The Time Brian Johnson Met Bon Scott

According to ultimateclassicrock.com, Brian Johnson says that he offered Bon Scott shelter during a winter storm for the only meeting of the two future AC/DC singers. Johnson recalls the event in his new book, The Lives of Brian, that is set for arrival on October 25th. At the time he was the singer of Geordie and had arrived for a club show to find Scott’s pre-AC/DC band Fang ending their opening set.

Johnson wrote, “He was one of the wildest-looking cats that I’d ever seen, Coconut-bob hair. Abe Lincoln beard. He looked like an elf. But, fuck me, the guy could sing. What he was singing wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll though. It was more like … prog-folk. Along the lines of Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past. Only proggier. And folkier. At one point, he even whipped out a wooden recorder and started to play in a way that would have brought tears to the eyes of Mrs. Patterson, my old teacher.”

Later on that same evening, Johnson and his bandmates heard a knock on the window of the bed and breakfast where they were staying. Fang’s tour bus broke down, and had the band stranded in the middle of a cold sleet filled night. Geordie ended up sneaking the band in through the window to offer them shelter until their vehicle was repaired.

Johnson went on to say that, “I never saw Bon again, I’m very sorry to say, But it’s so strange to me that our fates entwined on that one night on the Torquay seafront in the freezing cold. I wish that I could have got to know him better.” Scott joined AC/DC in 1974 and was their singer until his death in 1980. Johnson took over later on that same year and has stayed with the band ever since.

Photography Stock Ruiz / Shutterstock.com