Rockers and Rollers: A Full-Throttle Memoir Read online

  Chapter 5

  Rovers and Rollers

  DEAD OR ALIVE, YOU WILL BE DRIVEN IN STYLE

  I was born on October 5, 1947, in the village of Dunston-on-Tyne. The eldest of four, I was brought up in a council house, or government housing, just like all the other kids. Our dads were hardworking, hard-drinking Geordies: miners, steelworkers, shipbuilders, fitters, and turners. My dad, God bless him, worked in the foundry. What a comedown. Back from the war, where he had been a sergeant major in the Durham Light Infantry, he took the first job he could.

  Like everyone else in Dunston, he couldn’t afford a car. He didn’t even own a motorcycle. Factory foremen drove old Ford Populars and Austins, but there wasn’t much to get excited about. Until you had to call out the doctor. When I was ten, I wound up with double pneumonia. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Fairbairn’s reliable Rover, I wouldn’t be here today, banging on to you, my fellow car nuts. There was only a fifty-fifty chance of me getting through the night.

  “Pull through, son, and you can have a ride in my Rover,” said Dr. Fairbairn. It was a big, posh car, a four-door saloon with chrome runners and headlights the size of my head. Staring up at the enormous grille was like staring up at the Empire State Building.

  Now, if the doctor didn’t make it in time—or when your time was up—you got the ride of a lifetime. Funeral cars were shiny black 1930s Rolls-Royces. Huge buggers, they were light-years ahead of the competition with their 6-cylinder, 7.7-liter engines producing 113 horsepower.

  “It’ll be my turn to ride in a Rolls-Royce soon,” the old men used to say.

  To a little boy, they were even more impressive than a Rover. They were cars fit for kings and queens. Didn’t the prime minister drive one?

  “Why are the doors so big?” I said to Pops as we stood on a street corner, watching a procession of them go by. “So they can get in with their top hats on,” he said.

  He meant it, too.

  Chapter 6

  Cliff Williams

  OCCUPATION: WORLD’S BEST ROCK ’N’ ROLL BASS PLAYER

  In the mid-eighties, Cliff visited me in Newcastle. We had a break before playing Glasgow Apollo. Near my house, there was an upmarket used-car dealership, and as we passed it one day, Cliff shouted, “Whoa, Jonna, look at that, mate!” I did look, and there in the window was an Aston Martin DB5, dark blue, with a beautiful wide-mouthed front, looking just like a woman’s vertical thingy. Red interior—what else! It was quite stunning.

  “I got to have it,” he said.

  “But, Cliff,” I said, “you live in Hawaii.”

  “Do I?” he said.

  Oh, oh, he was gone. Car brain-freeze. He hadn’t even asked how much it was, and had already written out the check. This car can do that to you. The salesman said, “Well, sir, we haven’t fully checked it out, but I drove it to work this morning and it runs fine.”

  Oh no, he was lying without lying. Cliff had that look on his face like someone was still giving him a blow job. “Snap out of it, mate! Come back. Don’t go into the light!” I tied a rope ’round his waist, but it was too late. The salesman had opened the driver’s door and Cliff was in the driving seat. His brain wasn’t, and his wallet had gone bye-byes with it.

  “Cliff,” I said, “we’re due in Glasgow in two hours, mate.”

  “Oh! I’m sure we can expedite the sale.” I didn’t realize the salesman was a sailor.

  “Yes, yes,” said Cliff. The saliva falling from his mouth was at washing-machine-overspill level. He stopped still, eyes thoughtful; it looked like it hurt. “I’ll drive it to Glasgow.”

  “What!” I said. “It hasn’t even been checked out.”

  So off we went in the car, kinda insured and kinda taxed and kinda checked over. It would have been kinda smart to leave it there. But Cliff loved the car. It smelled like Sherlock Holmes’s office, all wood paneling and shiny knobs and stuff. We were on our way to Glasgow.

  “Hey, Jonna, it’s a noisy bugger,” Cliff said.

  “Try second gear, mate. We’re doing sixty in first.”

  “Oh bugger, I’m so used to automatics in the States.”

  “Third and fourth’s not a bad option either.” His driving technique was to have dire consequences later that day. Half an hour later, Cliff said, “Hey, Jonna, it’s raining, mate. Where’s the wiper switch?”

  “I think it’s that one on the dash that says wipers.”

