AC/DC will be on hand this weekend to give festival-goers at Coachella a classic rock fix. The band will perform during the Friday night headline slot, following acts like Alabama Shakes, DJ Snake and Lil B -- Steely Dan will also be there to represent. In a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times, frontman Brian Johnson talked about begin "excited" to perform for a younger audience and what advice Paul McCartney had to offer them.

McCartney, who played Coachella in 2009 and is scheduled to perform at Firefly this year, gave the singer some reassuring words.

"I ran into him downstairs this morning," Johnson said. "He goes, 'Brian, you get on that stage and I'm telling you, you see all these kids looking for the hip-hop acts. Then they see you, and they're like, 'Who's he? Oh, yeah -- me dad talks of him.'"

Johnson laughed in his raspy growl.

"But he said it's great because you're doing your thing, and eventually all the kids go, 'He's cool, this dude!'" he said.

The band members are seasoned veterans, and this is not the first time they have played in front of people who prefer other genres. Most recently, AC/DC kicked off the Grammy Awards in February. Acts like Eric Church, Sam Smith and Common followed.

"It kind of takes you right back to the start, when you had to win over an audience," he added. "I'm excited."

The Coachella gig will be the band's first before it kicks off a new tour without founding guitarist Malcolm Young and drummer Phil Rudd. Stevie Young and Chris Slade, both of whom have ties to the band, will fill in for the other members.

"You pick yourself up, dust yourself down and just keep going," Johnson said. "You live on, and you have a wonderful memory of them always with you, but you're not going to stop doing what you do. Otherwise, you die inside, you know? And we would die -- I would, if I didn't do what I was doing. There'd be nothing."

Fans at Coachella can expect a healthy dose of classics like "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Highway to Hell" in addition to cuts from the band's new album Rock or Bust, which came out last year.

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