Drummer CHRIS SLADE Looks Back On AC/DC Audition - "I Didn't Think I Auditioned Well At All And Was Berating Myself All The Way Home"

Drummer Chris Slade has worked with Tom Jones, Olivia Newton-John, David Gilmour and Manfred Mann, but is perhaps best known for working with AC/DC. Wales Online has published a career-spanning interview with Slade in which he reflects on everything including his AC/DC audition. Following is an excerpt:

“I was aware of their music. I bought Highway To Hell when it came out and played it and played it," he remembers. "The audition was an hour from where I lived at the time, Brighton way. (In the audition) Angus and Mal (Malcolm Young, co-founder and guitarist of AC/DC) came in, put two chairs down 10ft from the drum kit, and didn’t say anything. So no pressure at all!" The audition passed by with Slade playing a few songs with the band – but he came out convinced he'd blown it.

“I didn’t think I auditioned well at all and was berating myself all the way home an hour away in east Sussex at the time. I was so preoccupied with kicking myself that I actually got lost. So I thought I’d ring the missus and called her to say I’d got lost. She asked how it went and I said: 'Terrible' and that I’d tell her when I got home.

“She came up the path when I arrived and said: ‘They’ve just called to say you’ve got the job’. I said: 'Let’s go down the pub!' Dick Jones the drum tech told me after that they’d tried 100 drummers and I was number 100. At the time people would say: 'Don’t tell my band but I want to try out for AC/DC.'"

Read the complete interview here.

Slade was with AC/DC from 1989 -1994, and thebn again through 2015 - 2016. He performed on the albums The Razors Edge (1990), Live at Donington (1992), AC/DC Live (1992), and the song "Big Gun" (1993).