John 5 has revealed he once chickened out of asking for Gene Simmons’ autograph. Here’s how the 13-year-old future guitar great got into the same elevator as Gene Simmons in the early ’80s.
According to Ultimate Class Rock, John 5 initially “met the guys in KISS early on, like probably “late ’83.” He was a teenager when he decided to sneak out of school to meet the band.
“I was probably 13, and I snuck out of school…I was from a really nice town called Grosse Pointe, Mich. We had a butler, really nice upbringing. And I snuck out, got to the worst point of Detroit you could ever imagine, waited at the hotel to meet my heroes, who I’d loved since I was 7-years-old, and waited there all day.”
John 5 came prepared to get Gene Simmons’ autograph, bringing along his vinyl copy of Kiss’ The Originals box set. Once he saw Simmons he knew he couldn’t let the moment pass him by, so he got into the same elevator with him.
“He stood there with his arms crossed, and I had a pen and my Originals, and I’m just standing there. And then he got to his floor and [the door] opened. And he goes, ‘You want me to sign that?’ And I said, ‘No, it’s okay.’ I swear to God that happened. And then I just went down.”
Looks like John 5 froze up after getting starstruck, which is definitely understandable since he’d been a huge fan of KISS since he was 7-years-old.
Funny enough, John 5 would later go on to tour and collaborate with members of KISS. He opened for KISS in the ’90s and has also worked with tons of other rockstars including David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie. John 5 started playing guitar when he was 7-years-old and he hasn’t stopped playing since.
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