Gear Used by Eddie Van Halen Stolen From Nashville Storage Locker

Eddie Van Halen performs onstage at Lewisham Odeon, London, 27th May 1978
(Image credit: Gus Stewart/Redferns/Getty Images)

A number of pieces of gear used onstage by Eddie Van Halen were allegedly stolen from a Nashville storage locker earlier this month. 

According to The Tennessean, thieves took custom Marshall cabinets, vintage Fender and boutique TopHat amplifiers, Ampeg bass cabinets, collectable Sears Silvertone instruments, and more from a locker belonging to guitar tech Zeke Clark.

Clark – who, in addition to his time with Van Halen, has worked with Cheap Trick and Kenny Chesney – had last visited the iStorage unit in late October, and returned last week to find a new lock on the unit. Once he removed it with bolt cutters, he discovered that 20 Marshall 4x12 cabinets, among other pieces of gear, were missing. Clark values the stolen merchandise at at least $50,000.

Van Halen used the Marshalls on his band's 5150 and Monsters of Rock tours, Clark said. Years later, Prince would use them for a number of '90s studio recordings. 

The Metro Nashville Police Department Hermitage precinct has opened an investigation on the theft, though a full inventory of the stolen items has yet to be created.

"This stuff means the world to me," Clark said. "This is part of my life. This is my history. I just want to get it back." 

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Jackson Maxwell
Associate Editor, GuitarWorld.com and GuitarPlayer.com

Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com and GuitarPlayer.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.