Metal Insider recently caught up with guitarist John 5 to talk about his projects with Rob Zombie, Rod Stewart and Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. A couple of excerpts from the chat can be found below.
The discussion began with Rob Zombie’s new album, ‘Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor.’ “We really worked hard on it,” John 5 recalled. “It’s very unorthodox. I’m playing stuff with a violin bow and electric sitar and all sorts of stuff like that…We’re playing some of the songs live, and people are just eating it up, so we’re psyched about it. It’s great.”
Rob Zombie, who is currently on tour in support of the new album, recently announced that the band’s upcoming shows in Houston and Dallas would be filmed for his first ever live DVD.
John 5 said there was no better time to get the film out: “We have the biggest show that we’ve ever done, it has to come out. We’re just getting so much footage and everything for it…. The band is so tight and we just have everything down, and FINALLY we’re going to have recorded history of this show.”
In March this year, Rod Stewart released a song that was co-written by John 5 and ‘Kevin Savigar, titled ‘It’s Over’ as the first UK single for his new album ‘Time.’ John 5 explained that it was Savigar who suggested the collaboration: “…He wrote ‘Forever Young,’ he wrote ‘Young Turks,’ he wrote all of these big Rod Stewart hits, and he said ‘Hey, we should write some songs.’ When we got together and did that, the song was HUGE overseas. He got a number one record, and he was in the top five for I don’t know how many weeks. It’s probably still in the top five. Huge record! The outcome was that it was just massive. It was a massive hit, and it’s so weird to think that I was a part of it.”
The guitarist also discussed ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow Bar & Grill,’ the musical jukebox project he is working on with David Lee Roth. He explained the project was initially put together as a warm up tool for Roth: “What it was, he was warming up for the Van Halen record he said ‘Hey John, come on over, we’ll play some songs and write a little bit.’”
However, the duo soon realized the material was too good to not be heard: “…we were just hanging out at his house and he said ‘I love this, let’s go into the studio!’ And we recorded it that day. Luckily I cleared my day, and we came out with twelve songs, and they’re incredible! I don’t know what he’ll do with it.”
He continued: “It’s so incredible. It is awesome. It sounds like ‘Could This Be Magic?’ or ‘The Full Bug,’ you know, that David Lee Roth deep voice. It’s really great. Hopefully it’ll see the light of day one day.”
John 5 On Upcoming Rob Zombie/David Lee Roth Projects
