Brian Johnson revealed that he was blown away by good friend Axl Rose stepping in for him during the last string of AC/DC dates when he battled hearing issues.
Despite many fans feeling as though the band was being insensitive by “replacing” Johnson — the fact remains that the tour was booked and the band's entire crew would've been out of work had the tour been canceled.
Brian Johnson told Ultimate Classic Rock he was thrilled by Axl carrying off his parts on the road: “He jumped into a tough, tough vocalist gig. You've got to be on top of your game for that. There's not many resting places. You've really got to go in full chop, all of the time. And for him to do that at such short notice was pretty fantastic. I've got a lot of respect for what he did, y'know. A lot of respect.”
Guns N' Roses have always counted AC/DC as being among their primary influences. Slash told us a while back about meeting AC/DC for the first time in 2000, when his then-band Slash's Snakepit opened for them: “Brian Johnson broke the ice. He came into our dressing room the night of the first show. I was like, I had my pants halfway up when he came in, and everybody was scattered around the room and everything was really quiet. All of the sudden the door flung open and Brian Johnson comes in in a towel and he goes, 'Hey, nice to meet ya folks. Just wanted ya to have a good show, blah blah blah.' And we were just like, 'Whoa.'”