are hurting the respectability of guitar playing, but it is probably doing the exact opposite. It's getting kids interested in the guitar again. And now kids are rediscovering that sometimes simplicity is better than complexity or speed riffs just for the sake of shredding."

It wasn't guitarist Angus Young but rather Phil Rudd who had the biggest impact on Carmen "CC" Capozzi. Capozzi, the drummer of local metal band Chip DiMonick, took his cue from AC/DC's sledgehammer beats.

"I learned how to play drums sitting in my basement playing the entire 'Highway to Hell' album over and over with red lights on and three friends watching," he says. "AC/DC just has those simple, catchy rhythms that your mother could feel. I can't explain the feeling -- it just makes me want to play drums. I can be at my worst, stale as a musician, and listening to AC/DC takes me back to my roots."

His band leader, who goes by Chip DiMonick, says he's seen plenty of AC/DC imitators in the Pittsburgh rock scene, and while he doesn't blame the Aussies, he's sort of had his fill.

"I feel like AC/DC has been beaten to death by cover bands. It's difficult for me to even listen to AC/DC without getting convulsions that I'm stuck in a bar listening to AC/DC covers. When local bands have struggled to get the attention of the Pittsburgh bar crowd, they've often resorted to that lowest common denominator. That devolved into AC/DC tribute bands."

And where might that highway to hell go to next?

"With cardboard cutouts of Angus Young in Wal-Mart within visual range of cardboard cutouts of Hannah Montana, things are gonna get worse before they get better."