Following the release of his latest studio album Sinner on Friday (October 29), John 5 has dropped the music video for its latest single, Land of the Misfit Toys.
The track sees the John 5 tap into everything in his electric guitar arsenal, including hard-rocking palm-muted riffs, an abundance of two-handed tapping lines and a wealth of key-shifting, alternate picking passages. Check out the official music video below.
“Land of the Misfit Toys is my favorite track on the record,” John 5 says. “It's a real epic and the longest track on the new album. I was watching a documentary on David Foster and how he would produce, arrange and build songs which really influenced me on the arrangement and production of this track.”
As John 5 explains, the camera that was used to film the music video for his new single was the same camera used to film The Matrix Resurrections, which arrives on December 24.
He continues: “The video [for Land of the Misfit Toys] tells the story of the 10-year-old John Lowery [John 5's real name], who stumbles into a haunted house and becomes possessed by an entity that causes him to start playing guitar and wearing makeup. At the end of the video, he fully becomes John 5. Everybody knows that I'm a big fan of horror so this was a really fun video to make.”
Sinner is John 5's 10th studio album, and follows 2019's Invasion. Beyond Land of the Misfit Toys, another highlight of the record is Que Pasa, a hard-riffing track which features Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine.
"I'm so excited that the record is finally out,” he says. “We had such a great time making it. I didn't want to punch in with this record so each track is a full performance. So if I started from the beginning and messed up, I would start again at the beginning until I got a great take all the way through.
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“With a lot of time on my hands due to lockdown, I was able to really practice and focus on making the record the very best it could be. I'm so happy that the fans really love the album, because I do this for the love of the guitar and the love of music and without the fans, it wouldn't be anything.”
Sinner is out now via Big Machine Records. Check out its tracklisting below.
- Welcome To The Island
- For I Have Sinned
- Euphoria (feat. Carla Harvey)
- Que Pasa (feat. Dave Mustaine)
- How High The Moon
- Creepshow
- Land Of The Misfit Toys
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love
- This Is How I Do It
- Georgia On My Mind (feat. Peter Criss)
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.