Guitar hero John 5’s track record is as impeccable as his playing, which he brings to Novato’s HopMonk Tavern on Saturday, Jan. 24.
He has recorded and toured with a range of rock and metal legends, including Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie and David Lee Roth. In addition, his studio session work spans a remarkably diverse collection of artists, from veteran crooner Rod Stewart to hip-hop pioneers Salt-N-Pepa. And since 2022, when he became the touring guitarist for Mötley Crüe—being promoted to full member in 2023—he has taken on the mantle of guitarist for the legendary rock band.
He’s also got one of the most distinctive guitar styles in the hard-rock arena and credits a fair amount of that to the “kill switch,” a circuit-interrupting button that instantly cuts the guitar’s sound.
“I saw [Kiss guitarist] Ace Frehley doing it with his toggle switch, and he would go pop-up-up-up,” John 5 revealed in an early October interview. “And then I saw Buckethead creating these cool beats with it. And I thought that was incredible. So, yeah, that’s where the toggle switch thing came from. It’s not just on-off, on-off; you have to kind of do it twice as fast. It’s very hard to explain, but it is a difficult thing to get down and do.”
One can hear a whole lot of kill switch on John 5’s new instrumental album, Ghosts, where his playing masterfully incorporates the percussive, syncopated technique known as “chicken pickin’”—John 5 was exposed to Roy Clark, Buck Owens and Hee Haw at an early age—into a hard rock and metal framework.
And the title? “Well, I really think we all are surrounded by ghosts, but we just have to be aware of the signs,” he said. “It’s not like doors opening and closing; it’s nothing spooky. It’s just how we live and how we are. I named my guitar ‘The Ghost,’ and I think it’s a very fitting name for this album as well.”
Instrumentally, the album is something of a departure from John 5’s past work, with accompaniment by a who’s who of bassists and drummers, including Jane’s Addiction’s Stephen Perkins, John Mellencamp’s Kenny Aronoff, and the David Lee Roth Band’s Gregg Bissonette and Matt Bissonette.
Mötley Crüe’s wildman drummer Tommy Lee is also on board, contributing hand claps and foot stomps to the track “You, Me and the Devil Makes Three.” Did the guitarist realize he’d finally found a task Tommy Lee couldn’t overplay?
“It’s just that kind of Robert Johnson-esque song,” he explained with a laugh, mentioning the early blues legend. “It’s a very primitive, 1920s or ’30s kind of vibe, sitting on a porch or in some weird club with not a lot of instruments around, so you just do that, and that’s all you need.”
Having played alongside Lee onstage and in the studio, John 5 can’t say enough about him. “Oh my God, dude, this guy. Tommy is just a magician. He’s one of those people you just put behind that kit, and there’s this groove that comes out. You can’t describe it. It just happens.”
John 5’s first recording as a full-fledged Crüe member was their 2024 Cancelled EP, which included a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party).”
“I love doing covers like ‘Fractured Mirror’ from Ace Frehley’s solo album and especially [Guns N’ Roses’] ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ I’d wanted so bad to move to California and get my career started, but I was so nervous and scared,” he said. “I was, you know, probably 16 at the time. But when I heard that song, that’s really what made me want to get up and move to California, because the video is so cool. And I was like, ‘God, I can do that.’”
Onstage, John 5’s recent go-to covers have included Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind,” Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and, yes, a career-spanning Mötley Crüe medley. “I love any kind of music that’s done really well. I love jazz. I love bluegrass. I love Western swing. I love anything like that,” he said. “That’s what influenced me. You’ve just got to make sure the melody is going to translate to your guitar, which is difficult because you have to pay tribute to the original, and it’s not easy to do.”
The trick, he says, is to keep it clean. “If you use too much distortion, it gets saturated and it gets messy, especially when you play live,” the guitarist said. “Since joining Mötley Crüe, some of the comments are like, ‘It’s too clean; it’s too precise,’ and that couldn’t be a better compliment to me. I just love it when people say that it’s too perfect, because in a studio, you gotta play in time and in tune with no mistakes, and it’s got to be clear.”
For John 5, that also means recording unedited performances. “I never want to do something in the studio that I can’t do live. I will create the guitar part and play it as just one piece,” he said. “I won’t do any edits. I won’t do any punch-ins. And I think that’s really, really important because when you play it live, it sounds great. It sounds just like the record.”
John 5 performs at 8pm, Saturday, Jan. 24 at HopMonk Tavern Novato, 224 Vintage Way. Tickets are $53.37. hopmonk.com/novato.
