The 90s was a big hit for metal songs, and one of the biggest faces of the metal band back in the day was AC/DC. The group was formed back in 1973 by Evans and a year later he was replaced by Bon Scott.
They made their debut album back in 1975 (High Voltage) and the extraordinary voice of Scott left the people in shock in Highway to Hell back in 1979, which was sadly his last album. He died due to poisoning in London in 1980, but his songs are still counted as one of the most legendary in the music industry.
This was a hard thing to carry on for the band as they had lost the spotlight member of the team and when a band loses their prominent members, they have to face a pile of challenges. This was a huge challenge for the band because eventually, they would have lost their fans and morale.
They needed to find a replacement for the band to keep on going and after many hard decisions, they finally came up with the replacement as Brian Johnson in 1980.
During an interview with the BraveWords, the lead guitarist of AC/DC, Angus Young, shared his opinion: “I remember the first time I had ever heard Brian’s name was from Bon”.
“Bon had mentioned that he had been in England once touring with a band and he had mentioned that Brian had been in a band called Geordie and Bon had said ‘Brian Johnson, he was a great rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard.”
So, the replacement for Bon Scott seems to be perfect because it was the name that was first mentioned himself.
Young continues: “And that was Bon’s big idol, Little Richard. I think when he saw Brian at that time, to Bon, it was ‘Well, he’s a guy that knows what rock and roll are all about.’ He mentioned that to us in Australia. I suppose when we decided to continue, Brian was the first name that Malcolm and myself came up with, so we said we should see if we can find him.”
After the arrival of Johnson, the band somehow managed to release their seventh album Back in Black back in 1980. They somehow managed to keep the band alive and after the performance of Johnson was perfect, he revived the voice of Scott and the band again started to get to its peak in the early 1980s.
Johnson was interviewed by a British radio show back in 2020 and was asked about some of his favorite songs from AC/DC songs.
“The one I remember more than anything was one of the first songs we did,” Johnson added “I remember I’m sitting in the little cubicle. Malcolm came down and said, ‘Right, Brian, this is a rough backing track of this song. We want to call it ‘You Shook Me All
“Then I thought, ‘What?’ I was a little bit worried. So the next day I’m getting ready and I went up to Mutt Lange [Producer] and he said, ‘OK, let’s see what you got.’ I just sang it. It was just so natural, the words that were written down.”
“I remember Malcolm coming up, and he looked at me and looked at Angus and Mutt, he said, ‘I don’t know what to say. That could be one of the best rock ‘n’ roll records ever heard in a while!’ So I felt really good about that.”
Brian Johnson’s favorite AC/DC songs
In the interview, he also picked another single ‘Thunderstruck’ from the 1990s The Razors Edge.
“One that I knew, from the get-go, was going to be fabulous was ‘Thunderstruck’, Johnson continued. “I just heard that guitar that Angus had put on, this was the charge and start. When all went together, the ‘aaaahhh, aaaaaahh…’ Then they let me loose ‘I was caught in the middle…’ Then of course, when you all that’s done, you got a ‘thunder!’ It had everything!”
Now let’s talk about the songs that Johnson recently discussed that hold sentimental emotions for him. Malcolm Young announced that he would be retiring from his music career back in 2014 because of his worsening health and sadly back in 2017 he passed away because of advanced dementia.
To give a farewell to Malcolm and Scott the band decided to give a tribute and dedicated their last album ‘‘Through The Mists Of Time’.
“Well, it was a wonderful thing,” he said of Power Up. “After what happened, I really thought I would never be able to get on stage with a band again with my hearing loss. Thankfully, technology came to my rescue.
About a year later, Angus had been keeping his eyes on this and checking in and see how is it and all of that. About a year and a half later, Angus just said, ‘You fancy doing a new album? I’m gonna ask Cliff [Williams] and Phil [Rudd].’
“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s the old boys. The real band.’ And Cliff, who retired, just said, ‘If it’s the old band, I can’t miss it. I have to be part of it.’ So Phil got over all the bad stuff he was going through. He was fit and healthy.”
“There we were all of a sudden in 2018, we found ourselves in Vancouver in the studio. The electricity in that room, I can only tell you. It was something I never experienced before.”
“Because Malcolm had passed, we realized very early on that this was going to be a tribute to Malcolm Young. You could feel that he’s he was there. The songs that Angus brought with him were songs that he and Malcolm had done about 2007-2006. They weren’t completed, but the riffs were there, the chorus, verse ideas.”
