Brian Johnson remains tip-lipped about the future of AC/DC, and he has his reasons why.
Johnson was pressed for new information about the band in a new interview, but he would not budge on the line of questioning. First, he was asked if AC/DC would ever play live again. Johnson replied, “I’m not answering that. Why should I? First of all, there’s five members in this band, and to ask one member isn’t fair.”
Next, the frontman was asked for his own personal opinion on whether he’d like to perform with AC/DC again. He said, ” … I cannot answer that. I’ve been told not to by everybody. It’s the official line.” Johnson was then asked whether he would like to make a follow-up album to AC/DC’s Power Up. Once again, he shuts things down.
“It’s getting tabloid here,” responded Johnson. ” … If I say one thing, it’ll be blown out of all proportion. You just can’t afford to talk now. There’s too much blabber on the internet. And I’m not on any kind of Face-thing or social media at all — never have been. It’s just gossip.”
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As previously reported, Johnson was forced to step away from AC/DC in 2016 due to issues related to hearing loss. He rejoined the band in 2020 for their album Power Up, which served as a tribute to late guitarist Malcolm Young. The singer was able to rejoin the band thanks to newly developed in-ear monitor technology, which he talked about in an interview in November.
“It’s a tiny small little — a little sack. You put it in your ear. You don’t have to get it fitted,” said Johnson. ” … There’s a little thing on the end, a little tube, and it’s a pump. You press it, and it inflates, and it becomes an eardrum. And it uses the bones and the bones in the chin.”
He added, ” … But also, it can be fitted to Bluetooth, and you can hear. And you can hear 360 — globally, as they call it — and there’s no hissing. These regular hearing aids, they’re always hissing and dissing.”
Johnson mentioned the technology has already been deployed to other singers who have struggled with hearing loss, like k.d. Lang. He said, “She was gonna retire. We sent it out to her, and she started crying on the Zoom. And she’s back out on the road now.”
Johnson continued, “Huey Lewis needs it. A lot of people now, because it’s something new, it can be scary. But it isn’t. It’s just absolutely wonderful… We wanna get it out to the public to make it cheap enough so we can help people who are really deaf — in warzones and soldiers and guys who worked on aircraft and tank drivers.”