20

Breaking Up

Bob Thomas Sports Photography via Getty Images

If there was ever a moment in my life when I wanted to share some good news with somebody, this was it. But there was no one to tell. Ken had long since gone home. My ma and dad were still out. It was unbearable. I felt like I was about to explode. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the house, other than the bottle of Famous Grouse that I’d bought for my dad’s birthday. And I could hardly drink that. Although . . . this was an emergency. And my old man would surely understand. Ah, fuck it, I thought, opening it up and taking a swig. Then I just stood there, looking around the room, thinking, here I am, thirty-two years old, living with my parents in the same council house that I grew up in, with the same view over the railway line to the power station and Vickers tank factory, and now I’ve just had a phone call that’s going to change everything . . . maybe forever. The kind of phone call that never comes in most people’s lives.

I took another swig . . . then another . . .

In came my dad from his club. My ma close behind.

‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ I said, holding up the whisky. ‘I got this for you.’

My dad gave me a funny look. ‘Did you eat my cake too?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry about that,’ I said, realizing the bottle had been invaded. ‘I’ll buy you another one.’

‘Bloody right you will.’

‘It’s just . . . I’ve been offered a job, Dad. A big one. So, I wanted to celebrate.’

‘A job?’ he said. ‘With who?’

‘AC/DC.’

My dad sat down on his chair with a groan. ‘AC/DC, you say? Haven’t they just been nationalized?’

I put my head in my hands. ‘They’re a rock band, Dad.’

‘Oh . . . well, I’ve never heard of them.’ In my dad’s opinion, if he hadn’t heard of a band, that meant they’d failed to achieve any kind of meaningful success whatsoever. Then again, The Beatles to him were a bit of a challenge.

Then in came my ma.

‘I got a new job, Ma,’ I told her, bursting with pride. ‘I’m the new lead singer of AC/DC!’

‘Oh, that’s a-nice, son,’ she said. ‘Would you like a sandwich?’

It was impossible. It just meant nothing to them. Also, as far as they were concerned, turning professional with a band had been the cause of all my problems. So, the thought of me doing it again – and giving up my business – only confirmed their deepest fears that there was no hope for me.

At least Maurice understood. ‘AC/DC?’ he said, when I phoned him. ‘They’re canny good, them.’

When the Grand National was over – the winner was Ben Nevis, the horse my dad had backed – it was time for me to head over to Westerhope Comrades Club for Geordie II’s show that night.

As usual, the place had sold out, with a queue out of the door and halfway down the street. (I still have the flyer somewhere – admission was 55p.) Also on the bill that night was Dave Black’s band Goldie. And because Dave Robson’s brother Geoff was also in Goldie, it felt like a very close-knit, family affair.

I remember just sitting there in the audience, listening to Goldie play their hit single, ‘Making Up Again’, and this girl came up to me and said, ‘I heard that AC/DC got a new singer, but it should have been you, you’d have been perfect for that.’ And I just smiled and nodded, feeling like I was in one of those scenes in a movie where everything goes quiet around you because you know that something huge is about to happen, but you can’t breathe a word about it.

All I could think was – how am I going to get out of this life that I’ve built for myself here? I’m going to kill my bandmates’ dreams. I’m going to break my girlfriend’s heart. I’m going to put good-hearted Ken out of a job. And there’s always a chance that it will all go tits up.

What I couldn’t have known, of course, was that in just a few years’ time, the golden age of the working men’s clubs would be over, and they’d all start to close down. Meanwhile, the vinyl roof craze would also end just as quickly as it had started. Staying in Newcastle, in other words, would have been a far greater risk than joining AC/DC.

But on that night at Westerhope Comrades Club, I felt like I’d planted a bomb that was going to hurt everyone around me when it went off. And all I could do was sit there, rehearsing what I was going to say, how to explain why being excited and sad at the same time does really tear you up.

The day before I set off for London to start my new job was about as rough as you’d imagine.

My appointment still hadn’t been made official, but at this stage, I had to come clean to those closest to me.

Telling my girlfriend was the worst part. She knew immediately that she’d lost me, she just knew. Not because I didn’t want to be with her anymore, but because she wanted to settle down, and that would be impossible if I was in a band. She was devastated. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ It was the saddest thing, it really was. I mean, she was stunning and classy – we could have had a beautiful life together. But I’d given up on having a normal life when I’d left Parsons.

