It seems ‘Beat It’ is the song to cover this year! Here a former Marilyn Manson guitarist called John William Lowery aka John 5 is performing a cover version of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ on November 8 at Discovery in Ventura, California.
Asked about his decision to record a verion of “Beat It” for his 2012 solo album “God Told Me To”, John 5 told Guitar World: “[I decided to do it] partly because it’s such a massive, massive song. You can go pretty much anywhere in the world and people know ‘Beat It’. When I was growing up, you heard it everywhere. I remember being a kid and going to school dances and stuff, and they always played it. And I thought the riff was amazing, the song was amazing, and Eddie’s [Van Halen] solo was amazing.”
Speaking about the fact that he actually recreates Eddie’s solo almost note-for-note on his version, John 5 said: “I put a lot of thought into that. My feeling was, that solo is a piece of music in and of itself. And it’s iconic; I didn’t want to mess with it. So I go off at the end a little bit and do my own thing, but otherwise I play it pretty close. And it was fun trying to pull that off.
SOURCE: Blabber Mouth
