Angus Young recently sat down with Triple M for an extensive interview detailing the seventeenth AC/DC studio album, Power Up.
During the interview, Angus Young recalled the first time he saw vocalist Brian Johnson perform in Sydney with his pre-AC/DC band Geordie. Revealing that his stage presence knocked the socks off both Young and Bon Scott.
“I knew that he had a good voice. And Bon was saying he remembered one night he heard his loud howling and screaming,” he mused. “And he saw this guy kind of on his knees, rolling around on the stage, and he thought this was exciting.
“I thought it was one of the best acts I saw of a guy, of a front guy on a stage – going berserk, screaming, and all that.”
Brian Johnson auditioned to join AC/DC back in 1980, following the tragic passing of Bon Scott. Of Johnson’s audition, Young recalled: “I knew he had the register, you could hear it in his voice – cutting edge to his voice.
“Plus he sang ‘Rosie’, and he did a great version of ‘Highway to Hell.’ He had that register, he had that vocal ability to do it.
“It’s a pretty powerful sound, we when were cranking up, it’s a powerful sound, and to get above that, you gotta have the tool.”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Young delved into how the band got together to record Power Up. The future was looking uncertain for the hard rock legends after Brian Johnson was forced to leave the band’s Rock or Bust World Tour after suffering crippling hearing damage.
However, instead of hanging up the boots, Johnson enlisted the help of a medical specialist and began an experimental hearing restoration treatment.
On Johnson’s hearing issues, Young explained “I knew that Brian had been working with hearing specialists, they were using him as a bit of a guinea pig, but happily, he was having a lot of good results. And for him, it was all new stuff.
“So I was getting constant updates about how he was doing with that, so that was good. He was getting a lot of positive vibe about that.”
Once Johnson was given the all-clear, the Power Up wheels were set in motion.
“It was relatively just a matter of everyone communicating,” explains Angus Young. “It was really a case of everyone knowing that and everyone wanted to be on board with it. And it was a fitting thing also, becoming a tribute for Mal. It all comes together really smoothly, I thought.”
AC/DC unveiled the excellent Power Up on November 13th, you can check it out in all its glory below.
Check out POWER UP by AC/DC:
