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By JANET ZINK, Times Staff WriterThe local company moves into a sprawling Tampa warehouse, and launches a popular "Dimebag" line.
TAMPA - They were shots heard 'round the heavy metal world.
On Dec. 8, a fan gunned down former Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott during an Ohio performance by his new band, Damageplan.
The death stunned fans and musicians. Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmons and Ted Nugent offered praise for the guitarist and condolences to his family on Damageplan's Web site.
But Dimebag lives on with a line of guitars that local manufacturer and distributor Dean Guitars will introduce today at a music industry conference in Anaheim, Calif.
Some guitars in the new line feature a unique body shape developed by Dimebag months before he died while others showcase his graphic designs on the classic X-shape, solid body for which Dean guitars are known.
The launch of the Dimebag line signals a new era for Dean, a once-popular guitar maker that has been steadily rebuilding its brand. Another heavy metal guitarist has signed an endorsement deal, drums have been added to the inventory and a line of guitars designed for women is being unveiled.
At the same time, Tampa-based Armadillo Enterprises, which owns Dean, has moved the company out of its Clearwater headquarters into the mammoth warehouse in Tampa that was vacated by Tropical Sportsware Int'l. Corp.
"We've been busy," said Elliott Rubinson, head of Armadillo. "All the excitement's been in the past year or so."
Rubinson, 50, hopes the new ventures will boost his company's sales this year to $20-million. Sales hit $15.5-million last year, he said.
The Dimebag guitars are causing a buzz.
For the first time, Dimebag is featured on the cover of the venerable Guitar Player magazine. Its February cover includes a Dean guitar emblazoned across the top.
All 150 limited-edition guitars with Dimebag's lightning bolt graphics have been presold for $4,700 each, Rubinson said.
Dimebag's affiliation with Dean goes back to when he was 14, Rubinson said. He played them throughout Pantera's heyday in the mid '90s. He switched to Washburn Guitars late in the decade, a time when Dean Guitars had practically disappeared from the American market.
But when Dimebag's contract with Washburn ended, he inked an endorsement deal with Dean, which Rubinson had revived. Dimebag died three weeks later at the age of 38.
In the months before that, though, he worked with Dean Zelinsky, the Chicago-based founder of Dean, to develop a guitar with a unique body shape and finger grips on the volume and tone knobs so they can be easily grasped by performers sweating on stage.
He also created four graphic designs for Dean Guitar bodies. One features stripes of lime green, Dimebag's favorite color, Rubinson said. Another simulates rusting metal.
"The guy had ideas flowing quicker than you could write them down," Zelinsky said. "He had his finger on the pulse of metal and could translate that into a guitar and knew what metal players would like."
Zelinsky said Dimebag understood what Zelinsky had in mind when he launched Dean Guitars.
"We were about putting quality instruments together that had mass stage appeal, that would become part of the rock star's costume," Zelinsky said. "A flashy-looking thing. Paint jobs that no one had seen before."
Zelinsky, 47, started Dean Guitars in 1976 and made a name for himself putting instruments in the hands of bands such as Heart, Kansas and ZZ Top, a band that made their guitars a centerpiece of their music videos. When Zelinsky became disenchanted with the music industry, he sold the company in 1991 to a Miami firm that peddled the guitars largely overseas to Latin bands.
The company floundered until 1997, when Rubinson bought it. In the first year, sales reached $1-million.
At the time, Rubinson's Thoroughbred Music was in transition.
Like Zelinsky, he started his company in the mid '70s, buying and selling guitars from his dorm room at the University of South Florida. At one point, he had more guitars than his room could handle, so he rented a storefront.
"Before I knew it, I had this thriving business that turned into a monster," he said.
The "monster" became a six-store regional chain with sales of $50-million in 1998, Rubinson said. But competition from the Internet and music superstores cut into profits.
Rubinson sold Thoroughbred to megastore Sam Ash in 1999 and channeled his energy into Dean.
He expanded Dean's offerings to include a full line of acoustic, electric and bass guitars, mandolins and banjos with prices ranging from less than $100 to more than $6,000. He brought Zelinsky back to the company he had founded in 2000.
The company took off, moving 100,000 units in 2004, and outgrowing its 20,000-square-foot Clearwater location. The company assembles guitar parts made and painted in locations throughout the country and distributes them around the world.
"We were bursting at the seams and using external warehouses," Rubinson said. "It took us three years to find the right building."
Rubinson looked in Pinellas County, but then the 100,000-square-foot Tropical Sportswear building on Waters Avenue became available. The Tampa apparel maker filed for bankruptcy protection in December and is negotiating a sale to Perry Ellis International Inc. for $88-million.
Art Thompson, senior editor at Guitar Player, said Dean delivers a quality product to everyone from beginning musicians to professionals.
"They are hitting all points on the compass," Thompson said. "Their high-end stuff is just superlative."
The selection of Dean by Dimebag makes the point.
"The Dime thing is a huge deal for the rock guitar world," Thompson said. "He could have played anything."
In October, Dean signed an endorsement deal with Michael Schenker, former Scorpions guitarist and now leader of the Michael Schenker Group.
The Luna Guitars, which are designed to fit women better by being lighter and having smaller necks, will be in stores in 90 days. The electric guitars come in pastel colors. The acoustics are decorated with fairies and in-laid dragonflies.
The idea for Luna came from an 80-year-old family friend of Rubinson's, who plays bass in a Tampa rock band.
"She's been playing all her life and she always complained about back problems and that the necks were too long and too thick," Rubinson said.
Six weeks after Armadillo moved into the new space, boxes of guitars fill the front of the warehouse. The back is empty.
Rubinson is happy to have the room to spread out.
"With the growth of Dean and two new lines we figure it's not going to be long before we fill this facility," Rubinson said.