Fender has posted an interview with guitarist, John 5.

There can’t be many that are unfamiliar with John 5, if only from his work with Marilyn Manson.  He has, of course, worked with a shed-load of other artists and is lucky enough to have both a Fender and a Squier signature model (and both quite nice they are too).

You may not know, however, that he has a Fender Telecaster from every year they’ve been available except for ’57, ’58 and ’60.  Lucky bastard.

His favourite is a 1950 Broadcaster.

It’s a good interview – among other things, he talks about meeting Les Paul.  An excerpt:

“I had just gotten off stage when I heard that Les Paul was playing in the city so I wanted to get over there,” recalls John 5. “I was still weird-looking from the show, but I walked into this jazz club and met Les Paul backstage. There were all of these amazing musicians getting onstage, playing all of these songs that I did not know. These were jazz standards and everybody knew them except for me. I thought it was so cool, but Les Paul would kind of go, ‘Keep practicing kid,’ to these other people getting up on stage. So he invited me up and I was like, ‘Oh no! I don’t know any of these songs.’”

John 5 opted to go with blues in E, took a deep breath to settle his nerves and gave it everything he had.

“Everybody was clapping, the crowd was roaring, and I bent down and kissed his foot,” says John 5. “I’ll never forget this—he said, ‘Son, I’ve played with a lot of people and you impress me.’ It was one of the greatest nights of my life.”

Full interview at Fender