Before he started ripping the roof off arenas as the lead singer of hard rock icon AC/DC, Brian Johnson was fixing roofs.
In his new memoirs, the The Bells of Hell The singer tells how he went from being a vinyl car roof fitter in the North East of England to frontman of one of the most acclaimed bands in the world.
It’s a Cinderella story. Only Johnson, now 75, has been Cinderella at least three times, never giving up on her dream of singing in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
“I don’t know what it is, I never, ever kind of gave in,” he recently said by phone from his Florida home. “I was always willing to try something that more pessimistic people wouldn’t. I always thought the glass was half full.
The life of Brian Johnson, of Dey Street Books, chronologically traces his ups and downs growing up near Newcastle, ending with his arrival at AC/DC and the recording of the founding band Back in black album.
“It wasn’t so much to validate my life,” he said of the book. “It was to validate the lives of all the wonderful people I’ve met who have helped shape my life – friends from school, friends from factories, friends from music.”
Music was his North Star and he remembers first hearing Little Richard sing “Awop bop/a-loo bop/awop bam boom” at age 11 and freaking out. “Many have described this song, Tutti Fruttilike the sound of rock ‘n’ roll being born – which is fitting, as my dream of becoming a singer was born then too,” he wrote.
Johnson was an engineering apprentice who sang on the side and was a young father and husband. To earn enough money for a public address system, he joined a British Army airborne infantry regiment.
He attended one of Jimi Hendrix’s first shows in Britain, saw Sting perform when The Police star was nearly 15 and befriended members of Slade and Thin Lizzy. He met Chuck Berry but it didn’t go well. “Never meet your heroes,” he wrote.
Johnson, who would later pen the immortal lines “Forget the hearse / ’cause I’ll never die,” made his live debut in the delightfully named The Toasty Folk Trio, survived a horrific car accident and eventually found a some success in the Geordie group.
The group went to top pops – a show that was the crowning achievement of any fledgling group. He gave up a good career at his engineering company, but Geordie only had one Top 10 hit and quickly fell apart.
“At 28, I had lost everything. My marriage, my career, my home,” he wrote. He moved in with his parents and remembers once watching AC/DC on the BBC. “I loved every second. But, of course, it was also a reminder that I had my chance and missed it.
Johnson rebuilt his life as a windshield fitter – later a car roof repairer – and founded Georgie II. He was happy. He had a small business and a small group. “I thought this was my second Cinderella story, but there was more to come,” he says.
The book reveals the origin of his trademark cap: he once rushed to a concert with no time to change, sweating glue and shards of glass in his eyes. His brother, Maurice, lent him his cloth pilot cap for protection, an addition that fans loved.
Still, part of Johnson was dissatisfied. It was a meeting with singer Roger Daltrey that proved to be decisive. The Who frontman invited Johnson – who was then living with his band in an apartment with just four mattresses on the floor – for a meal at his mansion.
By day, Johnson remembers Daltrey riding towards him shirtless and barefoot without a saddle, holding the mane of his galloping white horse. (“If that’s not a rock star, I thought, I don’t know what is,” he wrote.)
“He said, ‘I’ll give you some advice, Brian. Never give up. Do you understand me? Never give up.’ And I really took that to heart,” Johnson recalled. “He probably forgot he said that, but I didn’t.”
AC/DC lead singer Bon Scott died in 1980, and Johnson was granted an audition to replace him based on recommendations, including from Scott himself, who had heard him sing one night. It wasn’t until years later that Johnson realized they had met.
During the audition, co-founder and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young offered her a Newcastle Brown Ale, a nice nod to Johnson’s legacy. And Johnson’s first song with the band at the audition was Tina Turner’s. Nutbush City Limits. (“It was the most electric moment of my life,” he wrote). Then they sang AC/DC tunes. He got the job, of course.
Johnson’s editor, Rowland White, an author whose most recent novel is In the darksaid the form of Johnson’s story is “amazing because it doesn’t usually happen that way”.
“He was happy that he took a chance and he made peace with it. And that’s what makes shooting AC/DC kind of happier, because it wasn’t something he was looking for anymore.
The book ends just as Johnson finally achieves his life purpose. If fans hope to learn more about AC/DC’s origins, he argues it’s not his story to tell – it’s for the surviving members of guitarist Angus Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd. . “This book belongs to the people who were there from the start because that’s what I want to hear,” he said.
Johnson is a natural storyteller, and it was his manager who first suggested a memoir. Johnson resisted. “Every week there is a book written by an old actor or musician. And I always said, ‘No, not another one.’
But encouraged to write a few chapters, Johnson sat down with a yellow notepad. A few years later, he had a book he dedicated to his great-great-great-grandchildren.
Why? He remembers asking his father what his grandfather looked like on the way to his funeral. He was “just a guy,” his father said. Then he asked what his father’s grandfather looked like and the answer was “how the hell would I know?”
“I thought, ‘What a shame, what a pity,’ Johnson said. “Nobody knows anybody a few generations later. That’s why I wrote it for my grandkids. this book will help me to know myself a little more. And I hope that there is a little of me in you, and I hope that you will have a long and beautiful life.
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