From Dave Grohl to David Gilmour: 10 stories of fateful auditions in rock music
You don’t imagine bands having to interview someone. You picture The Ramones arising from a New York gutter like fast-forwarded conglomerates of matter evolving into punky beings in the fashion of a David Attenborough documentary time-lapse. However, like it or lump it, admin is everywhere in the modern world. Hell, even Dave Grohl had to ‘network’.
Drummers don’t grow in Petri dishes; you can’t pluck a guitarist of your choosing off a tree. To find the right fit, you have to search high and low, then put them to the test. Thus, it might come as a surprise, but a slew of musical stars were originally put to the test in an audition. Simon Cowell and co might not have been casting their judgements, but most bands weren’t fully formed brethren from the get-go.
Below we have compiled a list of iconic band members and how they came to join the outfits we know them from. Whether it’s Brian Johnson replacing the dearly departed Bon Scott in comic circumstances or Dave Grohl finding a fitting place behind the kit, these are fateful tales for which we can all be glad.
10 stories of fateful auditions in rock music
ACDC – Brian Johnson
“I was living at home with my parents in my thirties, a fucking loser,” Johnson joked on the Howard Stern show. His band, Geordie, were floundering despite being heralded as a great live act, and Brian Johnson was being forced to face up to adulthood. He planned to give the music industry another couple weeks while transitioning into an automotive business. He was literally weeks away from being a gravel-voiced man talking about horsepower when ultimately, the spotlight wandered onto him with an auspicious swing of fate before the final hurdle.
As Johnson explains: “There was a fan from Cleveland, who to my eternal debt I thank, Mutt Lange [Record Producer] who said you’ve got to try this guy. And unwittingly Bon Scott himself had said, ‘Of all the singers I have seen in England this kid called Brian Johnson was the best’… which was a very nice thing to say.” Thus, when Scott tragically passed away in 1980, his AC/DC bandmates already had a replacement in mind.
When he got the audition invited, he was hesitant. “I’m 32, I’m past my sell-by date for rock bands, I’m an old fart,” the Newcastle car dealer mused when he received a mysterious musician invite to London. He hung up thinking he wouldn’t attend. 30 minute later he received a phone call offering him a quick £350 to record a jingle in – you guessed it – London. He decided to kill two birds with one stone and travel down. The rest is ancient history.
The Beatles – Ringo Starr
There is a myth that Ringo Starr wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles. This was actually a line that came from a comedy sketch. Nevertheless, the quip still endures that Ringo wasn’t a great drummer, and you can’t help but feel it’s no small tragedy. You see, the brilliance of Ringo was that he was a reliable engine. As McCartney said himself when recalling his first audition, “The first few minutes that Ringo is playing, I look to the left at George and to the right to John, and we didn’t say a word, but I remember thinking, ‘Shit, this is amazing’.”
His simplicity was a strength that let the band gel, as ‘Macca’ appraised: “Look, I love Led Zeppelin, but you watch them playing and you can see them looking back at John Bonham, like, ‘What the hell are you doing? This is the beat. You could turn your back on Ringo and never have to worry. He both gave you security and you knew he was going to nail it.” Thus, after one session, it became clear that this was the man to replace Pete Best. The rest is ancient history.
Nirvana – Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl merely answered an ad when he joined Scream. And Kurt Cobain was merely forced along to watch him by a friend. Cobain had gone off Scream’s new style, but he was unaware that they had recently recruited a new drummer. At the show, he forgot all about his disdain, turned to his pal and proclaimed, ‘That’s the kind of drummer we need’. Six weeks later, they invited Grohl over to Seattle.
A few days later, he was invited over to a rehearsal room called the Dutchman, and midway through the first song, ‘Silver’, Cobain and Novoselic gave each other the nod to say: “We’ve got our guy”. During an impromptu acoustic set on Calvin Johnson’s KAOS radio show the next day, Cobain announced that Nirvana had found “the drummer of [their] dreams.” This is how Grohl knew he was in the band.
Pink Floyd – David Gilmour
In 1961, Syd Barrett’s father passed away a month before his 16th birthday. The grief this caused often seems underplayed in what followed. This moment encouraged him to perform in the first place, as his mother thought it might help him recover from the grief. Within four years, Barrett had found some solace, and Pink Floyd formed in 1965. By January 3rd, 1968, David Gilmour had accepted a try-out to replace him. And a few weeks later, he was in the front row of a gig at the Imperial College in London, almost motionlessly watching his old college friend play his licks.
