ALICE IN CHAINS frontman William DuVall has praised Axl Rose for “shutting people up” with his performances as the guest singer for AC/DC, explaining that the combination “just works.”
Prior to the GUNS N’ ROSES vocalist’s first show with AC/DC, fan reaction to him replacing Brian Johnson — even temporarily — was largely negative. The fan site AC/DC Italia announced it was shutting down in protest, while AC/DC biographer Jesse Fink called it “the worst decision AC/DC has ever made. Fans are pretty disgusted… AC/DC is all about the money now.”
Speaking to Loudwire, DuVall, who replaced the late Layne Staley as lead singer of ALICE IN CHAINS, admonished the fans for seemingly making up their minds without even giving Axl a chance to prove himself with AC/DC.
“Before anybody had even heard anything, the court of public opinion was very loud and resounding in their judgments… pre-judgments,” he said. “And then [Axl] actually did his first shows [with AC/DC] and people started seeing things on YouTube or whatever, on videos, and most of them had to eat their words. And I was happy to see that a lot of the people were willing to say so in public, like, ‘I was wrong.’ You know what I mean? And [Axl] and I were joking about it. I was, like, ‘Yeah, man, it was really cool to see you shut all these people up. It was really nice.’ And I know a tiny bit about that.“