Then it was time to go and tell Ken. I said to him, ‘Look, it’s going to take a couple of months to record this album and see how it does, and if I don’t come back, the business is yours.’ He seemed happy about that, but of course I was worried that it would all fall apart as soon I was gone – after all, the main reason that we were doing well was the quality of our work, but I was the one who did most of the fitting.

Finally, I had to call for a band meeting at the pub with the two Daves and Derek in Geordie II.

They were in shock, of course. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve been offered this job, but it hasn’t been announced yet and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it seems real, and I’m off to London tomorrow to start working on the new album. I just need a bit of time.’

It was like a funeral, the mood was so grim.

‘Jesus, I really thought we were going to make it,’ said Davy, staring into his pint.

‘So, Heaton Buffs is off?’ asked Derek.

‘Everything’s off . . . for now,’ I said – and I could see the horrible realization on everyone’s face that all the gigs would now be gone. It was the worst feeling, knowing that I was responsible for that. ‘Look, if it doesn’t work out, lads,’ I added, ‘we can get back together. But I have to try this.’

Once the news had sunk in, though, the lads couldn’t have been nicer or more generous about it. They knew that no man could have turned it down. They were just the greatest guys, they really were. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that some of the best times of my life were shared with Geordie II.

On that day I should have been playing at the social club in Heaton Buffs again – Monday, 31 March – but instead I was at E-Zee Hire rehearsal rooms in King’s Cross for a meeting with Peter and the band. He told me that I’d be paid the same as the rest of the band, and given ‘per diems’ whenever the band took me away from home. I had no idea what a per diem was, having never been paid one before – but Peter explained that it was cash-in-hand that I’d be given every day on the road to cover ‘incidental expenses’.

All I could think was, there must be a catch. But this time, amazingly, there wasn’t. I was playing in a different league now.

Then Peter asked me if there were any other ‘loose ends’ that needed to be tied up.

I told him about Red Bus, and he made a note to find out what the terms of my contract were.*

‘So, what else, aside from Red Bus?’ asked Peter. ‘Do you have a mortgage?’

‘Yes, I do, on a house that I don’t even live in,’ I told him.

‘What’s the balance?’

‘I dunno. It cost £11,000 and I’ve been paying £70 a month under a court settlement.’

‘Which bank is it with?’

‘Well, it’s a building society, not a bank – and it’s Leeds Permanent.’

‘Okay, I’ll call them and pay it off.’

‘What? Are you serious?’

‘Of course. Anything else we should know about?’

I was in shock at this point, but I remembered the previous night with the lads from Geordie II. I told Peter that I felt really bad about them, because we’d had to cancel a month’s worth of gigs, and they were all hard-working guys who could do with the money. I told him that I would love to use some of my salary to reimburse them for the month of April, which would at least soften the blow while they found a new singer.

‘Would £2,000 be enough?’ asked Peter.

I almost fell off my chair. He wasn’t kidding, either – he later gave me the cash in a brown envelope, and I took the lads out to an Indian restaurant and handed it out over dinner. I couldn’t have been happier to help them out after leaving the band so suddenly.

‘One last thing,’ said Peter. ‘The boys want to make you a full member of AC/DC. I know you were just an employee with Geordie, but this time we’re looking for a total commitment.’

‘So . . . what does that mean?’

‘It means you don’t just get a salary. You get a fifth of the profits.’

‘There’s profits?’ This was a foreign language to me.

‘Not yet, no,’ Peter replied.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, never mind. Maybe if the new album does well . . .’

‘Well, that seems fair enough.’

The announcement that I’d been hired as AC/DC’s new singer came the next morning – April Fool’s Day – by which time we were already rehearsing the new album, which we were going to record at Polar Studios in Sweden.

After my business meeting with Peter, Malcolm had handed me one of those yellow, wide-ruled legal pads and asked if I wanted to have a go at writing lyrics for one of the riffs. Now, my memory as to when exactly this happened is a little hazy, given how quickly things were moving – but most of the photographs taken of me at E-Zee Hire show me holding the pad, so I probably put pen to paper for the first time there, even though most of the writing happened later.

It was just a few lines, that’s all Malcolm wanted at first. But, of course, at this point in my career, I’d only ever written a couple of songs for Geordie. What’s more, given how strong the riff in question was, I was going to have to come up with something pretty special.

Trying to live up to Bon’s songwriting legacy was the hardest part of it all. Bon had been the ultimate working-class wordsmith, from the non-stop double-entendres of ‘Big Balls’ to his joyful and downright hilarious account of a one-night-stand with a nineteen-stone Tasmanian woman in ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’. While he was alive, of course, the critics had sort of missed the whole point of his lyrics – but after his death, they’d suddenly developed a newfound respect for his wonderful way with words. Not that Bon had ever given a shit what they said. The sneers of the establishment were probably a badge of honour to him.

