18

Beautiful Mover

ACORN 1 / Alamy Stock Photo

During those early weeks of 1980, the phone in the vinyl shop never stopped ringing. A dealership with six new cars to do. A new club booking. An audition invitation. My ma wanting me to bring the kids over for Sunday lunch. Another club booking. Ellis’s office in Soho on the phone. I was knackered.

Then one morning in early March, I picked up the phone to hear a woman with a very thick East German accent on the line. And maybe because I’d seen one too many war films, she sounded like she was about to give me the third degree.

‘Is zis Brian Yonson?’ she demanded to know.

‘Who’s asking?’ I replied.*

‘Zat is not important. Vat is important is zat you must come to Londe-on to sink wiss a gruppen.’

‘Sink?’

‘Sink. You are Brian Yonson, ze sinker, ja?’

‘Oh . . . you mean singer . . . yes, that’s me. And, er . . . what exactly do you want me to do again?’

‘Sink.’

‘Yes, I got that part . . .’

‘Wit eine rock gruppen.’

‘Okay, look, I’m sorry, but I’ve stopped doing auditions. I’m already in a band and we’re about to—’

‘I cannot tell you ze name of zis gruppen.’

‘Okay, well that’s probably just as well, because like I said, I’m not doing any more auditions.’

There was a long pause. ‘If you knew ze name,’ she said, ‘you vould not be saying nein.’

I was getting a bit annoyed at this point because I really needed to get back to work . . . but I was also curious. ‘Look, if this “rock gruppen” is that big of a deal,’ I told her, ‘maybe you can give me a hint?’

Another long pause. Then a heavy sigh. ‘I suppose I can tell you ze initials,’ she said.

‘Okay then . . .’

‘A. Z.’

I racked my brain, but no band came to mind. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but that doesn’t really ring a—’

‘Und D. Z.’

Now it was my turn to go very quiet. Because I was having trouble believing my own ears. I mean, there was surely no way on earth that this woman worked for . . .

‘You mean . . . AC/DC?!’

‘Scheisse! I’ve said too much!’

Before I go any further, I should probably mention that the period between the show at Lobley Hill and the call from the East German woman had been really frustrating.

That was mainly thanks to Davy Whittaker’s boss, who’d dug his heels in and refused to give him any time off during the week so we could go to London and start putting down some tracks. Red Bus had their own studio by now, and that was where they wanted us to record – but there just wasn’t enough time between Davy clocking off work on a Friday evening and him clocking back in on a Monday morning to drive the 300 miles down there and 300 miles back again and get any real work done in between. We did manage to get one song on tape – ‘Rockin’ with the Boys’ was the title, written by yours truly with Derek and Dave Robson – but Red Bus wouldn’t release it until an entire album’s worth of material was ready.* Until we had a single in the charts, though, Davy was never going to leave his job – and in the meantime, his boss was never going to give him a day off to help him with his musical career. It was the kind of classic Catch-22 situation.

Eventually, I took matters into my own hands and phoned Davy’s boss myself – probably not the greatest idea. Davy worked as a delivery driver for Calor Gas, and he knew all of the company’s customers, where they lived, and what kind of gas they needed and when, so of course the last thing his boss wanted was to lose him.

The second the guy answered the phone, I realized that I didn’t have a leg to stand on. It wasn’t like I was famous or anything. All I could do was appeal to his sense of fairness.

‘Hi, my name’s Brian,’ I said. ‘I’m the singer in Davy’s band. We’ve been given the chance to make a record in London. We just need to drive down to London on a Sunday night, stay at a hotel, and Davy will be back by Thursday.’

‘No,’ came the reply.

‘. . . can I ask why?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Have you even given this any thought, or are you just saying “no” because you can?’

‘The answer was no yesterday. The answer’s no today. And the answer will be no tomorrow.’

‘Oh, come on, give the lad a chance!’ I blurted. ‘He’s a great drummer and this is a huge opportunity for us. Surely you’ve got someone who can cover for him? It’s just four days, then he’ll be back and he can work extra shifts to make up for it.’

‘If he goes to London,’ he said, ‘I’ll sack him.’

