AC/DC singer Brian Johnson spoke with Seattle's Bob Rivers Show recently about a number of topics including the band's anxiously-anticipated new album, due out via Sony BMG later this year. Here are some excerpts from the chat (audio podcast can be downloaded here):

Auditioning for AC/DC: "Bon Scott was just one of the great singers and performers, he was a great poet. If you listen to some of his lyrics, they were almost poetic. I'll never forget going to London and I was doing a Hoover advert and I needed the money believe you me! The boys said 'if you're coming to London, please come in and have a sing.' I'd never been to an audition before, so when I finished this Hoover ad - I'm not making this stuff up 'the new high-powered mover from Hoover'. I went across town to Vanilla Studios and there were the boys sitting there looking quite despondent and quite down. And I wondered why - it was because I was three hours late and I didn't realize it. I sang a coupla songs with them never thinking of anything - I did it for a laugh and tell the boys back up north that I had a sing with AC/DC and that'll be good enough for me. Apparently it was just what they needed and they asked me if I would hang around and the rest was history. Within two weeks I was on an aeroplane to the Bahamas where the studio was and at the time they said we have six weeks and after that we have no money. The boys were about a million bucks in the hole."

As the (Back In Black) songs came together, did you think that you were creating something special?

"I didn't know. As soon as we finished one song, Mutt Lange would get the next one up and say 'Brian, take a half hour break, get your voice ready.' That's all we could do 'cause we didn't have time to sit around and enjoy the luxury of listening to what we had done every night. It went by so quick - I remember being on the plane on the way back home and wondering if it was any good. It was a shock when I got my first copy about two weeks later. I got a vinyl copy through my door and I put it on the record player and I didn't even believe it was me. I didn't think I could do that kind of stuff. That's why I love this new album which we just finished. It's exactly the same story and it's never happened since then where we went in seven weeks ago and there was Brendan O'Brien - he was absolutely magic. We've been working every day - Saturdays and Sundays - and here I am back home and I haven't got a clue what I did! It was that quick. I'm hoping it's got the same result."

Any new album title yet: "No, not yet. That always seems to be the last and hardest thing to do. You always have to be careful 'cause you have to live with the bloody thing the rest of your life!

Talk to us about your unique singing style: "Eric Burdon from THE ANIMALS I remember - he was a big idol of mine when I was younger. In Newcastle I used to watch him sing and when he sang - 'there is a house in New Orleans, they call the rising sun', and he spoke the same as me and I asked him one day, 'why'd you do that?' And he said 'that's the only way to sing rock n' roll Brian. It was invented in America and you've got to sing in American. Everybody in bands sang in an American twang 'cause we were literally copying from all the black blues artists. We didn't know what a 'thang' was - it's a 'thing'. We didn't have a clue what it meant, but it sounded great when you sang it."

How do you care for your throat: "I don't (laughs). I smoke cigarettes, I like my wine and I love me dot of whisky now and again. Honestly, there is no way to control passion and I think that's all my voice is. When I hear the old strings going and the ol' drums going it just comes out and it's hard to control sometimes."

Going back to the day you got the gig for AC/DC, it wasn't an AC/DC song you sang, it was TINA TURNER: "That is correct, it was 'Nutbush City Limits'. Afterwards they said, 'do you know any of our songs' and I said 'I think I know a 'Whole Lotta Rosie' and I sang that. Those were the two songs I sang with them and those two songs got me the job."

'Whole Lotta Rosie' live in Toronto, 2003: