There was a time when singer Brian Johnson might have felt better crashing into a wall at high speed than living the rest of his life without being able to perform anymore with the legendary rock band AC/DC.
After Johnson was forced to leave the band in 2016 due to a risk of total hearing loss, the “Back in Black” singer turned to the second love of his life after music. That was racing cars, and he found himself winning more than he had in the past.
“People would come up to me afterward and say, ‘Brian, you’re fearless!,’ but I wasn’t fearless,” Johnson writes in his new memoir “The Lives of Brian”.
“I just didn’t f— care anymore. I’d always thought that the best way to go out would be flat-out around a corner. You’d hit the wall and boom, it would be over, just like that.”
In 2016, Johnson said in a press release that the day of his hearing-loss diagnosis was “the darkest day of my professional life.” He had been advised that if he continued to perform with what he called “the loudest band in the world,” he risked losing what was left of his hearing.
By Christie D’Zurilla writing for the Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-10-25/brian-johnson-ac-dc-memoir-hearing-axl-rose
Images:
- The cover of singer Brian Johnson’s new memoir, “The Lives of Brian.” (Dey Street Books / Associated Press).
- Photo of AC/DC members Brian Johnson and Angus Young perform in Chicago in February 2016 by Rob Grabowski / Invision/Associated Press.