How Brian Johnson almost turned down AC/DC
Imagine, for a moment, you could land your dream job tomorrow, whatever that may be. Out of the blue, Martin Scorsese gives you a call and wants you to star in his film. Anna Wintour decides to retire to raise chickens in the Andes and leaves Vogue in your hands. Lewis Hamilton suddenly steps away from Ferrari and offers you his spot in the hot seat. It’s all your dreams coming true, right? That was the case for Brian Johnson when AC/DC asked if he’d like to sing for them. Or is it?
Take a second and really think about it. It’s also the most terrifying prospect imaginable, isn’t it? The fantasy is what makes it a dream. It’s not just about getting to play Batman in a movie—it’s about everyone loving that film and your performance in it. If the dream comes true, but the film turns out to be dreadful, leaving you a laughing stock at best or the target of legions of angry fans at worst, it’s hardly the same.
So, when the news came through to Brian Johnson that AC/DC, having just made their commercial breakthrough with 1979’s Highway To Hell, wanted them to sing for him. He should have been doing cartwheels on the surface. Having spent the first half of the 1970s fronting the hard rock also-rans Geordie and the second half struggling to get a solo project off the ground, Johnson’s music career was at an all-time low by the end of the decade.
He was on the wrong side of 30, broke, and still living with his parents. As he details in an interview with Howard Stern, he was, as he put it, “weeks away” from jacking in his music career and setting up an automobile business. Then, the most exciting hard rock band in the world gives him a call. They had, on the advice of producer Mutt Lange and their late previous singer Bon Scott, decided to offer him the job of being their singer, and Johnson nearly turned them down. Not because of the pressure though, this was because he had no idea who was asking!
The way that Johnson tells Stern about it is that the call came from a German woman asking him to come down to London “to sing for a band”. That was it. No word about who it was from. For confidentiality reasons, she couldn’t tell him. Johnson said, “Well, I’m not coming down to London then!” Johnson then elaborates, saying, “I said ‘You’ve gotta give us a clue,’ and she said ‘The band’s initials are A, C, D, and C.’ ‘So it’s AC/DC.’ I said and she said ‘I have said too much!’”
The “Allo ‘Allo!” level accents make one feel that perhaps this is a story being embellished for a spot on a comedy radio show, but I can imagine the truth isn’t far off. Going from living with your parents to following up one of the biggest-selling albums of the year within weeks is an experience that would terrify all of us. Perhaps though, we should just be more Brian. Take the opportunities you can get and make the most of them. After all, the first record he made with them was one called Back In Black. Which worked out pretty well for everyone involved.
