The Incredible Story of the Blimp’s Van Halen Guitar

We are all still wrapping our heads around the loss of Eddie Van Halen. The first thing we did when we heard the sad news was to prop our EVH guitar up against the Blimp Archive Wall and snap a photo. That pic went viral and we received a ton of questions about the instrument. Namely, how did we get it, and whose signatures are at the bottom?

Everyone assumes one of them is Edward's. Nope. No member of Van Halen signed it, but the Eddie Van Halen guitar you see before you has an amazing story behind it and is the only one of its kind on the planet.

We received this EVH guitar from a dear friend who had a quest to get Eddie's signature on it for us. Our bud is a good friend of Dweezil Zappa who was friends with Edward. Dweezil reached out to Eddie to see if he would autograph it. Eddie politely said no. Eddie told Dweez he only would sign guitars for charities. Totally cool. But now what?

So Dweezil decides HE will sign it. Cool, there's one guitar legend.  And it just so happens that Dweezil, at the time, is over at STEVE VAI's house. So he gets Steve to sign it.

OK, now we have two guitar gods. And it's extra special because Steve (who was in The Mothers Of Invention with Dweezil's dad Frank Zappa) actually taught Dweezil how to play. So now the boys have an idea. They want to continue the theme and have the guitar signed by the person who gave Steve Vai guitar lessons....and that would be JOE SATRIANI.

So they ship the guitar to Joe, who promptly signs it. Soon after, it's presented to us at the Blimp. So to recap; We have an Eddie Van Halen custom guitar NOT signed by Eddie Van Halen, but by three guitar gods who all were influenced by each other, and the late, great Edward Van Halen. There is not another guitar like this in the world! Touch it and I swear to God, you can feel the magic in it.

Thank you, Dweezil, Steve, Joe, and Eddie. And you too, KS!