That was too much for me. ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘You’re a fucking arsehole.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘YOU . . . ARE A FUCKING . . . ARSEHOLE.’

Slam.

In the end, Davy worked at Calor Gas until he retired, which just made no sense to me at all.

To say that I had mixed feelings about getting a call from AC/DC wouldn’t really go far enough. I mean, the second that I heard the band’s name, I remembered the tragic event from just a few weeks earlier.

It was Ken who’d first broken the news to me at the vinyl shop.

‘Hey Brian, you know that song you sing – “Whole Lotta Rosie”?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The guy who sings it is dead.’

‘No, he’s not. I just saw him on Top of the Pops. He’s as fit as a butcher’s dog.’

‘Well, it says here that he was found dead inside someone’s car – “death by misadventure” they’re calling it.’

‘What? That can’t be right . . . give it here.’

I took the paper from him and read the story myself . . . but I just couldn’t understand how it had happened. In those days, I was completely ignorant about the dangers of drinking to excess or taking any kind of drug. Part of it was the fact that no one in my world ever had enough money for drugs and we all had to get up at the crack of dawn most days to go to work, so getting drunk to the point of losing consciousness wasn’t exactly an option. Meanwhile, I’d never smoked a joint – and as for harder drugs, I’d never been offered them, never known anyone who’d taken them, they were completely beyond my experience. So, it was shocking to me that a lad like Bon, who was just a year older than me, fighting fit, and in the prime of his life, could die like that.

Most of all, though, it was the tragedy of it that struck me – not only for Bon’s family, bandmates and friends, but also for anyone who loved rock music. ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ was one of the greatest rock songs of all time, as far as I was concerned, and it was just one of many classics that he’d written and recorded with AC/DC, from Let There Be Rock to Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. And, of course, Bon and the boys had outdone themselves the previous summer with their Highway to Hell album. Thanks to that gem – and the title song about the hardships of life on the road – they’d finally broken through after six years of non-stop gigging to become a major headline act. Meanwhile, the album had gone all the way to No. 8 in the British charts and to No. 17 in America – where they were becoming an even bigger deal than they were in Europe. The lads had even got onto Top of the Pops with their second single, ‘Touch Too Much’. I’d watched it myself at home just a couple of weeks earlier. Bon had looked like he was having the time of his life. After all, thanks to Highway to Hell, he must have known that AC/DC were on their way to becoming a huge band.

Meanwhile, it still hadn’t clicked in my head that Bon was the guy from Fang whom I’d shivered with in freezing Torquay, seven years earlier. And it would take a while yet . . .

The East German woman who’d called me wouldn’t tell me her name, so I came up with one myself – ‘Olga from the Volga’. From what I could gather, Olga worked in the office of a guy called Peter Mensch, a tour accountant turned manager, but whenever I asked her a question, it was met either by stony silence or ‘Zis, I cannot say.’

What puzzled me was how my name had ended up on their list of singers to call. It made no sense. By now, it had been seven years since Geordie’s run of minor hit singles, and I was only a household name in the sense that everyone in my house knew my name.

What I’d find out later – much later – was that my name had actually been put forward by several different people. There was an AC/DC fan in Cleveland, Ohio, who’d seen Geordie back in the day and written to Peter Mensch, recommending the band try me out. Then there was the young South African producer of Highway to Hell – Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange – who also knew of Geordie and had also mentioned me to Angus and Malcolm. And I learned later that Bon had also told them about me after our Torquay adventure.

The other question at the top of my mind was whether Angus and Malcolm and the other lads would even want to continue without Bon. Again, it would take a while before I learned the full story, but the answer might have been ‘no’ – at least right then – if it hadn’t been for Bon’s parents, Isa and Chick (Chick was short for Charles). They told Angus and Malcolm that Bon would have wanted AC/DC to keep going and finish the album that they’d just started work on. At the very least, they thought it would be a welcome distraction for the band – something to give them a bit of comfort and help them deal with their grief.

As for me – my mind was racing by the time I got off the phone with Olga.

I mean, I was flattered and excited to get the call, of course. It almost didn’t feel real, auditioning for a band that was so well known around the world. But I also knew that there’d be dozens of other contenders all vying for the same gig, and I wasn’t sure that I had the heart to go through all the anticipation and disappointment, especially since my little band was doing so well.

