Jay Jay French talks about the luck Van Halen and AC/DC had with singers

The Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French talked in an interview with Let There Be Talk (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar) about how lucky bands like Van Halen and AC/DC were in finding a new singer after losing their classic one. Usually, when a successful singer leaves a band or dies, they never have the chance to have the same kind of success or to even to overcome that success. However, AC/DC for example, invited Brian Johnson to join them in 1980 after the tragic death of the classic singer Bon Scott and they became even bigger with the albums released with Johnson.

A similar thing happened with Van Halen, since after David Lee Roth decided to leave the band they invited Sammy Hagar to join them. Although his era of the band didn’t sell more records, it was very successful and praised. In the interview, Jay Jay French talked about how difficult it is for something like that to happen.

Jay Jay French talks about the luck Van Halen and AC/DC had with singers

“Well, think about how lucky Van Halen was to get Hager, and how lucky AC/DC was to get (Brian Johnson). I mean, talk about lightning in a bottle. You catch it once, and you’re already ahead of the game by 1,000,000%. Catch it twice? It’s like winning the lottery twice. How do you do that? Like, how does Hager come in and create that world for them, that was even bigger, in a way, than David Lee Roth, you know?”

“Brian Johnson came on stage with us in England, and did ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ with (us)… We haven’t played the song since ’82. Went up on stage, and killed it. Absolutely floored it. Brian walks off stage, and he says to me, ‘Jay Jay, that’s the greatest crowd reaction I’ve ever heard.’ And I looked at Brian, I said, ‘Brian, thank you, but you’re fu**ing full of sh*t (laughs). You happen to front one of the greatest fans on the planet Earth. I’m sure you’ve had exactly the same reaction, but I appreciate it,” Jay Jay French said.

Twisted Sister was formed in 1972 in New Jersey but the classic line-up was really formed many years after. The guitarist Jay Jay French is the only original member of the band. The guitarist Eddie Ojeda joined them in 1975, Snider in 1976 and the bassist Mark Mendoza in 1978. The classic formation was finally completed in 1982 when the late drummer A. J. Pero joined them.

With six studio albums released the band sold an estimated amount of more than 12 million records worldwide. Two of their biggest hits are “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, both from their best-selling album “Stay Hungry”, released in 1984.