Armadillo Enterprises on Waters St. in Tampa is the home to Dean Guitars, DDrums, and Luna Guitars. If you check out their artist roster you’ll see some artists you love who get their instruments right here in our backyard!
Dean Guitars is quite possibly most famous for being the guitar maker for Pantera, HellYeah, and Damageplan’s Dimebag Darryl. But Dean also has a ton of other axe slingers on its artists roster including: Bret Michaels, Michael Schenker, Leslie West, Kerry King of Slayer, my buddy Jeff Worley from Jackyl, and their bass player Roman Glick, and many more!
Plus they manufacture DDrums that are played by drummers like Vinnie Paul (Dimebag’s brother and fellow Pantera/Damageplan/HellYeah artist), Carmine Appice, Eric Singer from KISS and Alice Cooper, Frank Beard from ZZ Top, Ginger Fish from Marilyn Manson, Joey Jordison from Slipknot, Fred Coury from Cinderella, and many others.
While factory tours are currently not running, when they resume you should really look into checking the place out because its a fascinating place to see. I have a friend who works there, James Gelber, who took me on a mini tour recently. The entire factory has rock star all over the place. They’ve got custom painted guitars by some of the biggest artists, and a very cool demo room where people can try many of the insanely cool instruments this place makes, right here in Florida.
Check out a few pics I grabbed while I was there: