Dean Zelinsky

Dean B. Zelinsky (born February 20, 1957), also known as Dean Z, Dean Barrett Zelinsky or DBZ, is an American guitar luthier who founded Dean Guitars in 1977 and DBZ Guitars in 2008 and today owns Dean Zelinsky Private Label started in 2012.

Zelinsky was the second of three boys born to Robert and Sylvia Zelinsky in Chicago, IL.

Robert was a successful executive and business owner, whose company designed and manufactured custom fasteners; some of which wound up in early United States space program rockets.

Dean began tinkering with electronics early on in his childhood; he was taking radios apart to see what made them work & reassembling them at age eight.

When Dean was 12 years old, his father died in a plane crash while piloting his own twin-engine plane.

His widow raised three boys, Dean, Glenn, and Roger in the wake of this tragedy.

Dean's guitars have been played by various artists: Dimebag Darrell, Michael Schenker, Helloween, Kansas, Leslie West, Glenn Dean (Motor City Bad Boys), The Cars, Heart, The Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Starship, Dave Mason, Triumph, Iron Maiden, Sammy Hagar, Def Leppard, Nils Lofgren, Larry Crane (John Mellencamp Band), ZZ Top and Karl Sanders of Nile.

Many others can be seen playing Dean’s guitar designs in photographs, on the Internet, in music videos, and in concerts.

Dean’s guitar designs have been featured on the Howard Stern Radio Show, on TV at the Grammys Awards show, in books including a recent book by James Bond novelist Raymond Benson, and in countless magazine articles spanning over 33 years.

Anheuser-Busch once commissioned Dean (DBZ) to design and make a limited set of specially shaped Budweiser and Busch Beer guitars used in promotions across North America.

Dean Zelinsky created the spinning fur guitars for the "Legs" video from ZZ Top.

Blender.com lists the "Spinning Furs" along with the ML as part of "The 28 Most Recognizable Guitars".

Dean Zelinsky is often cited as an influential figure in the development of modern electric instruments, bringing innovations like custom-wound electric pickups and radical shapes/designs to the musical instrument industry.

His trademark guitar shapes not only look unique, but also add to the sound of the instrument, as in the radical tailpiece and headstock angles that increase sustain of the strings as they are vibrating.

As bands became more avant-garde in the 1970s, it was Dean’s opinion that the design of the guitars they were playing was not keeping pace with the times.

While attending high school in Highland Park IL, Dean began offering his services to local music shops and to Chicago area guitar players for repairs, custom paint jobs and soon gained a reputation among local storeowners as someone to turn to for services that went beyond what most of them could offer in-house.

It was because of this that Dean learned to actually sell guitars.

It was actually “a first” in the history of his high school that a senior left school for the day to complete their student work program at their own company; a disagreement over receiving credit for this was something that almost drove Dean to leave prior to graduating.

However, he earned his diploma.

Having had several years of repairing and re-building guitars under his belt, Dean set out to create a guitar that would sound better and equally important, play better than what he had experienced testing all the brands he could get his hands on in the repair business.

In the 1970s Gibson Guitars had a factory in Kalamazoo Michigan, where they used to provide tours for people.

Dean took one such tour to learn what machinery one would need in order to accomplish setting up a production run of their own designs.

Unimportant to the design of guitars, he later prevaricated his actions.

After two trips to the Kalamazoo factory, this quick study yielded a plan to seek out similar equipment to start his own company.

During this time, Dean’s best friend (Mathew Lynn) was battling cancer, and although he did not live to see the success that Dean would soon attain, Mathew was honored posthumously.

The sadness of losing his best friend turned into a bittersweet tribute to a young man who fought cancer valiantly.

What began as a tribute to his fallen friend was a guitar that in 1977, took off and is still revered today; known as the Dean ML, taking its name from Dean’s fallen childhood friend’s initials.

Dean set up his first manufacturing shops in the Chicago area, with all work being closely supervised personally by him on a daily basis.

Getting people to notice the new designs was easy, and as his other designs, including the V, Z, and Cadillac started being played by the top touring bands of the day, the reputation of Dean was cemented and quickly grew.

While on an airplane once, Dean saw an advertisement in a magazine for a liquor company featuring a beautiful woman standing in water in a provocative pose holding a drink similar to the way Playboy posed models.

This led to an idea that changed the way guitars were marketed.

Dean created his own ads that caused a wave of controversy.

Guitar ads for Dean’s company were featuring bikini-clad models wearing guitars.

His early music magazine print ads and trade show marketing used female models from Playboy, and it was this marketing that filled NAMM Show event aisles with merchants seeking to get a better look at the guitars (and models) that were quickly becoming the talk of the industry.

In 2008, Dean Zelinsky, founder of Dean Guitars, parted ways with Dean Corporate.

He founded DBZ Guitars and left in 2012 because he needs a company where he has 100% control.

Dean Zelinsky currently owns and operates Dean Zelinsky Private Label Brand Guitars under the corporate name The Real Dean LLC.

When the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Johnny Winter came upon the music scene, Dean’s attention quickly turned to Rock & Roll and became interested in guitars.

He began playing electric guitar and learned what he liked and what he did not like.

More importantly, while some would have paid anything to get their hands on a vintage Gibson Flying V, Dean not only had one in-hand, but he also sawed it in two, right down the middle to start measuring and setting his sights on making a better instrument.