Brian Johnson, Axl Rose.Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty for Global Citizen VAX LIVE; Paul Kane/Getty
Johnson, 75, reveals in his new memoirThe Lives of Brianthat he dealt with suicidal thoughts after hehad to leave AC/DC’s Rock or Bust Touror risk going completely deaf.
“I just didn’t f—ing care anymore. I’d always thought that the best way to go out would be at 180 mph, flat-out around a corner,” Johnson writes, according toAmerican Songwriter. “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.
The British star previously toldRolling Stonethat his hearing issues were “pretty serious,” and that he was completely unable to hear the tone of the guitars on stage.
In his memoir, he recalls the pain of telling his tour manager that he’d have to sideline himself for the remainder of the tour.
“I called Tim, the tour manager, on my mobile right there in the room to tell him that I just couldn’t continue,” Johnson reportedly writes. “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.”
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“It’s like finding a stranger in your house, sitting in your favorite chair,” he writes inThe Lives of Brian. “But I bear no grudges.”
Though AC/DC has not toured since Rock or Bust, Johnson rejoined the band to record the 2020 albumPower Up, which reunited the four surviving members of the band — Johnson, lead guitarist Angus Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd.Malcolm Youngdied in 2017, and his nephew Stevie Young has been playing in his place since 2014.
source: people.com
