It’s a January morning and John 5 is at home working on a new lick that he says “sounds like a broken computer”.

Intrigued by the notion of such mechanical discombobulation in sonic form, we can’t resist asking to hear it. The guitarist plays his latest creation down the phone to MusicRadar and, sure enough, it lives up to expectation – using wide intervals, right-hand taps and chromatics to give the impression of a robot in distress. It could be said that few guitarists are as bravely and brilliantly inventive.

But this is no ordinary axeman, himself having played for big names such as k.d. lang, Rob Halford, David Lee Roth and Marilyn Manson before eventually settling down as Rob Zombie’s right-hand man.

I love and cherish new licks... I try to find a new one every other day

“I love and cherish new licks,” explains John 5. “I try to find a new one every other day – I’ll come up with something, spend two days to practising to get it down and then go on looking for more.

"I try putting them all in songs so I never forget them. That actually helps so much; like a lot of guitar players, I have my security licks – so instead of relying on similar ones, I want to have all sorts of types at my disposal. It might be string skipping or tapping or just some weird noises, it doesn’t matter to me - I just find it fun!”

It's Alive!

The guitarist is talking to MusicRadar to promote latest release It’s Alive! with solo band The Creatures – 17 tracks recorded spontaneously at Pennsylvania’s Sellersville Theater in April 2017.

Unlike the more heavy metal inspired riffing involved with the day job, it revolves around more fretboard acrobatics with less distortion - a scenario which often separates the amateurs from the pros...

“It’s a lot of work to pull it off perfectly - you are really, really naked up there!” he laughs. “I concentrate and work on that more than anything. I love that style of playing, so when we do that live - and the record is 100% live - I made sure I practised a lot with the band.

“I wanted to sound very traditional, like a band playing back in the '50s or '60s. And that’s the fun part about playing with The Creatures: there’s a lot of work involved. We tend to play a lot of shows in a row, we play this game with each other to see how perfect we can get it.

"What a great opportunity it was when we got told there was a recording facility at the venue and were asked if we wanted to cut it live. The answer was, ‘Absolutely!’ and that’s how it all came about.”

Core rig

For the live shows with the solo band, the guitarist chose to strip his rig right down to the core minimum. He’s the first to admit the venues differed greatly to the festivals and arenas he’s used to headlining with Rob Zombie, and the same could be said for the music itself…

We don’t have a soundman - we can’t really afford to bring one!

“You know, for this I wanted to keep my setup really simple. It’s just Telecasters going into a 100-Watt Marshall JVM, which I also use for my mandolin, too – it sounds great. There’s a Boss Super Overdrive, with a Noise Suppressor to cut some of the unwanted sounds out, and I used a digital delay for Hell Haw for that slapback kinda sound, and that’s basically it.

“The only other thing about my rig with The Creatures was that I ran everything through an iso-cab. I wanted my sound controlled like that, because you know what? We don’t have a soundman - we can’t really afford to bring one! We just go into these venues and at the moment this is a small thing… hopefully turning into a big thing.”

Here, the session master tells us about the 10 guitarists who blew his mind…

John 5 And The Creatures' new live album, It's Alive!, is out now.