Among the homes lost to the still-raging Camp Fire was that of legendary guitar builder Wayne Charvel, who produced guitars for Van Halen, ZZ Top, and Deep Purple. Inventor of the "superstrat" and pioneer of aftermarket guitar modifications, Charvel helped define the flashy look and punchy sound of an entire era of hard rock and metal. His shop was tangible proof of his legacy, filled with one-of-a-kind guitars in progress and vintage and homemade tools. Now, all of it is ash.
We spoke with Wayne’s son Michael, who runs Wayne Guitars with his father. Michael’s home was also destroyed in the fire, as were the homes of his twin brothers, his sister, and his uncle. Here’s his account of the fire and the implications for what it means for his family going forward.
I woke up Thursday morning when it was pitch black and the house was just covered in smoke everywhere. I knew my house was gonna be destroyed because when I walked outside, there were embers all over: my garage, my roof, my knee. I knew there’s no way this place is gonna be here with a fire this intense. I drove out about 150 feet from my house to the street and as I drove out there’s traffic insanity and people were running out of their homes freaking out. I freaked out for a few seconds and thought, "Man I’m not gonna get out of here alive, I better grab my bike." I got an 18-speed and I started riding for about 20 seconds and the car to the left of me is on fire. Huge flames. There’s a gigantic tree on the other side of me on fire and I feel a horrible heat on my face and I’m getting hit by embers. I couldn’t even breathe it was so hot. I thought, "I’m not gonna die here on a bike," so I got back in my truck and just waited my turn to get out. It normally takes 15 to 20 minutes from Paradise to Chico. It took me seven hours. On my street alone, five people died in their cars trying to escape. There were only three ways out of Paradise and two of them were on fire so everyone was trying to get out on the one main road there.
Throughout the process, the whole family was communicating. The cell towers were down so the cellphones were kinda hit or miss but we could occasionally get through. My dad barely knows how to work a cellphone anyway.
We didn’t know where we would go. My brother-in-law is the fire chief and is friends with the sheriff and it turns out the sheriff likes Van Halen so he’s like, "Oh yeah, Wayne Charvel, no problem, I’ll put you guys up." So he put my two brothers and my parents up for a while, three or four days. My sister’s friend has a little place in Chico where they’re staying. So we’re all just kinda moving around. We don’t want to impose on anybody and everyone’s been really gracious. You wouldn’t believe how cool everyone’s been. My parents have been taken in by two complete strangers. We’ve been really blessed, overwhelmed from the kindness and love we’ve been receiving from everybody.
I stayed with my friend in Chico and then they started evacuating the part of Chico where he lived. So my friend said we need to get out of here. Another friend of mine lives in southern California so I drove the ten-hour drive white-knuckling it through L.A. traffic, of course, so now I’m staying in southern California for five or six days until his brother gets back. Once he gets back we’re gonna figure another place to go. I’m not sure where we’re going but I have faith it’ll be somewhere.
After we evacuated, my brother-in-law, the fire chief, checked on all of our places including our workshop. He said, "I’m sorry to tell you guys but there’s nothing here anymore."
Gone. My dad’s got years and years making the templates and the jigs and all the tooling and the custom bits and in less than a couple hours, everything was destroyed. He’s been building guitars since 1959. A lifetime of work is destroyed in a couple hours.
He had a lot of vintage tools. One was a Bridgeport mill from the 1940s. That mill was an incredible tool for cutting out templates and routing cavities for pickups. With vintage tools, as a generalization, all that stuff was built in that era in America when things were super heavy-duty, the metals in the old machinery were better. That mill would last me my lifetime and another person’s lifetime. Short of a fire nothing would happen to it. A lot of the new machinery nowadays is made over in Taiwan and China so the quality suffers. They’re not built as robust as the old stuff was.
And then there’s a lot of custom-made bits you use for neck profiles. Some of that custom tooling you can’t get back. You can’t just buy that stuff.
My dad built a lot of his own tools out of necessity. If there’s something you need that's not out there, you kinda, well, have to make it. My dad is one of those guys who’s very good with his hands. He’s built houses, he can build cars. You tell him to build a motorcycle, he’d do it. He’s got a natural knack to make things. It’s one thing building a guitar; it’s a whole other art making the tooling so you can make the guitar. A lot of the tooling in this era, you couldn’t go down to some place and buy templates and jigs. You had to make it yourself so you could make the guitar.
He made his own overhead pin router to cut the shape of the guitar. We don’t have a CNC machine. CNC machines are great for big companies trying to make a lot of guitars because you can spit out six bodies in one shot as opposed to me routing out one. But there’s something romantic and cool, it’s old-school using the pin router. We’re not trying to make that many guitars. Our whole objective is to make the best guitar we can, that has vibe, that has soul to it. About 98 percent of the guitars we build are literally one of a kind.
Any guitar we have that we were working on before the fire will get finished. Just I don’t know when it’s going to be. We’ll just have to start over and get those people’s guitars for them. I feel bad because I can’t respond to people as quickly as I want to mainly because the internet is hit or miss. I’m trying to tell people, thank you, we love you all. We’re trying to get back to you in a reasonable time.
I’ve got a steady place for the five or six days and after that who knows where I’m going to be. The good news is we’re all alive and we’re healthy. We’re just lucky that we’re here. I thought I wasn’t going to make it out. We just gotta keep moving forward and eventually we’ll be back up and running.
To donate to the Charvel family in their time of need, you can contribute to their GoFundMe page or send money via PayPal at charvels@sbcglobal.net.
