Guitar Center has unveiled a mural of Eddie Van Halen on the outside wall of its flagship Sunset Strip store in Hollywood. With January 26, 2021, marking the late guitar legend’s 66th birthday, muralist Robert Vargas has depicted Eddie playing his iconic Frankenstrat guitar over 105ft of the 17ft-high wall at the store’s rear entrance.
‘Eddie was one of my creative heroes,’ Vargas remarks. ‘When I was young, the debut Van Halen record was the first album I ever owned. He influenced me over the years in so many different ways. As soon as the news hit of his passing, I knew I had to do something creative to memorialise him, and Guitar Center was the obvious venue. Right here on the Sunset Strip, where the band made their bones – I can’t think of a better place for this tribute to him, and I thank Guitar Center for giving me the canvas to share it with the world.’
Guitar Center’s Hollywood location has a history of paying tribute to Eddie Van Halen, with Eddie’s handprints being a centrepiece and main attraction of the RockWalk outside the store, along with several of his prized instruments and other memorabilia on display behind glass.
‘Eddie Van Halen was a truly monumental force in rock music,’ says Jean-Claude Escudie, Guitar Center Category Manager ‘He made lead guitar playing popular when it might have been slipping away into punk and new wave minimalist territory, and then basically the entire 80s hard rock scene followed in his wake. Guitar Center saw this first-hand, as generations of lead guitarists have flocked to our stores to try to capture something of what inspires them about Eddie’s sound. Besides that, sometimes people forget that he was an immigrant and multi-racial, so in so many ways his story is the story of the American experience.’
When people experience the mural, Vargas wants them to see Eddie ‘in his full glory’ and feel like anything is possible: ‘When you work hard at something, you can reach your full potential. Be true to your art, and your art will be true to you. I had the chance to meet Eddie a few years back, and because he and I connected on the nature of art and creativity, painting him here is therapeutic.’
In addition to the monumental Eddie Van Halen mural, the store also features a Jimi Hendrix mural unveiled in 2018. Outside the entrance are concrete blocks bearing the signatures and handprints from more than 150 notable musicians (including Van Halen), producers, bands, and music instrument manufacturers.
