“Power Up” reunites the AC/DC roster of Johnson, Angus Young (lead guitar), Cliff Williams (bass guitar) and Phil Rudd (drums) first heard together on the blockbuster 1980 album “Back in Black.” Stevie Young will again take over the rhythm guitar duties for his uncle, co-founding band member Malcolm Young, who died in 2017.
Johnson, who turned 73 on Monday and shares a home with wife Brenda on Bird Key, returns to his role as lead vocalist after leaving AC/DC because of hearing problems in 2016.
“It was pretty serious,” he told Rolling Stone for an article published this week. “I couldn’t hear the tone of the guitars at all. It was a horrible kind of deafness. I was literally getting by on muscle memory and mouth shapes. I was starting to really feel bad about the performances in front of the boys, in front of the audience. It was crippling. There’s nothing worse than standing there and not being sure.”
AC/DC completed their scheduled tour dates with Axl Rose handling lead vocal duties, and Johnson issuing his own statement.
“I am not a quitter and I like to finish what I start, nevertheless, the doctors made it clear to me and my bandmates that I had no choice but to stop performing on stage for the remaining shows and possibly beyond,” Johnson said in a statement issued in April of 2016. “That was the darkest day of my professional life.”
In the new Rolling Stone story Johnson explains that his hearing has returned following extensive work at home with a specialist.
“The first time he came down he brought this thing that looked like a car battery,” Johnson told Rolling Stone. “I went, ‘What in the hell is that?’ He said, ‘We’re going to miniaturize it.’ It took two and a half years. He came down once a month. We’d sit there and it was boring as s--- with all these wires and computer screens and noises. But it was well worth it. The only thing I can tell you is that it uses the bone structure in the skull as a receiver. That’s as much as I can tell you.”
AC/DC recorded “Power Up” in the winter of 2018-19 in Vancouver with Brendan O’Brien, who also produced the band’s 2008 album “Black Ice” and 2014’s “Rock or Bust.” Each song is credited to Angus and his sibling and longtime songwriting partner Malcolm Young, using material they had worked on previously.
“This record is pretty much a dedication to Malcolm, my brother,” Angus Young told Rolling Stone. “It’s a tribute for him like Back in Black was a tribute to Bon Scott.”