Gilmour had gone to school with the band and was originally recruited just to help out. As Peter Jenner explains: “The idea was that Dave would … cover for Barrett’s eccentricities and when that got to be not workable, Syd was just going to write. Just to try to keep him involved.” However, even that became untenable, and it was clear that Gilmour would have to step in as a permanent central member. The rest is ancient history.
Pearl Jam – Eddie Vedder
Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament’s start in music was a tragic one. Things were going swell with their band Mother Love Bone when, suddenly, frontman Andrew Wood died over a heroin overdose just months before their debut album was set to be released. The band disbanded, and both gave up music in a period of mourning.
However, Gossard soon got back on the horse and eventually teamed back up with Ament after encouragement by Mike McCready. Their next job was to find a drummer and a frontman. They put out an instrumental demo and passed it to Jack Irons of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, hoping to recruit him as their own sticksmith. He declined, but he passed the tape onto a singer he knew in San Diego called Eddie Vedder.
Vedder listened to the demo before heading out to go surfing. Then, the part-time gas station employee was hit with a great idea while rollicking in the waves. He would pen his own three-part opera over the instrumental tracks describing the tragic rise of a killer. He presented these three tracks – ‘Alive’, ‘Once’ and ‘Footsteps’ – to his recruiters, and within a week, he was flown out to Seattle, and Pearl Jam had formed. The rest is ancient history.
Black Sabbath – Ozzy Osbourne
In 1968, Geezer Butler placed an ad in the local paper advertising for a singer in a new type of band. The notion of heavy metal remained a mystery at this stage unless you were referring to Tungsten, but somehow it attracted the perfect fit.
‘There’s this thing at the door’, Geezer’s older brother reportedly informed him. ‘What do you mean by this thing,’ Geezer replied. He was told to simply go and look. He was greeted by a skinhead kid wearing a brown gown with a shoe on a lead (presumably for the pun ‘I’m just walking a-boot’, but who knows?) and a chimney sweepers brush in the other hand. This best uttered, ‘Hello, I’m Ozzy’, and the rest is ancient history.
Ozzy Osbourne – Randy Rhoads
When Ozzy later left Black Sabbath in a blaze of madness, he decided to have a bash at a solo career. However, when he was auditioning for future band members, he noticed very quickly that everybody was just imitating his old Black Sabbath cohorts. If he had wanted that, then he would’ve stayed in Black Sabbath.
After about 100, Tony Iommi impersonators had failed to pass muster, and in walked Randy Rhoads. He plugged in, and in the mere act of practising and finding his fingers for the first few minutes, Ozzy said, “You’ve got the gig.” Rhoads hadn’t even played a single song at this stage of the audition. The rest is ancient history.
Roxy Music – Phil Manzanera
Roxy Music put an advert in Melody Maker reading: “The Perfect Guitarist for Avant-Rock Group. Original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty, scary, stable, tricky. Quality musicians only.” 20 musicians applied. Phil O’List got the gig. Phil Manzanera was only good enough to be assigned a roadie position.
However, in time, O’List’s rowdy ways led to a row that got him fired. Manzanera knew all the songs, and the keen attitude he showed, having offered to work as a roadie, endeared him to the group. Soon they would find that he was indeed: “The Perfect Guitarist for Avant-Rock Group,” and he was given the job full-time. The rest is ancient history.
Pixies – Kim Deal
God loves a chance, and Deal takes the proverbial biscuit. In true punk fashion, Deal auditioned to be in the Pixies without being able to play the bass. Thankfully, the advert she responded to said, “Band seeks bassist into Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary. Please – no chops.” And thankfully further still, the smiling face of post-punk was the only person to respond.
Thus, the guitarist borrowed her sister’s bass, and figured, ‘How hard can it be to transpose her guitar playing skills to the four string’, and set off for her audition. She proved the perfect fit, and she even knew a drummer too. Having met David Lovering at her wedding reception she suggested him to Black Francis and soon the Pixies had every box ticked. The rest is ancient history.
The Killers – Brandon Flowers
The only thing that guitarist Dave Keuning asked for when he put an ad in a Las Vegas newspaper for musicians, was that all applicants were fans of Oasis. Despite growing up in a small town where AM radio ruled the roost, Brandon Flowers happened to be a huge fan of the Britpop giants.
Thus, he responded and hit it off right away with Keuning. In fact, they got off to such a barnstorming start that the very first song they worked on happened to be ‘Mr Brightside’. Now, that debut idea happens to be a record-breaking triumph. The rest is ancient history.
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