Electric guitars will always be a target for thieves looking to make a quick buck. But the strange disappearance — and reappearance — of Nuno Bettencourt’s Washburn double-neck is one of the wildest you're likely to hear.
Stories of brazen thieves walking out of music stores with a Les Paul in their hands, and the theft of four Paul Gilbert guitars have made the headlines in recent months. Bettencourt’s assailants, though, struck while he was busy shredding onstage.
“We got to this medley where I was supposed to use it, and my guitar techcomes out and hands me my normal six-string," Bettencourt tells the Master of Shred podcast. “I'm like, 'No, we're going to play 'Hole-Hearted' [from 1991's Pornograffitti ]. He goes, ‘Just take this. I'll explain later!’”
As Bettencourt soon learned, the guitar had disappeared without a trace prior to the show “My tech turns back to where all the guitars are, and the double-neck is gone," he recalls. "Stolen right off the stage while the lights are down, waiting for us to start.
“It was nowhere to be found," he adds. "Somebody walked right out the door with it, with credentials or whatever, put it in a car, left on a bus or something. Gone for years.”
Surprisingly, some five years later, Bettencourt received a call from a Washburn rep.
“He goes, ‘You're never gonna believe what I'm looking at in my office in Chicago,’” the guitarist recalls. “‘Your original double neck! It showed up with a letter in it.’”
The note revealed that the thief had been prompted to return the guitar as part of his path to recovery.
“He was part of a 12-step program,” Bettencourt explains. “And you have to give something back that you regret. So he returned the guitar out of guilt and as part of the program. He wanted to make amends, and he returned the guitar. I got it back. I couldn't believe it!”
The Extreme guitarist is currently out on the road supporting the band’s comeback album, Six. The record features a guitar solo meant as a tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen, with Bettencourt intent of keeping the virtuoso’s flame burning.
Bettencourt also revealed that Van Halen turned up at the studio when the song was being tracked, but he was too shy to show his hero his work.
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