Photos via @TheRobertVargas on IG


The Hollywood Guitar Center looks a little more metal today as it unveils a giant mural of late rocker Eddie Van Halen, honoring what would have been the icon’s 66th birthday.

Wrote artist Robert Vargas about the project, “This is for Ed, AND the fans!”

Van Halen passed last October due to throat cancer, leaving a void in the hearts of music fans and guitar lovers everywhere.

“Eddie Van Halen was a truly monumental force in rock music,” wrote Guitar Center category manager, Jean-Claude Escudie. “He made lead guitar playing popular when it might have been slipping away into punk and new wave minimalist territory, and then basically the entire 80s hard rock scene followed in his wake. Guitar Center saw this first-hand, as generations of lead guitarists have flocked to our stores to try to capture something of what inspires them about Eddie’s sound. Besides that, sometimes people forget that he was an immigrant and multi-racial, so in so many ways his story is the story of the American experience.”

The mural can be seen at the Hollywood Guitar Center at 7425 Sunset Blvd.

Check out images and clips of Vargas working on the mural below: