“I FEEL LIKE THE VIBRATO ARM AND THE WHAMMY PEDAL ARE MORE IN CONTROL OF WHAT HAPPENS THAN I AM”
JUST FOUR DAYS after Eddie Van Halen passed away on October 6, 2020, Jack White performed the title track from his solo album Lazaretto on Saturday Night Live, brandishing his favorite blue customized EVH Wolfgang guitar as a gesture of tribute to the late master. “I won’t even insult the man’s talent by trying to play one of his songs tonight,” White said prior to the show. “[But] Eddie was very kind to me and saw to it that this guitar was made for me to my specs. Thanks again, Eddie, for this guitar, and rest in peace, sir.”
While some might be surprised to learn that indie-rock’s champion of primal blues lines and the late, lamented heavy rock virtuoso were so sympatico, it makes terrific sense on many levels. In addition to decades of knocking out album after album of wicked riffs and potent solos, both players have displayed throughout their careers an almost obsessive pursuit of individualism and specialized design in the instruments they’ve played, never content with stock features and aesthetics, always pushing the envelope to make their own guitars more idiosyncratic, versatile and allied with their singular approaches to both technique and tone.
“Eddie was really gratified to learn that Jack was playing the Wolfgang guitars,” says Fender Master Builder Chip Ellis, who oversaw the design of the EVH Wolfgang line, as well as the customizations on White’s specific axes, and has been White’s collaborator on custom designs ever since. White and Ellis’s latest co-creations, used liberally on White’s newest release — the wide-ranging and explosive guitar showcase Fear of the Dawn (Third Man) — are every bit as unique in form and function as you’d expect. And although they are unmistakably Fender guitars — including a customized Telecaster and Jazzmaster, and two Acoustasonics — they stray as far from the production models as one could possibly go.
Likewise, on, White strays about as far from mainstream pop and indie rock as one could possibly go, turning in a blistering electric guitar statement that suggests timeless touchstones such as Frank Zappa, Prince, T. Rex, Thin Lizzy and Tom Morello as much as it does the kind of garagepsych nuggets on which White built his reputation.
