Many of us know the story of how Brian Johnson joined AC/DC. If you don’t know the story, you should hear him tell it in my interview with the legend from just a year ago or so:

But if you still haven’t heard the story, basically it goes something like, Brian got called to audition for AC/DC. He said no, because he thought he was too old and past his prime, officially stating "They’re a great band, but I’m 32, and I’m past my sell-by date,”. But the band wasn’t deterred and kept asking him to just come to the audition, which he finally did, and of course the rest is history.

But there’s a piece of that story missing. I feel that Hoover Vacuums deserve a fraction of the credit, but not why you might think. Yes, the rumor was that the band got their name from their sister looking at a vacuum that could use either kind of power. That story is only partly true.

Why Hoover deserves some credit though, is because it was a commercial TV jingle for the vacuums that essentially convinced Brian to make the trip to London where the auditions were taking place.

Johnson received a phone call from Monty Python music producer Andre Jacquemin, who wanted him to sing for a Hoover commercial, coincidentally also at a studio in London, specifically Andre’s studio. Andre had done music for movies and TV and he and Brian knew each other previously. So now that Brian at least had a paying gig in London, he figured if he was making the trip anyway, he’d go ahead and do the audition, too. So Brian called the band back and said he’d stop in, which he did, and knocked out Tina Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits” and the band’s Bon Scott song “Whole Lotta Rosie.”

After the AC/DC audition, that Brian told me he walked out of thinking he’d never get the gig, he then walked over to record the Hoover vacuum song at the nearby studio. And since its 2025, that commercial is on YouTube! Listen to Brian killing a really dumb Hoover jingle:

Yes, that’s real, and yes that’s really Brian Johnson singing about Hoovers.