Brian Johnson was mega impressed with Axl Rose’s work in AC/DC

Back in 2016, AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson was forced to leave the band’s Rock or Bust World Tour after suffering crippling hearing damage. 

“It was pretty serious,” Johnson previously told Rolling Stone of the experience. “I couldn’t hear the tone of the guitars at all. It was a horrible kind of deafness.”

“I was literally getting by on muscle memory and mouth shapes,” he explained. “I was starting to really feel bad about the performances in front of the boys, in front of the audience. It was crippling. There’s nothing worse than standing there and not being sure.”

“He jumped into a tough, tough vocalist gig,” Johnson shared. “You’ve got to be on top of your game for that. There’s not many resting places. You’ve really got to go in full chop, all of the time. And for him to do that at such short notice was pretty fantastic. I’ve got a lot of respect for what he did, you know. A lot of respect.”

Whilst taking a break from touring Johnson enlisted the help of a medical specialist and began experimental hearing restoration treatment.

“The first time he came down he brought this thing that looked like a car battery,” Johnson told Rolling Stone. “I went, ‘What in the hell is that?’ He said, ‘We’re going to miniaturize it.’ It took two and a half years. He came down once a month. We’d sit there and it was boring as shit with all these wires and computer screens and noises. But it was well worth it.”

Johnson hasn’t revealed much in the way of the technical elements of the treatment, revealing: “The only thing I can tell you is that it uses the bone structure in the skull as a receiver. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

Today, AC/DC unleashed their seventeenth studio album, PWR/UP.

Check out POWER UP by AC/DC:

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine