AC/DC singer Brian Johnson recently snubbed the theories in his just-released memoir, “The Lives Of Brian”, that the band’s late frontman Bon Scott wrote some of the words for the “Back In Black” album prior to his untimely death in early 1980.
Scott was invited to join AC/DC by Malcolm and Angus Young in 1974, and achieved international stardom before his death at the age of 33 from alcohol poisoning. Scott died of acute alcohol poisoning after a night of heavy drinking at a club in London, just days after attending a session with Malcolm and Angus Young where they began working on music for what became the “Back In Black” album.
He sang on AC/DC’s first six studio albums, including “High Voltage”, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway To Hell”.
Brian Johnson opens up on the matter
“Back In Black” was the first album AC/DC released after Johnson replaced Scott, and it went on to become the third-biggest-selling LP of all time.
Asked in a new interview with Rolling Stone why he felt he had to do that, Brian said: “There was one particular journalist — a writer in Australia — who just wouldn’t let go of this thing. And of course, [AC/DC’s founding guitarists] Malcolm and Angus [Young] were, like, ‘What a f**king load of bullshit.’ And I said, ‘I wish you would tell him.’ And their attitude was always, ‘Just leave it. Just let them talk himself into a fuckin’ early grave.’ And of course, it became more and more obvious by the day that Bon hadn’t, because the riffs weren’t written then. The boys were still doing it. So we didn’t say anything because otherwise it would have given him more fame.”
He continued: “It wasn’t something that stuck in me craw a lot, but every now and again, a fan would come up and say, ‘This guy’s saying this.’ And factually, it wasn’t true. There wasn’t an Internet then; it didn’t really get further than Australia. But I thought it was awful I had to explain meself and that’s why in the book, I went, once and for all, I want to put this baby to bed.”
