The day Brian Johnson almost turned down AC/DC: “I’m not gonna do it again”
AC/DC have always been one of the most proudly straightforward, unpretentious bands in the history of rock. They have never, ever pretended to be anything other than a bunch of guys who love Chuck Berry and early Rolling Stones who like to play music that’s a supercharged mix of both. Legitimately, I think it’s one of the many reasons why they’re one of the biggest bands in history.
They’re essentially rock music’s answer to McDonald’s. Wherever you are in the world, you can find an AC/DC record, and it will sound basically identical to what you expect it to sound like. Familiar, comforting noise based around Angus Young’s hypercharged Gibson SG. If you like that sound, then you can fill your boots with their high-voltage riffing and deafening screams—if you don’t, then sling your hook.
Perhaps that down-to-earth simplicity made them survive something that would otherwise kneecap any other band. In 1980, singer, lyricist and legitimate candidate for one of the best frontmen in hard rock, Bon Scott, died after passing out in a friend’s car after a night of heavy drinking in Camden. It left the band, whose breakthrough album Highway To Hell had only been released seven months previously, completely stricken.
Of all people, it was Scott’s parents who assured the band that he’d want them to continue without him. Without that assurance, there’s a good chance the band would have left it at that and not given the world one of the most beloved and successful rock albums ever in the form of Back In Black. Ironically enough, it was viewing AC/DC as a job to be done rather than an immutable cultural artefact that secured their spot as the world’s biggest band.
How did AC/DC hire Brian Johnson?
The irony of it all is that the closest the band came to messing everything up was the one time they tried to handle themselves with showbiz mystique. Once the band committed to continuing, they drew up a list of candidates to take over lead vocals. Candidates like The Easybeats’ Stevie Wright and Fat Lip’s Allan Fryer were considered. Slade’s Noddy Holder came closer than anyone expected which is one hell of a sliding doors moment.
However, the man who would take AC/DC to the stratosphere very nearly turned them down without even knowing it. Granted, Brian Johnson is a consummate storyteller who may be dressing up this part of the story for comic effect, but at this point, the legend is too good not to be printed. The story begins with Johnson, who was on the cusp of putting his rock dreams to bed and starting a car dealership business in his native Newcastle, receiving a phone call from the band’s management company.
Johnson takes this call, and the problem is that the poor woman on the phone, whom Johnson voices with an ‘Allo ‘Allo quality German accent, can’t really tell him anything, not who she is, who she’s calling from, or who the band is asking him to audition for. Just that they want him to come to London and sing for them.
In an interview conducted for his official YouTube channel, Johnson recalls that he told the young woman, “I’m not coming down to London, I’ve already been bitten by the music bug with [previous band] Geordie. Three years with Geordie, came away without a penny in my pocket, I’m not gonna do it again.” The woman on the phone insists, though, and reasons that she can, at the very least, tell him the band’s initials.
According to Johnson, she says, “‘They are A-C and D-C’. ‘So it’s AC/DC?’ ‘Scheiße! I have said too much!'” With that, he accepted the offer, took the next train to London, and the rest is rock history. As AC/DC proves, sometimes this whole music thing is just a job, and the best thing you can do is treat it as such.
