The John 5 Ghost Telecaster Wiring

I have to confess that this is a matter of heart for me because I’m a John 5 fan. I’m really fascinated with his playing style. This guy can play it all. No matter if he’s picking country swing or shredding death metal, his playing is very close to the traditional tones and techniques, but is always in his own style. Besides this, he’s a very humble guy with a great sense of humor, so I’m really happy to write a piece about his new signature Telecaster.

Fender worked very closely with John 5 on this model. At its core, this guitar is a standard HH Telecaster in arctic white—including the neck and fretboard—with red accents that include the binding, nut, knobs, pickups, and more. It’s a matter of taste, if you like this flashy aesthetic or not.

Let’s have a look at the basic features, so you have a shopping list if you want to build your own:

• alder body with HH pickup routings and binding
• maple neck with a medium C shape, 9.5" radius, and 22 narrow tall frets
• 42 mm synthetic bone nut
• string-through Tele bridge with humbucker pickup cutout and six block steel saddles
• sealed locking tuners
• 1-piece pickguard/control plate combination in mirrored chrome
• .009–.042 nickel-plated steel strings

What makes this guitar really stand out besides its appearance is the wiring, which I think is very special but also minimal. You can put this wiring inside any Telecaster, as long as it accepts two humbuckers. It consists of:

• two DiMarzio D Activator humbucker pickups
• master volume control (most likely 500k audio) without treble-bleed network
• Gibson-style 3-way pickup-selector toggle switch
• momentary kill switch

That’s all John 5 needs to sound like no one else, so let’s go through the pieces step by step and see what is under the hood.