Dave Discusses His Hearing Loss With Stern On SiriusXM
FooZealand
473 posts
And related news article on Consequence here:
FooZealand
473 posts
And related news article on Consequence here:
Comments
I've seen him mention it a couple of times in interviews when he's placed on the wrong side of the interviewer!
Yeah me too - but it's interesting to get his take on just how bad it actually really is now.
Hes in his early 50s - he could be in pretty bad shape by 70.
True but I can't see him giving in or up....
Didn't Brian from AC/DC have to give up for his hearing for a while?
Yep - 2016 - this could easily be Dave if hes not careful - and can you see Dave taking three years out to get put right...?
AC/DC singer Brian Johnson has detailed his return to music after suffering hearing loss in 2016, in a new interview released yesterday (October 6 2020).
Speaking with Rolling Stone, the rock’n’roll legend explained how he was able to recover from a “pretty serious” incident with hearing loss that led to his premature departure from the band’s ‘Rock Or Bust’ world tour in 2016.
“I couldn’t hear the tone of the guitars at all,” he said. “It was a horrible kind of deafness. I was literally getting by on muscle memory and mouth shapes.
“I was starting to really feel bad about the performances in front of the boys, in front of the audience. It was crippling. There’s nothing worse than standing there and not being sure.”
In the same interview, bandmate Cliff Williams recalled how on stage Johnson would “pull his in-ears out and just shake his head”, and that watching him struggle was hard for the band. “He couldn’t pitch,” said Williams, “he was having a real hard time.”
Risking permanent hearing loss, Johnson stepped away from the tour, with Angus Young adding, “Brian was running the risk of going deaf permanently.
“We had a few days to let everyone know the situation and get the message out.”
“I was starting to really feel bad about the performances in front of the boys, in front of the audience,” Brian added.
“It was crippling. There’s nothing worse than standing there and not being sure.”
After being forced to depart the tour in March 2016, Axl Rose was announced as his replacement for the postponed shows. It was the first time Johnson was not at the helm in 36 years.
In order to save his hearing, Johnson detailed how he enlisted the help of a medical specialist who began experimental treatment to restore his hearing. Though he would not reveal explicit details in the interview, Johnson said the specialist would come to his home once a month over a three-year period to try and abate his condition.
“The first time he came down he brought this thing that looked like a car battery,” Johnson explained. “I went, ‘What in the hell is that?’ He said, ‘We’re going to miniaturise it.’
“We’d sit there and it was boring as shit with all these wires and computer screens and noises. But it was well worth it.
“The only thing I can tell you is that it uses the bone structure in the skull as a receiver. That’s as much as I can tell you.”
Wow, that's amazing someone was able to help. It's pretty incredible now with new tech for hearing aids and implants etc. Let's hope Dave can carry on as long as he wants and isn't forced out.
Dave just basically called out my hearing. In a crowd I'm fucked. Or just around the kids to be honest.
I haven't been able to access the whole Stern Show interview but apparently this led on from a question about not wearing in-ear monitors during shows. I'm pretty sure i'd read an interview with Ian or another Foo Crew member where he'd talked about the band having them made custom. If DG isn't wearing them, or doing something to mitigate further damage, I don't see him doing this very well in 10-20 years.
Dave doesn’t look after himself, I’m sure he can splash out on good plugs. My husband got custom ones for his motorbike and you can get different filters for different sounds. He wears them to gigs and can still have a conversation whereas I have to take my cheapies out!
I saw a bit of the Stern interview about it and Dave blamed narrow canals but custom ones get round this!! He obviously doesn’t want them!!