Hang on Brian, get yourself together. Get the facts straight. You’re thirty-two, living with your mother and father. You’ve got a successful little business and a successful little band. You’re happy with your girlfriend, you’ve got your two lovely daughters, you can afford things for them – everything’s going great. Why would you do this? I’ll tell you why – I fucking have to.

But first, how the fuck do I get down to London on such short notice?

I’d have to cancel my vinyl jobs for that day. Meanwhile, Ken needed the Austin Maxi for the business – the week of the proposed audition was a particularly busy one – and my own car at the time was a wildly temperamental Jaguar XJ that had a mind of its own and could be very bad tempered.

‘I think I’m going to have to say no,’ I told Ken, after I’d explained what the call had been about.

‘Oh, you’ve got to give it a shot, Brian,’ he said.

‘Look, I’m not going to get it, anyway,’ I replied, already starting to talk myself out of it. ‘They’ll hire someone they already know, probably another Aussie.’

‘Why don’t you sleep on it?’ suggested Ken.

Before I had a chance to call Olga from the Volga back with my answer, another call came out of the blue.

This time it was my old pal André Jacquemin. We’d kept in touch, and he’d gone on to found Redwood Studios in London.

‘How would you like to earn £350?’ he asked.

‘Look, André, whatever it is you want me to do for that kind of money,’ I said, ‘the answer’s yes.’

‘Great,’ he laughed. ‘All you need to do is come down to London for a day and record a jingle for a Hoover advert. Now, I can’t promise you that they’ll use your take – you’re up against a very large lady who sings gospel music – but you’ll get paid regardless.’

The gearwheels in my mind had started to spin even before he’d finished his sentence.

‘. . . and, er, when do you need me there?’ I asked.

He named the day – and it was on the same day as the proposed AC/DC audition.

‘Let me talk to my business partner,’ I said, grinning. It wasn’t just the AC/DC gig that I was pleased about. I’d also never done any kind of commercial work before – and I loved the idea of doing a session at a brand-new state-of-the-art studio like Redwood.

At which point, Ken walked in and saw the look on my face.

‘What are you looking so pleased about?’ he asked.

I told him about the call.

‘Brian, I think someone up there is trying to tell you something,’ he grinned.

After debating how best to get to London, I decided to throw caution to the wind and take the Jag. Then off I went down the A1 to meet André at Redwood Studios.

After singing about the sucking power of a vacuum cleaner, I felt fucking fantastic. My contract even included repeat fees, a very alien concept to anyone who had worked in the 1970s rock’n’roll business.

Finally, at about 3.30 p.m., it was time to drive the three miles southwest across London to Pimlico – the journey took only about fifteen minutes in those days – where I’d been told that in the back of a commercial garage there was a rehearsal space and recording facility called Vanilla Studios. That’s where I would be meeting the band for my audition.

By the time I’d got there and found a place to park, I was feeling pretty hungry – I’d been up since the crack of dawn and driven 300 miles – and there was still some time to kill before my 5 p.m. audition slot. So, I ducked into an old café, a real London before-the-war kinda place. I ordered a cup of tea and a meat pie. The woman behind the counter – at least I think it was a woman, the six o’clock shadow made it confusing – had a cigarette dangling from her lips, ash flying everywhere when she talked. It didn’t bode well on the hygiene front. The fact that the pie crust wouldn’t give way using tooth, knife or nail was an indication of its age and ancestry. So, in the name of health and safety, I got up from the table, put on my cap, and decided to face the unknown on the other side of the street instead.

It’s a miracle I ever found the entrance to the studio, it was so hidden away.

But I did – and then suddenly I was inside and being welcomed by the AC/DC road crew, who were in the middle of a game of pool. Next thing I knew, I’d put a coin on the table, it was my turn to play, and we were having a great old natter and a laugh.

I’d just sort of assumed that the band were busy with something and would come and get me, but no, they were in the rehearsal room, looking at their watches, wondering where the fuck the guy from Newcastle was. Eventually, the band’s tour manager, Ian Jeffery, was dispatched as a search party.

