JOHN 5 still hasn't spoken to ROB ZOMBIE since leaving ROB'S band to join MÖTLEY CRÜE
14-10-2024
During an appearance on “The Jasta Show”, the video podcast hosted by HATEBREED frontman Jamey Jasta, John 5 was asked if he has been in contact with Rob Zombie since he left Rob‘s band in the fall of 2022 to join MÖTLEY CRÜE as the replacement for the latter group’s co-founding guitarist Mick Mars. He said: “We’re not on bad terms.
And Rob wished me well. And he was, like, ‘Go get ’em,’ and all that stuff. So we’re not on bad terms, but we just have not spoke; we haven’t spoken to each other. But he’s doing great. He’s got a great new band, and he’s kicking ass out there. But we just haven’t talked. I don’t think there’s any bad blood or anything. I mean, 17 years and things like that, but it was just time to…”
He continued: “I wanna live my life, and to get an opportunity at this stage is a pretty rare opportunity. So I just want to see so many more things.
“I’m never gonna retire — I guarantee you that; I’ll never retire, but I just wanna do so much more.”
Asked if he was involved in the decision to being Mike Riggs back to Rob‘s band after his exit to join MÖTLEY CRÜE, John 5 said: “No. I think what happened was we played (the) Louder Than Life (festival in September 2022), and I told Rob that I was joining MÖTLEY CRÜE. And we had two shows to do — we had Louder Than Life and we had Aftershock (in October 2022). And so I told Rob, and then we went to go do Louder Than Life, and I saw Riggs kind of standing on the side. And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s great. I think Riggs would be incredible.’ He did great work on the earlier tours, and I just thought it was a wonderful idea. So I even said to Rob, I was, like, ‘Rob, if he needs anything, if he wants cabinets, if he needs this or that or anything I can do to help,’ I wanted to help in any way. But then Aftershock, I guess Rob didn’t want me to play Aftershock. So Riggs played that one.
“What’s so strange about it is the public had no idea what was going on,” John 5 continued. “And that’s what was so strange, is that, all of a sudden, here’s Aftershock and then I’m not there. So everyone was, like, ‘Well, what’s going on?’ But I think people figured it out and it was fine and wonderful. It was a weird transition, but that’s okay.
“I think Rob, he’s doing awesome, and I think the band is awesome,” John 5 added. “And I think it’s a wonderful band and people are enjoying it. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about people having fun and enjoying the music, and that’s what’s happening.”
This past May, MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s Nikki Sixx spoke to The Mistress Carrie Podcast about his band’s decision to hire John 5 as Mars‘s replacement following the latter’s announcement that he would no longer tour with the legendary rock act. Regarding how John 5‘s addition to CRÜE came about, Nikki said: “John‘s a great guy. I’ve known John for a long time. I brought John in on a Meat Loaf song that I wrote, ‘The Monster Is Loose’. And then some SIXX:A.M. songs. He wrote a song with me called ‘Lies Of The Beautiful People’, which was a big hit for SIXX:A.M. And I brought him in to do a project that I did for Netflix called L.A. RATS with Rob Zombie and Tommy Clufetos on drums, a Johnny Cash cover. And I wrote ‘The Dirt’ (MÖTLEY CRÜE movie soundtrack) songs with him, and he played a lot of the guitar on those tracks. And so when this moment that we weren’t expecting happened, Mick‘s leaving the band, we were in the middle of ‘The Stadium Tour’. We were in the middle of a huge tour with us and DEF LEPPARD. A world tour, not just a couple gigs. And we had to ask ourselves, like, ‘Do we fold? Do we leave Live Nation in the lurch? Do we bone our partners in DEF LEPPARD?’ And we had to dig deep and we were, like, ‘We’ve gotta do what’s right for the fans.’ And John was the guy. We didn’t even talk about anybody else. We knew John. I knew John. We knew what he was as a guitar player. We knew he was a writer. And it just was like taking a situation we didn’t expect and turning it into something. And now we have new music and we’re having a great time.”
He continued: “The thing with creativity is it’s a circle. And if there’s a break in it, you can’t really get all the energy going. And this new moment has reinvigorated the creativity in the band. And I will attribute that to John and also just change in general sometimes happens.
“I played with a lot of different musicians over the years. And every time I play with a new musician, I have a new interpretation of something,” Nikki added. “And they bring that. So there’s a freshness to having John in the band right now.”
Asked by Mistress Carrie if he had to have a Mafia-style sitdown with John 5‘s longtime bandmate and employer Rob Zombie when he was trying to get John 5 to join MÖTLEY CRÜE, Sixx said: “It was one of those things that I feel bad about. It wasn’t my decision. It was John‘s decision. I had been talking to John as a friend during some of the frustrations with Mick‘s playing, specifically on the tour. And he was my friend. And when I called him and said, ‘Wow, we’re faced with a really bad situation.’ And we talked. And he wanted to do the next-level thing in his life. He’d been with Rob for a long, long time, and they were kind of coming to an end of a tour. And he talked to Rob, and Rob was not happy but understood. I still feel bad about that. That was never my intention, to go out and steal somebody from another band. That’s not what we did. But I have so much respect for Rob. It’s one of those things where I’m really happy and at the same time I’m, like… Sometimes this stuff’s fucking hard. Like making a decision to move on without an original member. It’s not exactly as seamless as people would like it to seem. There’s some little bumps along the way, little bumps in the road.”
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