COVER FEATURE
CRUE TO THE 5TH POWER
MONSTER GUITARIST JOHN 5 DETAILS HIS ASCENSION INTO THE RANKS OF MÖTLEY CRÜE
BY JOE BOSSO PHOTOS BY ROSS HALFIN
“AS LONG AS MÖTLEY CRÜE ARE AROUND, I DON’T PLAN ON LEAVING”
EARLIER THIS YEAR, JOHN 5 WOKE UP from a dead sleep and had no idea where he was. He looked around, disoriented, blinking his bleary eyes. “Oh, my God. I’m on an airplane,” he said to himself. Still not fully awake, he scanned his surroundings some more — the massive aircraft was a chartered affair, plush and roomy. All of the other passengers were stretched out, sound asleep. Then he started to scrutinize their faces. “Who are these people?” he thought. After a few seconds, he recognized guitarist Vivian Campbell, and soon he realized that all of the members of Def Leppard were on board. Not only that, but so were Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe.
“I started freaking out,” John 5 says. “I got up and went to the back of the plane to wake myself up.” What at first seemed like an out-ofbody experience soon became very real. The guitarist was winging his way from the U.S. to South America in spare-no-expense rock-star style as both bands, Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, were about to begin their 2023 co-headline world tour.
But the guitarist was no mere guest on the flight; a couple of nights earlier, he had made his official debut as Mick Mars’ replacement with a pair of warm-up shows in Atlantic City. Dispensing with the elaborate costumes and horror-goth makeup he famously donned during his years as Rob Zombie’s lead axeman, John 5 adopted a stripped-down, modern Mötley look; wearing a black leather jacket and with his medium-length blond hair neatly slicked back, he resembled a badass biker as he expertly peeled off familiar riffs and solos during the Crüe’s 15-song, hit-filled show. Grinning a wide, exuberant grin, he seemed to be having a high, heady time — as if he were living out one of his wildest teenage dreams.
Which, in a very real sense, he was.
“These things are so strange to me,” he says. “I’ll be on stage with them, and I’ll be like, ‘I still can’t believe this.’ I’ll start laughing when we’re playing a song. The guys will say, ‘What’s so funny?’ And I’ll be like, ‘This is just so weird.’ We’ll play ‘Same Old Situation,’ and it’s so cool. Or we’ll play ‘Home Sweet Home’ in front of 60,000 people, and I’ll look at Vince and say, ‘This is just like the video!’” He pauses, then adds, “This is where it’s going to sound funny, because it sounds like a dream. I’m so worried that I’ll wake up and tell my wife, ‘Whoa… I had this dream that I was in Mötley Crüe.’”
MAKING THE (CRÜE) CUT
John 5 comes to the Crüe as something of a name brand. As a solo artist, he’s released a series of albums that highlighted his accomplished and inventive instrumental skills while reflecting his wildly eclectic tastes (everything from bluegrass to molten metal). During much of that time, the guitarist (born John Lowery in Grosse Pointe, Michigan) also enjoyed an enviable run as one of L.A.’s most in-demand musicians. Before his 17-year stint with Zombie, he served as a key member of Marilyn Manson’s band. In addition, he collaborated with David Lee Roth and has contributed to projects by a dizzying and diverse array of artists — Rod Stewart, Garbage, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lita Ford, Rick Springfield, Paul Stanley, Ricky Martin, Steve Perry and Alice Cooper, among others. One of his first pro gigs after he arrived in Los Angeles was playing guitar for pop-country singer k.d. lang on her 1996-97 world tour.
“I had to put this weird contraption on my guitar — it’s called a Floyd Rose,” John 5 says. “I was a Van Halen nut, so I had Floyds, and I know everything about them”
“To me, any similarities between any of the people I’ve worked with, whether it’s k.d. lang or Mötley Crüe, it all comes down to one thing: I just love music,” John 5 says. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved music. It didn’t have to be rock or a certain kind of thing. As a lot of people know, I watched Hee-Haw on TV. There were amazing players on that show. Anybody who could do anything very well — if you were good at your craft — Iwas excited about.”