\u201cIf people have a passion for anything,\u201d\u00a0Brian Johnson\u00a0once said, \u201cthey tend to get quite good at it.\u201d The trick is ensuring good timing aligns with the triumph of talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After all, rock and roll has never been known for its kindness when it comes to its biggest artists. The amount of goodwill only sticks around as long as the hits keep coming, and if something slows you down, it\u2019s just a matter of time before people start to forget you and move on to the next flavour of the day. Although AC\/DC managed one of the biggest career resurrections of all time, Brian Johnson was in shambles when making Back in Black.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To be fair, anyone who loses someone like Bon Scott as their frontman should have their days numbered. The Australian rockers had all the makings of a great album in the tank, but once Scott passed away unexpectedly after a night of heavy drinking, there was no way that anyone expected them to rise again. He was wildly revered \u2013 even by peers as prominent as Ozzy Osbourne \u2013 as one of the greatest vocalists the genre has ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, Scott wasn\u2019t just a fly-by-night vocalist. For the Young brothers, this was as close to a death in the family as they had ever experienced, but Scott indirectly gave them their replacement when talking up Johnson\u2019s performance when hearing him in the band Geordie. Anyone filling Scott\u2019s shoes was bound to have a big responsibility ahead of them, but Johnson managed to be one of the few people who could match his gravelly tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First and foremost, Johnson\u2019s screech on songs like\u00a0\u2018Hells Bells\u2019\u00a0seemed to blend Scott\u2019s snotty delivery with something a lot more forceful. The more important thing was being able to pay tribute to what Scott had already done, which included him putting his own spin on classics like \u2018TNT\u2019 and \u2018Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When speaking about joining the group after the fact, Johnson thought that he wouldn\u2019t make it past the first few days in the studio with Mutt Lange, saying in\u00a0AC\/DC Maximum Rock and Roll<\/em>, \u201cIt was like, \u2018Again, Brian, again \u2013 hold on, you sang that note too long so there\u2019s no room for a breath\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n He continued, in awe, \u201cHe had this thing where he didn\u2019t want people to listen to the album down the road and say there\u2019s no way someone could sing that, they\u2019ve dropped that in, even the breaths had to be in the right place. And you cannot knock a man for that, but he drove me nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all of Johnson\u2019s internal struggles, it\u2019s not like Lange was that off the mark. He was already responsible for making glorious sonic experiments that people loved, and if that meant Johnson singing with dead-on accuracy and going through a song line by line, that was what was going to end up on the final tape. If AC\/DC were renowned for formulaic simplicity (in the best possible way), then it mattered dearly that they got it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n