  “Oh yeah.” He flicked it—nothing. A few more flicks and definitely mort. It was a part of the car that hadn’t been fully checked out. Now, it’s really pissing down and we can’t see a thing. We pull over, and I remember an old trick. We take off our sneaker laces and tie them together, then ’round the wiper blade and through both windows, Cliff pulls one end and I pull the other back. It’s crude, but it works, providing you’re doing 30 mph.

  “It’s fucking working, Jonna! We’re going to make it.”

  “Have you farted?” I asked Cliff.

  “Not recently,” he replied.

  “Well, somebody has, unless we’re passing one of those shite farms.”

  “Is that fog, Jonna?”

  “Ah shit, Cliff, that’s steam coming from under the hood, mate. Pull into the first garage you see.” Well, we were on the A69 road to the M6, where garages are rarer than rocking-horse shit, so we go off the road and stop at a small village garage. We opened the hood and unleashed a cloud of steam. The mechanic pulled his head out from under the hood. “Aye, son, ya cylinder head gasket’s gone.”

  Oh no, another bit that hadn’t been fully checked. We hurriedly phoned our tour manager and told him what happened, and he hurriedly told us what a pair of idiots we were. We hired a taxi. The driver was a very happy man, driving us the eighty miles to Glasgow. When we got there, he turned around to look at us and said, “Y’know, lads, I’ve never been to a foreign country before.”

  The garage was going to trailer the Aston Martin back to the dealer in Newcastle. Cliff was pissed off. “What a piece of shit, Jonna. I can’t believe I did that. I’ll never buy another Aston Martin as long as I live.”

  Cliff now lives in Savannah, Georgia, and he drives an Aston Martin DB9.

  Chapter 7

  Beauty and the Beast

  IF HELL WERE A VACATION, THIS WOULD BE IT

  Here I have to introduce one of my first loves—and hates. The Jowett Javelin was a sleek, aerodynamic, metallic blue—gold, if you were lucky—exotic bird of a car. In the early fifties, British middle management fell in love with her. She had “class.” Spotting one of these gorgeous cars on a dull Tyneside morning made my heart beat faster. It was a short-lived fancy. They finished manufacturing them in 1953. They were too beautiful to survive England in the fifties, if you ask me. At the other end of the spectrum was Uncle Bill’s Vauxhall, a car I will forever associate with the bitter pill of disappointment. “I’ve got the Vauxhall out the front,” he’d say. Uncle Bill was a dapper man who fancied himself as a bit of a lad. The shame of it was that he delivered bread for Hunters the Bakers. “If I can be of any assistance . . . ?” was another of his lines.

  One summer, Pops decided to take him up on his offer. Uncle Bill was dispatched to drive us to a trailer, khaki, ex-army, on the top of a windy cliff in the harbor town of Amble. My father had rented it from one of his workmates, and thought he had himself a bargain. Well, it was the closest one to the pub. If we tried to play football, the winds would send the ball into Cumbria. When we got an ice cream, the gulls would attack us. Would we make it through the week? At night, it was hard to sleep with the trailer rocking to and fro with the gales—dreams of being blown over the cliff onto the rocks below. Oh yeah, and it didn’t have a heater. It was the worst holiday of my life. Pops spent his days—and nights—in the pub. Mum wept. She was from southern Italy, met her sergeant major in the war and followed him back to rainy Tyneside. It was the biggest mistake of her life. The kids fought. At the end of a week, Uncle Bill picked us up in the Vauxhall and drove us
home.

  Chapter 8

  The Hummer and The Schwarzenegger

  AC/DC, AN AUSTRIAN, A MUSIC VIDEO, AND A RATHER LARGE VEHICLE

  I bought my Hummer 3 about six years ago. I sold my Hummer 3 about six years ago. I don’t even know why I bought it. (I think it’s because whenever I climbed into the cab, I thought I was Sergeant Fury. At night, when I drove to people’s houses, they’d come out with their hands up, screaming, “Don’t shoot!” It was that intimidating.) It was big, it was daft, and if someone shot your tires, they could reinflate themselves—brilliant! And I made firm friends at all my local filling stations: it was a thirsty bugger. But I soon realized it was nothing like the real thing. It was second-rate, like screwing a woman who’s been put away damp. It was the sum of all things silly.

