JOHN 5 - Harmony Central Video Interview From NAMM 2010 Available

January 30, 2010, 14 years ago

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ROB ZOMBIE/ex-MARILYN MANSON guitarist John 5 is featured in an interview clip conducted by Harmony Central at NAMM 2010, which took place in Anaheim, CA from January 14th - 17th. Check it out below.

Chrissy Mauck at Fender.com issued the following report on John 5 late last year:

With a massive resume that lists working with MARILYN MANSON, ROB ZOMBIE, MEAT LOAF, DAVID LEE ROTH, K.D. LANG, ROBIN ZANDER, RICK SPRINGFIELD, FILTER and so forth, one can only imagine the countless unforgettable moments that guitarist John 5 has experienced in his professional career.

“I’ve been everywhere, played the most beautiful venues in the world, and played with the most incredible people in the world,” he says. “I would have never dreamt that I would have played and performed and recorded with so many of my heroes in my life; people who have turned into my friends. To pick one or two certain things as highlights, it’s really tough.”

Houston, TX

But one such memorable event took place during his six-year stint with Manson, just after wrapping a set at Ozzfest in New York.

“I had just gotten off stage when I heard that Les Paul was playing in the city so I wanted to get over there,” recalls John 5. “I was still weird-looking from the show, but I walked into this jazz club and met Les Paul backstage. There were all of these amazing musicians getting onstage, playing all of these songs that I did not know. These were jazz standards and everybody knew them except for me. I thought it was so cool, but Les Paul would kind of go, ‘Keep practicing kid,’ to these other people getting up on stage. So he invited me up and I was like, ‘Oh no! I don’t know any of these songs.’”

John 5 opted to go with blues in E, took a deep breath to settle his nerves and gave it everything he had.

“Everybody was clapping, the crowd was roaring, and I bent down and kissed his foot,” says John 5. “I’ll never forget this—he said, ‘Son, I’ve played with a lot of people and you impress me.’ It was one of the greatest nights of my life.”

But those few moments of not knowing how to perform a certain musical genre is John 5’s worst fear. Although his last two stints have been with rock and heavy metal bands, John 5 prides himself in being well versed in many genres.

“I hated it when I was in school and someone would ask me a question that I didn’t know the answer to,” he says. “I never wanted to feel that way with guitar. I always wanted to know that if someone asked me to play a certain kind of music, I could do it.”


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