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Artist News
Brian Johnson talks of “despair” after leaving 2016 AC/DC tour due to hearing issues
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 25 October 2022
AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson has spoken about the “despair” he felt when he was forced to leave the band’s 2016 tour due to hearing issues. In his new memoir, ‘The Lives Of Brian’, he says that he was unable to watch Axl Rose stand in for him on the remaining tour dates and, at the time, he “wouldn’t have minded” that much if he had died.
Johnson was forced to step down from the 2016 tour after doctors told him that he risked losing his hearing entirely if he continued to perform. When that was announced, he said in a statement that he was hoping that medical treatment would eventually allow him to return to playing live and that while “the outcome is uncertain … my attitude is optimistic”. However, in his memoir he now says that his state of mind was somewhat different to what he was telling his fans.
“I called Tim, the tour manager, on my mobile right there in the room to tell him that I just couldn’t continue”, Johnson says of the moment he left the tour. “It was one of the most difficult conversations of my life – the pain of it made worse over the weeks that followed when the tour simply went on without me. It was a sheer cliff. I didn’t tumble down, I was in free fall”.
“Part of the pain of it was that I blamed myself”, he continues. “For most of my career, I’d been in the loudest band in the world. I’d flown constantly. I’d flown even when I knew I wasn’t well. For a while, people would ask me if I was depressed, but depression is treatable. My hearing loss wasn’t. What I was feeling wasn’t depression. It was something closer to despair”.
Speaking about Axl Rose standing in for him, he writes: “I’m told that he did a great job, but I just couldn’t watch – especially when you’ve been doing it for 35 years. It’s like finding a stranger in your house, sitting in your favourite chair”.
“But I bear no grudges”, he adds. “It was a tough situation. [AC/DC guitarist] Angus [Young] and the lads did what they felt they had to do. That said, after the band released a statement confirming that I was leaving the tour and wishing me all the best for the future, I couldn’t relax or concentrate on anything. It was just always there”.
Unable to get on stage, Johnson turned to his other love of motorsport. “I found myself winning more than usual”, he says. “People would come up to me afterwards and say, ‘Brian, you’re fearless!’ But I wasn’t fearless. I just didn’t fucking care anymore”.
“I’d always thought that the best way to go out would be at 180mph, flat-out around a corner”, he goes on. “You’d hit the wall and boom, it would be over, just like that. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to die … I just wouldn’t have minded all that much”.
Eventually Johnson met a technician who created in-ear monitors for him that were designed to work with his specific hearing issues, and those allowed him to return to live performances.
“Whatever magic he used, it worked. I could hear again – even in my deaf ear, meaning I was able to enjoy stereo [again]”, he writes. “Suddenly, I felt something that I hadn’t felt in what seemed like an eternity: Hope”.
‘The Lives Of Brain’ is set to be published this Friday.