  Now the real Humvee is a different animal altogether, which reminds me of a time in Van Nuys, California. AC/DC were shooting a video for the song “Big Gun,” which was being used in the movie Last Action Hero. We were having lunch outside, when a great big Humvee the color of a camel’s arse flew by and nearly clipped the table. We went flying.

  “You idiot!” I shouted. The Humvee stopped, and out sloped a big muscle with a head on top. Oops, he’s a big bugger! It was Arnold “Schwarzenaustrohungarianegger,” and he had his “Aahh’ll be baaack” sunglasses on. Was that a smile or a grimace on his face? He looked like he’d just lost a dollar and found a quarter, d’ya know what I mean? He tractored towards us. I noticed his head never moved when he walked. He walked past and lifted a finger, which obviously meant, “Hey, guys, lovely to see you. This is going to be fun.” You see, Arnie was going to be in the video.

  Now I had to inspect the Humvee. God, it was big, as wide as a diner counter, just not as shiny. On a foggy day, you wouldn’t be able to see who was sitting next to you, it was so wide. The inside was all military. There were levers and knobs everywhere. So this was Arnie’s ride. Well, of course it was. He had to drive something that was him, an action-mobile.

  What happened next floored me. Arnie came out of his trailer wearing an Angus schoolboy suit, complete with guitar. At first I thought someone had left an air hose up Angus’s arse, but no, it was Arnie, ready to rock. And rock he did! He mimed a duet with Angus, then picked Angus up with one arm and sat him on his shoulder. You know, this guy was all right. I asked Arnie about his Humvee, and the quietest man I know started to talk about his car (it’s always the way with cars). He loved it. “It fitz my sholterz,” he said, and he started to heave with laughter.

  But he wasn’t kiddin’. I saw the label inside his leather jacket: it was XXXXL.

  Chapter 9

  Lotus Cortina Mk1

  HOW TO CRASH YOUR FIRST RACE CAR

  “Taxi!” shouted the cheeky idiot parked next to me on the starting line. He was in a stunningly prepared Porsche 356.

  I shouted back, “I’ll fuckin’ taxi you, ya cheeky twat.” That got me my first warning from the marshal, that bad language was not part of racing. “Oh bollocks,” I said. Then he warned me again. But I went out anyway, looking for Mr. Porsche. Found him, scared him, and myself. And I found out the Cortina is a brick with wheels. How did racing legends like Jim Clark and the others do it in the sixties? I’d bought a video and watched them. It was easy: to go fast ’round a corner, all you have to do is turn in under-braking. This will get the car on two wheels. Slide the tail out while you have the opposite lock on, then as soon as the windscreen’s in line with the rest of the road, you straighten her up and off you go, having kept your foot on the throttle all the way through. Scary, but loads of fun.

  Anyway, my first race was a one-hour enduro at Road Atlanta in 1998, and off I go. The blue sky turns black. I’ve heard about Georgia downpours, but never seen one. It starts to rain. I mean, it’s pissing down. I have dry tires on. I call Thomas Rantzow, my crew chief. “Mate, I can’t see because we have no wipers, and I’m sliding off the road.”

  Thomas has a wonderful smile, but hardly uses it, in case somebody thinks he’s nice.

  Thomas to Brian: “You’ve only got one lap to go and you’re first in class and fifth overall. Just take it easy.”

  Brian to Thomas: “I am taking it easy, because I can’t see.”

  Thomas to Brian: “Well, you should know your way around by now.”

  It was at that moment that I hit the bridge at about 90 mph. Rolled over and over and landed on my side. First race—first crash. The flag marshal pulled me out and I lay on the side of the track, thinking, “Helicopter ride!” When the medic came, he told me not to move.

  I looked at him and said, “You’re gay.”

  He said, “I know, silly. Just relax.”

  Turned out I was fine. Thomas was a little upset, because he’d just built the car, and it was well bashed, but we could rebuild. Then out of the gloom came this huge Dually pickup truck. It was my buddy Jesse James Dupree, the singer with the band Jackyl, who lived nearby and had prepared lunch. I kid you not, in the back of the truck was a whole barbecued pig and all the trimmings. He and I and the whole team sat, drank beer, and ate pig around the Cortina. You can’t make shit like this up. After that day, I am hooked forever.

