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Interview

J5 talks to Guitar & Bass: “I try to play a lot of different styles and have a unique approach to the guitar”

Check out this career encompassing interview with John 5 by our friends at Guitar and Bass. John chats about working with Dave Lee Roth, Manson, and Zombie, as well as what drives him to create solo albums and more about his pay per view streaming show “John 5 and The Creatures.

John 5 Guitar and Bass

Check out this career encompassing interview with John 5 by our friends at Guitar and Bass.  John chats about working with Dave Lee Roth, Manson, and Zombie, as well as what drives him to create solo albums and more about his pay per view streaming show “John 5 and The Creatures“.

Tickets are still available for the pay per view, here: http://bit.ly/J5WBPG

To read extracts from the interview, click >>> 

John 5 Interview – Careful With That Axe!

To read the interview, go to: http://www.guitar-bass.net/interviews/john-5-interview-careful-with-that-axe/

The former Marilyn Manson guitar-player-in-chief is now a successful solo artist, as well as the lead guitarist with Rob Zombie for nearly a decade. His intense, intricate fretwork has won him legions of fans, and he ain’t stoppin’ yet. Andy Price talks Teles with a true innovator…

There was a variety show I used to love on TV back when I was a kid called Hee-Haw and everyone on that show played Teles!’ John 5 recalls with smile. ‘Whenever I’d think about electric guitars as a kid I’d be thinking about the Tele shape without really realising it. But what great taste!’

John 5 is a Tele-maniac; that much is obvious from just a fleeting mention of the instrument. His impressive gold Fender signature model is perhaps one of the most gorgeous guitars this correspondent has laid his eyes on, and in the hands of the man himself it sounds phenomenal.

‘It was the first solidbody guitar. I know for some people it’s quite a difficult guitar to play compared to others but I love it so much. It just feels like it’s a part of me now.’

Born John William Lowery in Michigan, 1971, the boy who would become John 5 took an early interest in all things guitar. ‘I think I had many epiphanies growing up. TV was one of my major outlets when I was young. TV shows would showcase country guys like Roy Clark, Jerry Reed and Don Rich, and then as I got older I got into more rocky stuff like Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen. I was searching for inspiration there was so much to be found in the era which I was growing up in.’

We Need to Talk About John
John 5’s latest album Careful with that Axe is a collection of songs that link closely to his early years as a guitar player. ‘The reason I called it Careful with that Axe was because I first got a guitar for Christmas when I was seven, and after opening it my dad said, “Be careful with that axe; it could bring you riches and happiness or it could bring you sadness or poverty. Whatever this guitar may bring you just be careful with it!” That has stayed with me throughout my life’
‘Actually the album kind of has a double-meaning,’ John 5 reveals. ‘A lot of the tracks also revolve around axe-murderers from American history, like the track Villisca. Villisca is a place in Iowa where in 1912 a family got brutally murdered by an axe murderer who was never caught. Another track on the album The Dream Slayer refers to a guy who sleepwalked and killed his family with an axe while doing that. Flight of the Vulcan Kelly references the “Vulcan Kelly” axe brand. I find all that stuff fascinating. So Careful With That Axe is a deliberate double-meaning title.’

The album might be an eclectic mix of genres yet all the tracks have an identifiable John 5 stamp, whether it’s the covers of country legend Jerry’s tunes Jerry’s Breakdown and Jiffy Jam, the rockin’ lead single This is My Rifle, complete with instantly memorable, machine-gun riffage, as well as to the flamenco-inspired El Cucuy.