‘Has anybody seen that Geordie lad?’

‘Well, I’m a Geordie,’ I said.

Shocked, the crew looked at me. ‘Are you Brian?’ I nodded. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’ve been waiting for you for an hour!’

Nobody had even thought to ask me, because I looked like a working boy.

If the lads were irritated, they kept it well hidden. In fact, they couldn’t have made me feel more at home. ‘I believe this is your local brew?’ announced Malcolm, holding out a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale for me. It was such a Malcolm thing to do.

‘Oh, I could kill one of those,’ I grinned. ‘Thanks, mate.’

‘What do you want to sing, mate?’ asked Malcolm casually.

Oh, Jesus. What a question. I didn’t want to launch straight into an AC/DC song because they’d know it by heart, and I’d be flailing around, which wouldn’t exactly be a level playing field. So, I threw out ‘Nutbush City Limits’, the classic Tina Turner song. Angus – who hadn’t said a word – looked a bit taken aback but seemed okay with it.

‘Well, you passed the first test,’ said Malcolm, deadpan.

‘What’s that then?’ I asked.

‘You didn’t say “Smoke on the Water”. Good song, “Nutbush”,’ he added. ‘Everyone ready?’

‘What key?’ asked Angus, finally speaking up.

‘I think it’s A?’ I replied.

Malcolm looked at me and he said, ‘A? Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

You see, A is the high rock’n’roll key – it’s Robert Plant area. The rock’n’roll key of rock’n’roll keys.

And then Malcolm said, ‘Hang on, I think I’ve got it.’

Then, before you knew it, Phil and Cliff joined in, Angus was there, heads started rocking and off we went. I started coming in and they were waiting to hear this voice, to see whether it was worth their while, and it was the most electric moment of my life.

I mean, I played with a good little band, but nothing prepared me for that sound. It was just the best thing I’d ever felt and heard, and I started singing like my life depended on it.

‘That was a lot of fun,’ I said after, almost welling up, because it really had been just magic, for me anyway.

But then came the real test.

‘Can you have a go at something of ours now?’ asked Malcolm. ‘Just name a song, any song . . .’

I didn’t even have to think.

‘“Whole Lotta Rosie”,’ I said.

No matter how good it had felt to play ‘Nutbush’, ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ was almost an out-of-body experience. As soon as we got into it, I started to get these weird tingles and shivers. I felt like Bon was right there in the room with us, smiling and sipping on his rum and Coke. He’d been gone barely a month, you’ve got to remember. And there I was, in that tiny room, singing his signature song, with Angus next to me, this absolute force of nature. When he tore into the solo, it was so loud, and proud, the hairs on my arms were standing on end. Every member in the band playing like their life depended on it. It was the AC/DC way. It sounded so right. This was rock’n’roll. This was how it was all meant to be.

Then suddenly it was over and I was walking out of the room.

‘Thanks, lads,’ I said, because I thought that was it. ‘The boys back home will never believe that I did this. I can’t wait to tell them . . .’

A young guy followed me out, introducing himself as Peter Mensch. He was all bushy eyebrows, ruffled hair and New York accent – he couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven at the time. He seemed like a very cool, easygoing kind of guy for a music manager.

‘Hey, Brian – where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’ve gotta drive back home,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got three Ford Cortinas and a Datsun Cherry waiting for me in the shop, and they all needed vinyl roofs on them yesterday.’

‘No, no, no,’ said Peter, ‘the boys would love you to stay . . .’

‘Ah, I wish I could,’ I said. ‘But I’m the only one who can fit the roofs, so I’ve really got to get going.’

It was about 8.30 p.m. by now. I couldn’t believe how quickly the time had passed.

‘Well, at least come back inside and have one more of those Newcastle Browns before you go.’

‘Mate, it’s a five-hour drive back up the A1, so I’m not going to get back until 1.30 a.m. as it is – and I’ve got to open up the shop at nine. Then I’ve got a show tomorrow night . . .’

Peter threw up his hands, giving me a disappointed look.

‘Can I at least give you a ring when you get back?’ he asked.

‘Any time,’ I told him.

That’s the last I’ll ever hear from that guy, I thought.