JOHN 5 On His Solo Performances: 'It's Like Watching Someone Juggle Chainsaws'

Former MARILYN MANSON and current ROB ZOMBIE guitarist John 5 was interviewed on the June 11 edition of “Whiplash”, the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie. You can now listen to the chat using the widget below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On keeping his playing adventurous while making it accessible for listeners:

John: “That was my big fear. That’s why I didn’t tour for my instrumental stuff for so long because I didn’t think anybody would care. It’s literally so complicated; it’s like watching someone juggle chainsaws or something and you’re, like, ‘Oh boy, he’s going to drop it!’ I didn’t think anybody really cared and people were, like, ‘Just try it, just try it!’ And then people came out in droves and I was so happy about that. I was, like, ‘Oh wow, people really like this.’ That’s when I kept going and kept touring because people really enjoyed it. There’s not many crazy guitar instrumentalists out there that put on a crazy monster show. People really enjoy it because it’s so odd and so different because you get all these different styles of music and you get all of these weird monsters coming out. You get a show that comes with it. There’s not a lot of things like that going on and I think that’s why people really enjoy the night out like that.”

On how his love of non-metal music works its way into ROB ZOMBIE or MARILYN MANSON:

John: “I don’t think it really works its way in. I try to keep that separate. I keep it separate from ROB ZOMBIE, I kept it separate from MARILYN MANSON, but I did it for myself and when I released my first instrumental record and did all this bluegrass [playing] on it, people had no idea I could play like that. I think that’s what put my name on the map a little bit because it was so different. It was like if I started right now speaking fluent Japanese or something, you’d be, like, ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know you could speak this different language.’ You’d be surprised and that’s how people were. It really was a great thing and a whole new avenue I was going to go down and people were going to go down with me. It was wonderful.”

On the most important thing he learned while working on the solo material of people like JUDAS PRIEST‘s Rob Halford and VAN HALEN‘s David Lee Roth:

John: “You know, it is true — adding to their history is so important to me. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. When I wrote with [KISS frontman] Paul Stanley for his record or if I would go up with [ex-KISS guitarist] Ace Frehley and [ex-KISS drummer] Peter Criss joined us and playing with David Lee Roth and doing these things with my heroes, my real heroes, I don’t take it for granted. I’m so fortunate and I’m so lucky to be doing these things. I have a bunch of memorabilia and these guys would come over to my house, but I’m, like, ‘Don’t go in this room. The cats are in there.’ But I didn’t want to have them go into this room and see all this memorabilia of themselves, they’ll be freaked out. But I do appreciate and love these artists to this day, so much.”

On what never gets old in working with ROB ZOMBIE:

John: “We have a great time together, first off. We have a blast with each other. We love making music, we love touring and I’ve been in the band since 2005, we’ve had so much fun. Time has gone by so quick. We’re still having a blast; we just love what we do. It’s not a job at all; it’s a good time. It’s a really great time. Everybody in the band feels the same way. We don’t have any problems. There’s no internal problems because we all understand what our position is. We all understand what is going on. I think that’s the problem with a lot of bands: it’s money, or this guy wrote this or that guy did that, but we all know what we’re doing. That’s why we’ve had no problems. It’s been great.”

John 5‘s latest studio album, “Season Of The Witch”, was released in March.

His solo band THE CREATURES includes Ian Ross on bass and Rodger Carter on drums.

John has had an illustrious career collaborating with chart-topping artists such as LYNYRD SKYNYRD, Ricky Martin and Rod Stewart. John has performed on critically acclaimed world tours with MARILYN MANSON and ROB ZOMBIE. Later, John ventured into the world of film score composing for Rob Zombie‘s “The Lords Of Salem”. In 2004 he branched out into a successful solo career and has since released eight studio albums.

“Whiplash” airs every Sunday night from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on the Los Angeles radio station 95.5 KLOS. The show can be heard on the KLOS web site at 955klos.com or you can listen in on the KLOS channel on iHeartRadio.