I had no idea if I was capable of writing anything even one per cent as good as Bon’s best songs. So, the second that I was given the legal pad and instructed to get something down on paper, I decided that I needed to find somewhere quiet where I could put my brain to work. But, of course, I was in a rehearsal room at King’s Cross, leaving me with very few options for peace and quiet.

Write about what you know, Brian, I kept telling myself. But, of course, cars were the only thing I knew about. Well, cars and women. Actually . . . hang on a minute, I was getting an idea . . . ‘She was a fast machine,’ I wrote, ‘She kept her motor clean.’ Then a moment later, I added, ‘She was the best damn woman that I ever seen.’

I was pretty chuffed with my effort. Now all I had to do was write another two verses, and a chorus . . .

During the week of those E-Zee Hire sessions, I was put up at the Holiday Inn, Swiss Cottage – which felt dead posh to me at the time. The only other member of the band staying there was Phil because everyone else had their own flat.

After each long day of rehearsals and writing, Phil and I would go back to the hotel and grab a quick bite to eat and a couple of beers. But I quickly realized that, unlike me, Phil wasn’t much of a talker, so as soon as we were finished with dinner, we’d head back up to our rooms. It was unnerving. I started to wonder if he knew something that I didn’t . . . like maybe that the band were having second thoughts.

One night, Phil must have noticed the look of concern on my face as we got into the lift.

‘Hey Jonna,’ he said, ‘don’t worry – we love you, mate.’ Then he grinned and said, ‘You’ll be fine, mate.’

The relief was overwhelming because inside I really didn’t know. So, God bless you, Phil, for saying that. It meant the world to me.

The weirdest part of joining AC/DC was suddenly being part of a social circle where it was entirely normal to hang out with other musicians – and not just any, but heroes of mine.

On our second day at E-Zee Hire, for example, in walked Ozzy Osbourne, the guy I’d listened to obsessively during my lunch breaks at Parsons. I couldn’t believe it. And the crazy thing was, he walked right over to me, shook my hand, and wished me all the best in my new job. What made Ozzy’s words even more touching was that he’d been a friend of Bon’s. It was a really big moment for me – thank you, Ozzy.

The next night, meanwhile, Malcolm invited me to a pub in Maida Vale – The Warrington, next to a big roundabout – and it was packed with musicians. So, I went over there and had a pint with Malcolm and Cliff, and next thing I knew, Les Gray from Mud was sitting at our table, and he was going, ‘Hello Brian, congrats on the gig.’

It was too much. It was a complete whirl.

Another night, I went over to Malcolm’s flat, and this fabulous bearded American guy came in, and Mal said, ‘Meet Brian, he’s our new singer.’ I quickly ended up deep in conversation with the guy, and it turned out that he’d survived a plane crash in Mississippi. That was when I realized that he was in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Half of the band had died in that crash, it was absolutely terrible. It must have been Gary Rossington. He was still having trouble with his arm and walking with a limp.

There were so many other moments like that. I wanted to write down every detail, so I’d never forget it – but of course, I did.

Towards the end of our time at E-Zee Hire, the band’s favourite photographer – a guy called Robert Ellis – stopped by. He’d been asked by Atlantic to take some publicity shots for the new album. It felt like months had passed, but it was only 4 April, barely a week since I’d arrived in London, and only three days since my hiring had been announced.

Phil was nowhere to be found, so we ended up doing some shots without him. Malcolm took up Phil’s position on the drum stool for one classic picture. In another one, I sat on the drum riser, wearing my ‘22’ shirt, holding the writing pad. Then when Phil finally showed up, we went outside to do some shots against a brick wall.

When the second the photo shoot was over, though, Peter came over to deliver some disappointing news: Polar Studios in Stockholm was no longer available because ABBA had just booked it.

‘So where are we going?’ asked Malcolm.

‘Compass Point,’ shrugged Peter – to which everyone just nodded and went back to work.

I waited a moment; I was too embarrassed to put up my hand in front of the lads, then took Peter aside.

‘Where’s Compass Point?’ I asked him. I mean, at this point in my life, my knowledge of North East working men’s clubs was unrivalled by anyone, but when it came to the world’s most expensive and far-flung recording studios, I was clueless.

‘Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Brian,’ said Peter, looking very serious for a moment. ‘But’ – he broke into a grin – ‘we’re going to be dragging you to The Bahamas.’