AC/DC's Brian Johnson Opens Up On Returning After Hearing Loss: 'I Don't Have The Words'

Brian Johnson has opened up about returning to AC/DC after his issues with hearing loss. 

Johnson and AC/DC guitarist Angus Young joined Apple Music's Zane Lowe ahead of the release of their forthcoming studio album, Power Up, which is due out tomorrow. 

In 2016, doctors advised Johnson to cease touring immediately or risk becoming permanently deaf, with Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose stepping in for live performances over the coming years. Johnson has now returned to the band, thanks to new in-ear monitor technology. 

Johnson has now told Lowe about his experience over the past few years.

"And when this thing happened to me, it was sudden. Well, it was building up. I knew it was getting worse and worse. And then it suddenly came to the point where it had to stop. And then I was told to stop," he said. 

"And it's horrible and it's cruel. And you're suddenly by yourself. You're by yourself. You have family, your family's gone. But at the same time I had to be realistic about it. I said, 'Listen, this isn't anything terminal. I've still got me health. And I've been very lucky to have got this far in life.' I think I was 68 years old at the time, which is quite an age. I just thought I'd man up and just have to go through it. It was painful and horrible. But as I've said before, I just buried my head in a bottle of whiskey for a couple of months. And I did. And it was painless. And I didn't take drugs or go and see a psychiatrist, do all that rock and roll, what you're supposed to do. You know?

"And then, through all of that, and I'm just like you and Angus, and did you think anything was going to happen? Well, of course I didn't. I thought that was it. And then really, it was only about 18 months after that, and I was just still missing and wondering what to do next, if anything. Because I'm like Angus, I got to do something. I'm just an itchy kind of guy. And I got the call from Angus and the office management, things. And asking if I would like to do an album. 

"And of course I just, I thought that surely this couldn't be another great chance in life to do what you love doing. And it certainly was. And that's why I'm so appreciative of the lads and everybody to just give you a chance to get in there and show you can dry your stuff out in the studio.

"I've got to tell you, it was just lucky. When this wonderful gentlemen had came up and was looking for me, and he was an audio professor. And he wanted to try this new technology. And he said, 'Listen, we could do it together if I can come down and visit you.' And I thought it might have been all smoke and mirrors, somebody trying it on, but he was the actual, genuine article and he did fly down all the way up from Denver, Colorado. We sat there for two days and I just couldn't believe the results. But unfortunately, it was the size of a car battery, so we spent the next two years basically miniaturizing, which is the hard thing. And anyway, it worked well. 

"And when we'd done the album and we'd shot a video in Amsterdam, Angus said, 'Do you want to do a rehearsal?' Because I didn't want to go through what I went through again, and so 'Angus,' I said, 'Yeah.' And then Angus put the whole back line up. And they were saying, 'Well, we're going to start quietly,' and we said, 'No, no. I want full battlefield conditions.' 

"And little Stephen came with us, and we put it in, in the ears, and we were expected at least maybe two days of screwing around with, but boy, oh boy, it worked straight away. Fantastic. I don't have the words. I really don't have the words to tell you how I felt. But I know happy was one of them. It was really good."

Power Up, the band's 17th studio album and first since 2014's Rock Or Bust, is out tomorrow.