CRÜE TO THE 5TH POWER

MONSTER GUITARIST JOHN 5 DETAILS HIS ASCENSION INTO THE RANKS OF MÖTLEY CRÜE

- JOE BOSSO

EARLIER THIS YEAR, JOHN 5 WOKE UP from a dead sleep and had no idea where he was. He looked around, disoriented, blinking his bleary eyes. “Oh, my God. I’m on an airplane,” he said to himself. Still not fully awake, he scanned his surroundings some more the massive aircraft was a chartered affair, plush and roomy. All of the other passengers were stretched out, sound asleep. Then he started to scrutinize their faces. “Who are these people?” he thought. After a few seconds, he recognized guitarist Vivian Campbell, and soon he realized that all of the members of Def Leppard were on board. Not only that, but so were Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe.

“I started freaking out,” John 5 says. “I got up and went to the back of the plane to wake myself up.” What at first seemed like an out-ofbody experience soon became very real. The guitarist was winging his way from the U.S. to South America in spare-no-expense rock-star style as both bands, Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, were about to begin their 2023 co-headline world tour.