Some guitarists should never meet their heroes. That was true for Mark Knopfler when he worked with Bob Dylan on his 1983 album, Infidels. It also didn't turn out too well for Eddie Van Halen when he befriended his guitar inspiration, Eric Clapton.
But it worked out just fine for Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell when he and Eddie became friends in the 1990s. Unfortunately, their friendship was bookended by a pair of bad experiences for Cantrell: In short, the worst gig of his career, and the theft of an extremely rare electric guitar Eddie gave him.
In the early 1990s, as Van Halen were getting ready to tour their For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge record, singer Sammy Hagar handpicked Alice in Chains to open for them. The band was blowing up at the time, and Hagar became enraptured with them after seeing their music video for "Man in the Box" on MTV.
The 10-month tour kicked off in August 1991, which is when Cantrell had his nightmare gig, all because he was nervous about performing in front of Eddie.
“The first time I met Ed Van Halen, I was getting ready to go onstage, and he was standing in my pit with Valerie [Bertinelli] right next to him and Wolfie in her arms,” he tells Gibson TV. “He's got his guitar on, and he's running scales like, ‘Hey, dude, what's up?’ And I'm like, Are you fucking kidding me?
“I think it was probably the worst show I ever played in my life, because I could not stop thinking, He's right there! I couldn't focus, and I couldn't wait until the gig was over.
“After that, it was fine, and we became good friends. Any time Ed would come to Seattle, he'd come pick me up, and we'd go to a pool hall, or we'd go see a band,” he adds. “Or we'd just end up in his hotel room playing, like, Name That Riff all night.”
Once the tour was over, Cantrell learned about Eddie's famously generous nature.
“I remember coming home off that tour, and I was living with [Alice in Chains’ manager] Kelly Curtis and his wife, Peggy,” he says. “He's like, ‘Hey man, welcome home. You had a good tour, and now you can relax... Hey, by the way, do you think you could clear your shit out of my garage? I need to put my car in there.’
“I'm like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and he says, ‘Eddie Van Halen filled the garage with gear for you. I haven't been able to park my car in my garage for months.’”
This was at the height of Eddie’s association with Music Man, and Cantrell benefited from it greatly. Among the haul were two 5150 amp heads, four cabs, and two copies of Ed's signature Music Man guitar, including one in Translucent Blue — a colorway reserved for models given as gifts to the guitarist’s inner circle.
“It’s sitting there in this tightly packed garage, and I’m trying to process it all like, ‘Okay, Eddie Van Halen just filled my garage with gear.”
In 2000, nearly a decade later, Cantrell took the Trans Blue axe to A&M Studios in Hollywood to record his solo album, Degradation Trip. It was then that the guitar went missing, stolen from the studio.
“I never knew what happened to that guitar, and I tried to track it down for years. I just couldn't figure it out,” Cantrell explains.
As Alice in Chains embarked on their Rainier Fog tour in 2018, he got a lead from Dave Friedman, with whom he had built his JJ-100 amp head.
“‘There’s a guy in Florida who collects Eddie’s Music Man guitars,’“ he said, “‘and he thinks he has your guitar.’
“So I called him up, and he'd found it online 18 years after it went missing,” Cantrell remembers. “They only made 23 of them, and mine in particular I routed out so that I could pull the Floyd Rose back. He showed me the guitar, and sure as shit it was.”
Unfortunately, the collector went dark soon enough. About a week later, Cantrell learned he was trying to get rid of the hot property.
“Another collector, Greg, calls from San Diego,” Cantrell continues.. “He's like, ‘Dude, this kid wants to sell me your guitar for, like, seven grand. I was asking him about where he got it, and he said his dad used to work at A&M Studios.’
“So Greg bought the guitar, drove it up from San Diego, and gave it to me. He didn’t even want any money. He was like, ‘It’s your guitar, man.’”
With a mix of excitement and relief, Cantrell rang Eddie to tell him the good news. His reply? “I'm really happy for you, but why hasn’t that ever happened to me, man? I never get my shit back.”
“Well, it's because it's you’re Eddie Van Halen, dude,” Cantrell replied. “I wouldn't give it back either.”
Meanwhile, Eddie Van Halen has been accused of stealing "Eruption" from Ace Frehley, while, in turn, Frehley was forced to re-create Eddie's solo on "Christine Sixteen" after the shredder tracked some demos for Gene Simmons.
