AC/DC singer Brian Johnson recalled the time when he and late rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young went hunting for the Loch Ness Monster.

Sightings of a giant creature in the deepest body of water in Scotland have been reported since the sixth century. It’s been the subject of fraudulent attempts to prove its existence over the past 100 years, while scientific expeditions have failed to discover hard evidence that the monster is really there.

In a new interview with NME, Johnson remembered how he and Young decided to use a box of fireworks to answer the question once and for all – after a night of drinking. “We both had these Land Rovers, and we’d taken them for a trip around Scotland,” the singer said. “Malcolm loved his fireworks and he’d taken a big box with him. One night, we were four sheets to the wind and staying at this hotel right on the side of the loch. Mal just said, ‘C’mon, let’s go and find the Loch Ness Monster! I’ve got fireworks and it might attract it!’”

Johnson continued: "There we were, going straight into the water in our shoes, up to our knees, and it was freezing! Mal had a drink in one hand, a box of fireworks in the other and was trying to set fire to the loch. We were just howling. By the time we got back to our wives, we had straw in our hair and were covered in mud. What a night!”

AC/DC will release their new album, Power Up, on Nov. 13. It was built out of musical ideas Malcolm and brother Angus had stockpiled in the years before Malcolm’s death in 2017. Johnson said he hoped their old-fashioned rock values would make an impact with new audiences.

“Instead of looking at dancers on TikTok, I’m hoping this album will make young kids go out and buy a guitar, learn the riffs and discover the rest of our catalog,” he noted. “It would just be great to get more young rock bands out there, writing their own songs and getting up there onstage.”

 

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