  Chapter 10

  From Bedfords to Bedknobs

  BUILDING A CAR WITH A HEADBOARD

  One of the ways we had fun in the fifties was filling in I-Spy books, which were spotters’ guides for kids. Each book covered a different subject, things like cars. Whenever you saw a car (or a tree, or a plane), you ticked it off, then you sent in the book and got a certificate.

  Being a car nut, I wanted to “spy” Daimler Conquests, Mercedes, and Admirals. Where were they? Perhaps in the posh areas; like the streets of Newcastle were full of them, because Dunston’s sure weren’t.

  It was around this time that people started buying TVs. The job of digging up the streets and installing the cables for the TVs was given to a contractor called Rediffusion. Fleets of red Bedfords drove up and down Britain. As soon as we clapped eyes on these vans, we were determined to get in one. They were so new and fabulous to us.

  I’ll never forget it.

  My first smell of gasoline was the smell of freedom. When I told Pops about the vans, he knew the only way he was going to have some peace was if he got me driving. He wasn’t a sergeant major for nothing. So off he went to the local garage and asked them if they had an old steering wheel. It could come from any car as long as it wasn’t German. He got one for sixpence (I didn’t get any pocket money that week). He got a large stick, pushed it through our headboard, and piled all the pillows up, like a driving seat.

  “Son, there’s your first car,” he said. Four legs, iron castors, no brakes, no gas tank, no tax, no insurance. “Thanks, Pops.” I jumped in and drove forever. It was everything I’d ever wanted. As Pops left the room, I heard him mutter, “Thank Christ for that . . .”

  Chapter 11

  The Wolseley

  MY FIRST LOVE

  I’ll never forget the day my dad said, “C’mon, youse two,” to me and my brother, Maurice. It was summer 1959, a beautiful Saturday morning. “We’re going to Byker,” he said. That was on the other side of Newcastle. We didn’t know why we were going, but it was unusual.

  Off we went on the number 66 bus—the Dunston circular, it was called. Then to Marlborough Crescent bus station, and then Newcastle City Transport to Byker. At the top of Byker Road, there was a used-car garage called Northern Motors, and we were heading straight for it.

  Now, it couldn’t be he was going to buy a car, not my dad. Maybe he was just gonna buy me another steering wheel. His face was set like stone. My heart was beating fast. Look at these cars all around me! Oh my God, a Nash Metropolitan, yellow-and-white. Dad went straight to a dark green Wolseley 6/90, long hood, six cylinders, beautiful. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Can I have a test drive?” he asked the salesman.

  “No,” the man replied, “but I’ll turn it over for you.” The engine started on the but
ton. My old man said, “I’ll take it.” We were gonna have a car. Well, I was. You see, in my head, it was mine, all mine. I, little Brian Johnson, was going to be a nonpedestrian, a motorist. I could learn how to work all the buttons and sticklike things and find out what they do, and then I could go to technical college and sit my exams to become a taxi driver. It was written in the stars. Walt Disney was right: “When you wish upon a star, you will get your motorcarrr!”

  “Is there something wrong with your lad?” I heard the salesman say.

  My father said, “He’s bloody car-daft. C’mon, youse two.” Then, to me, “Not there, in the back. I’ve gotta drive.” The thing was, my dad’s driving license was an army one, and he hadn’t driven anything since the Second World War—and that was a three-ton truck. This car had column-shift gears and an ignition key; the wind-down windows were something of a novelty, too. Every time we tried to talk or ask a question, he would say, “Shurrup! I’m trying to drive.” That didn’t instill much confidence. After about thirty minutes, he had gone mad. He started singing, “I’m lost, I’m lost. I don’t know where I am,” at the top of his voice, just like a demented black-and-white minstrel. It took us one and a half hours to do a half-hour journey. By the time we got home, he was sweating and exhausted and walked one and a half miles to the social club for a beer. The car was parked outside our house, 1 Beech Drive. It was ours! Not the doctor’s, not the banker’s or the landlord’s. Mine!

  Dad had left the door open. I climbed in and got behind the wheel. It was twelve forty-five in the afternoon; at six thirty in the evening, they were still trying to pry my fingers from the steering wheel, my eyes glazed wide-open. You see, I was still on the road, somewhere in my imagination. They finally got me in the house, but I just sat on the windowsill looking at the car. As you can see in the photograph, I was in love for the first time in my life. Twelve years old and already spoken for.