CELEBRATED drummer Kenny Aronoff – currently a member of Sammy Hagar’s band – says he was one of five men considered for the AC/DC post that went to Matt Laug.
With Phil Rudd remaining in New Zealand to care for his terminally-ill partner, Ackadacka needed a new skinsman for last year’s European comeback tour, which is currently sweeping through the United States.
“I get a phone call from a very, very famous engineer last year,” Aronoff, 72, said told Sirius XM.
“He said ‘hey Kenny man’ – I won’t say who it is – ‘this band, a very very famous band, called me up and wants a recommendation of five drummers’.
“Cool, who is it? He says ‘I can’t tell you’. I said ‘when do they want me to audition?’ and he said ‘well, it’s in England and it’s these four days and if they like you, you have to stay another two days’.”
Aronoff’s account to host Eddie Trunk on the Faction Talks station provides an intriguing insight into how Australia’s greatest-ever band operates.
He continued: “Oh, I can do that. Meanwhile, I’m with Joe Satriani. I’ve got to tour. I do corporate speaking events and you can’t bail out of that. Those are booked, you sign contracts.
“He (the engineer) said ‘if they like you, you go back to the USA and you rehearse for six weeks or something like that. I said ‘I can do everything but 10 days’. He says ‘OK, I’ll let them know’.
“He comes back and he goes ‘well, they’re gonna pass on you because you can’t do those 10 days’. I said ‘who is it dude? I need to know because if it’s somebody …. who knows, maybe I’ll throw everything away – I don’t know – for this’.
“He wouldn’t tell me but he says ‘trust me, you’ll wanna do it’. I’m doing the math, I’m thinking ‘anyone who’s great, they’d contact me directly. They wouldn’t go through an agent. If it was U2, they’d say ‘call up Kenny’, they’d find someone who knows my number … I know those guys anyway.
“If it was the Rolling Stones, they’d call. They wouldn’t go through an engineer. I was trying to figure out ‘who could it be? Oasis?’.
“It was AC/DC. I had no idea!
“I feel very honoured I was thrown into that list of five drummers.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Aronoff – who has performed with everyone to John Mellencamp and the Rolling Stones to Crosby Stills and Nash – said he once had to copy Rudd’s style exactly when recording a Krokus album.
“I feel like I would have been great in (AC/DC) because I’m such a fan of AC/DC and such a fan of Phil Rudd and I get it, I get the genius of Phil Rudd.”
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