Nitro Pantera

The Dean Guitar Company was established in 1976 by luthier Dean Zelinsky, who was only 18 years old at the time. Dean Began playing guitar when he was 9 years old and was restoring old beat up guitars by the time he was 16. He would buy an old Gibson SG with a broken neck, fix it, play it for a few weeks and then sell it. Dean Zelinsky also employed his karate teacher, who was a corporate pilot, to look for antique guitars in the cities that he stopped over at. He put together a chart for his teacher of every valuable guitar that was available at the time, with everything to look out for in these guitars.

By the age of 18, Dean opened up the Dean Custom Guitars repair shop in Northbrook, Illinois. He came up with an idea for an academically accredited work-study program that he set up with his school. He would go to school everyday until noon and then worked until 9 or 10 at night in the shop.

When Dean reached 19 years of age, he decided to make his own instruments. He enjoyed repairing guitars but it didn’t reward him enough financially. He realized that to make the kind of money that he wanted to make, he would have to start manufacturing his own guitars.

Being a fan of Gibson’s and with the popularity of the Gibson V’s and Explorer’s at the time, he decided to make guitars similar in style to theirs. There were a lot of other companies making copies of these styles already but most of them were of very poor quality. Dean was determined to make his guitars stand out from the rest with good quality parts and a huge sound. The Rock music that was gaining popularity at the time was in his mind missing a certain look and sound, so Dean came up with a line of guitars that would solve this problem.

The first Dean guitars that were released had some interesting design and engineering features. “V-shaped” headstocks and pointy bodies made the Dean guitar easy to identify on stage as well as produce an amazing tone and sustain. These new models were called “V”, “Z” and “ML”. The “V” and “Z” guitars were shaped like the letters of the alphabet while the “ML” was named after a friend of Dean’s who passed away, Matt Lynn. Dean also came up with a new type of neck that was also “V” shaped. This made it easier and faster to play up and down the neck.

Dean decided that he wanted to get out of the guitar making business and sold his company to Oscar Medeiros in 1986. Medeiros continued to make great quality guitars and even improved the Dean guitars by introducing the “neck-through-body” construction.

Dean guitars went through another ownership change in the late 90’s when Armadillo Enterprises bought it. Armadillo Enterprises also brought original owner Dean Zelinsky back into the company as an executive and creative consultant.

The Dean Guitar Company is still to this day creating great quality guitars at a reasonable price. One of the reasons for their success is because of the great guitarists that love playing them. The most popular of the bunch would have to be Dimebag Darrell (Pantera and Damageplan) and the “Razorback” guitar that he helped to design. Other guitar players who have used Dean guitars are Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Randy Rhoads (Ozzy Ozbourne and Quiet Riot), Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill (ZZ Top), Eric Peterson (Testament), Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains), Michael Angelo Batio (Nitro), Michael Schenker (UFO and MSG), Rik Emmett (Triumph), Rik Ocasek (The Cars), Rudolf Schenker (The Scorpions) and CC Deville (Poison).

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