We dared to speak with the seller of a “haunted paranormal ghost guitar”
To our surprise, it’s been a busy month for macabre musical instruments. First, there was the “Skelecaster” made from human bones and now there’s a guitar haunted by spirits reportedly summoned up by a Satan-and-rock-loving teenager back in 1979.
Fortunately for anyone looking to own a possibly demon-possessed instrument, the latter of these items is up for sale through online music marketplace Reverb, and comes with a wonderfully in-depth description of its sordid background. “Haunted Paranormal Ghost Guitar” is described as having come into the seller’s “possession quite by accident” and is now being sold because it’s better owned by “someone more in tune with the tenebrous forces of the malevolent netherworld.” The guitar’s asking price is currently set at a very evil $666… plus $66.60 shipping (the devil’s tax).
The listing, written in a tone of high, Vincent Price-esque camp, says the “ghoulish guitar” was once owned by a neighborhood kid “rumored to be into devil worship, seances, Aleister Crowley, Black Magic, and other dark endeavors of the Spirit World.” This “neophyte necromancer” died mysteriously on Halloween 1979 at 13-years old, “apparently electrocuted, even though this is an acoustic guitar!”
“Years later,” the listing reads, the seller “ran into the defunct boy’s mother (herself a propagating practitioner of the Pagan arts),” and was given the guitar. In the time since, its strings have been heard to “discordantly ring out” on their own, the guitar has transported itself from a closet and onto its owner’s bed, and it once “[levitated] out of the trash can I had somberly placed it in.”
We reached out to the seller, professional musician Eddie Merribaker, about the listing and his cursed guitar. Merribaker says his listing had racked up “just shy of 12,000 views” as of yesterday afternoon and that he’s received 48 offers and was “even contacted by the TV series Ghost Hunters, who wanted to devote a full episode to my dastardly tale.” He’s declined everything that’s come his way so far because he wants the guitar to go to the right person.
Most people, Merribaker wrote in an email, have messaged to say they found his listing funny or have made offers because, he suspects, they “want the guitar to use in some occult ritual.” Others have been in touch to express how angry they are that he’d “allow this ‘dangerous’ guitar [to] go out into the world.”
When asked whether he thinks the ghost guitar is actually haunted, Merribaker wrote that “it isn’t so much what I believe (or not), but rather what the reader believes that’s important.” In any case, he’s pretty attached to it until the right buyer comes along because he gets “a certain magical mojo out of her” when writing or performing with it. (You can hear the guitar on songs uploaded to Merribaker’s YouTube channel, including its acoustic sound on the incredibly non-evil-sounding track, “Leave All Your Cares Behind.”)
As to the instrument’s actual make, Merribaker’s listing says he thinks the guitar is a Kay Western Special from the late 1950s or ’60s, but “Satan has apparently stricken the brand name decal from the headstock,” so it’s hard to be certain. He advises the eventual buyer to “please use EXTREME CAUTION when conjuring the phantasmic spirits that seem to be channeled through this eerie instrument!”
If you can handle this grave responsibility, check out “Haunted Paranormal Ghost Guitar” on Reverb.
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