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John 5 contemplates his axe with examiner.com

2014 has been a busy year for John 5. With Rob Zombie, he has been on tour in the US and Europe for the summer festival circuit – and he is due out on the road again in September. In between that the axe man has been working on his eighth studio album – Careful With That Axe – a series of studio films with Jonny Coffin, and he is planning a live streaming concert for the fans (more info coming on that here at John-5.com later in August).

He speaks to examiner.com about all aspects of his work, including touring, home-life, live DVD’s and more.

John 5, Jonny Coffin, Careful With that Axe

2014 has been a busy year for John 5.  With Rob Zombie, he has been on tour in the US and Europe for the summer festival circuit – and he is due out on the road again in September.  In between that the axe man has been working on his eighth studio album – Careful With That Axe – a series of studio films with Jonny Coffin, and he is planning a live streaming concert for the fans (more info coming on that here at John-5.com later in August).

He speaks to examiner.com about all aspects of his work, including touring, home-life, live DVD’s and more.

Pre-order your copy of Careful With That Axe here: http://smarturl.it/CarefulWithThatAxe

To read excerpts from the interview, click >>> 

John 5 contemplates his axe

by Tracy Heck

To read the interview in full, go to: http://www.examiner.com/article/john-5-contemplates-his-axe

John 5 is gearing up for the August 12th release of his eighth solo album Careful With That Axe.

Currently, he is heading out on a U.S. tour with Rob Zombie that includes a Michigan stop in Saginaw at First Merit Bank Event Park on September 27.

Q: Where are you at today?

John 5: I’m in the most amazing place in the world: Los Angeles. I love it.

Q: Well you have a lot going on right now so let’s get right into it. When we talked last year, you were working on your eighth solo album and now it’s done and being released next month. Now that it’s here how are you feeling about it?

John 5: I’m very proud of it. I really took my time on it. To be completely honest with you, it actually came out better than I thought it would. It has these different musicians on it and it really brought the record to another level. Matt Bissonette is playing bass on it and he just really killed it. I was super, super happy with how it came out. Rodger Carter played drums on it and he did such a great job. The guy really was into it and I believe it really made a difference.

Q: Listening to the new album, it really weaves through so many different genres and styles. What do you feel was the overall vision for Careful With That Axe?

John 5: Well it’s really starting with the title of the album. A lot of the idea behind the album comes from my childhood including the title. You know, “careful with that axe”, a guitar axe. My parents gave me this guitar, my first guitar, and I remember my dad saying, well don’t count on this as more than a hobby because this just isn’t going to be a career, because I wanted to be a musician so bad. I remember him saying it was a one in a million chance. So that’s kind of like where Careful With That Axe came from because when you receive a guitar, which is called a axe, you just don’t know if it’s going to bring you riches or poverty or happiness or sadness. I mean, what’s really going to happen with this axe? Also, some of the song titles revolve around axe murders that happened in the United States. When you look at the titles, it’s like what is this, “Flight of the Vulcan Kelly”? Well, that’s kind of a take on the “Flight of the Bumblebee” because the vulcan kelly was a brand of an axe that was around in the late 1800 and 1900’s. So there’s a lot of cool things like that on the album.

Q: Is there one track in particular where you feel you really nailed it?

John 5: I love “This Is My Rifle”, of course. I love listening to that but I also love all of the tracks because I’m playing them all live right now. I love “Jerry’s Breakdown” because it’s really tough. He had some really cool stuff like that, and you know, I really love the Elvis movies. I just really love the record. I know people always say that but I really do enjoy it.

Q: Going back to the mixing of the genres. That’s something that you have always done and it’s a staple of Rob Zombie albums as well. What is your favorite thing about being able to break down boundaries like that?

John 5: Yeah, the reason I do that is also going back to my childhood I think. I wanted to be a session musician and I knew that I needed to learn all these different styles of music. So I started listening to all these different styles because I saw this movie called Session Man and I was pretty young. I mean super young! Of course I was very uneducated on what I was doing but from what little education I did have, I was like I have to know every type of music there is if I’m going to be a session guitar player. So I started studying all these different types of music and it actually helped me with my career so much because it kept my brain occupied , not just by rock, but by all of these things. To me it’s all just music. So it’s all the same when I go in and record music. If I stayed with just rock, I would get bored with it.

To read the interview in full, go to: http://www.examiner.com/article/john-5-contemplates-his-axe