A while back, John 5 took to Instagram to post an explainer on how he was able to play Mötley Crüe songs without needing his right hand. Guitar players knew what was what. But it was interesting all the same.
It was in response to online accusations that Mötley Crüe had been using backing tapes in their performances. This controversy, in and of itself, invites further questioning; who among us is sober enough at a Mötley Crüe concert to notice such details?
Nonetheless, the accusations had clearly stung John 5, a player who is ridiculously gifted to the point where it is hard to imagine any piece giving him difficulty.
But nowadays, John 5 takes the opposite view. He sees these accusations as a sign that he and Mötley Crüe are doing something right. “It’s a compliment,” he tells MusicRadar. “It’s such a compliment. Like, it makes me so happy.”
In concert, John 5 plays a game with himself that is probably unhealthy but nonetheless keeps him honest; whether performing his solo material or tearing through Mötley Crüe’s back catalogue, he dares himself to play it as close to perfect as possible.
He is joining us to talk about the Fender John 5 Telecaster Collection, which was launched last week, and how his Custom Shop Phantom is so on-point that the prototype he has been touring with these past few years makes nailing the little nuances in former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars’ parts that bit easier.
“In Home Sweet Home, the solo, there’s all these pinch harmonics, and they have to be just right,” he says. “You have to be just right. You can go online and watch [this]. Everybody records it! I just hit that pitch harmonic perfectly on that because those guitars are set up so nice and perfect.”
This drive for perfection might be part of the problem, like it’s too good to be true.
“This is so strange, but I don’t really talk about this,” he says. “I’ll play just a ton of shows, a ton of shows, and people are like, ‘Oh, don’t you ever get tired of it?’ And I say, ‘No.’ This is why. I’m such a perfectionist. I always say it’s like Steely Dan. Like when Steely Dan were in the studio, it took them six weeks just to pick out a chair. But that’s how I am live. What I do live is I try to make it so perfect.”
Not everyone appreciates this. Some people want to hear him mess things up, or to hear something different from the records. But remember when John 5 took the gig. He promised that he was going to play Mick Mars’ solos just as they were recorded, because they were part of the song.
People don’t really like this,” he admits. “They don’t! Like, ‘Oh, it’s not rock and roll.’ There’s gotta be [mistakes]. But I try to make it so perfect where everything’s on time, in pitch, hit correctly, and that’s what I do with my instrumental shows. And when I got into Mötley Crüe, same thing. I will see how perfect I can get it, and it’s so much fun. I mean, I love playing shows and playing concerts, but it’s so much fun to see how close you can get.”
So you know how, not even difficult, impossible it would be to lip-sync if something was behind the beat!? It would be impossible!
It doesn’t always work. At Mötley Crüe’s show in Salt Lake City, Utah, disaster struck, technical difficulties, and John 5 had no idea where he was in the song.
“I won’t forget it. It was in Utah, and it just happened,” he says. “We were playing Take Me To The Top, and my battery pack died, and these stages are so big. I was way out to the front. Tommy [Lee], our drummer, is way in the back. ‘Cos there’s like this ego riser. Vince [Neil] and Nikki [Sixx] were all out in front, and my pack died, and when you have those in-ears in, you can’t hear anything when that thing dies. So I was like, ‘Oh my God!’”
He wasn’t alone. They were all out of whack. And John 5 insists the ensuing “train wreck” is material evidence that they’re not playing to a tape. There was no safety net.
“I got lost and Vince got lost, and I had to run back to Tommy to get back on, to hear the acoustic of his drums,” he says. “And if that doesn’t prove [it’s real]… Because I got off and it was a train wreck for 10, 15 seconds, 20 seconds!”
Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil has copped some flack online, too. His performances have been put in the dock. But John 5 leapt to his defence, arguing that the vocalist’s delivery would be impossible to sync up with a tape.
“Vince is singing so well now, and it just drives me crazy,” he says. “Because sometimes he’s behind the beat, or ahead of the beat, but do you know how, not even difficult, impossible it would be to lip-sync if something was behind the beat!? It would be impossible! [Laughs] But, I don’t know. I take it as a compliment when people say, ‘Oh, they’re playing to a track,’ because we work so hard now to make it sound as amazing as possible. So, it’s wonderful.”
That said, bassist Nikki Sixx admitted that Mötley Crüe has used backing tracks to recreate the sound from the albums, taking the lead from Queen, and using the tracks for other instrumentation that the four of them could not replicate.
“Since we saw Queen using some to help during the song Bohemian Rhapsody live, we understood that we could bring in elements that we could not do live like orchestras, saxophones, etc etc and sync them up with what we are playing and we do play 100 per cent live. And it’s better for the fans and we enjoy being able to do what we did in the studio live. It’s a win win for us.”
Sixx's point was that they were not miming along to backing tracks of their own performances. When asked why they don’t play 100 per cent live, Sixx replied, “We do. You were lied to. Sorry.”
John 5 marked the release of the Phantom Telecaster with an eponymous new instrumental track featuring Joey Aguirre on drums, a riff that’s kind of Jake E Lee-era Ozzy, and all kinds of blazing arpeggios and lead-guitar fireworks. He can play anything.
