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Buckethead

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This article is about the Avant-garde metal composer and musician. For the DJ/producing team Bucketheads, see Kenny 'Dope' Gonzales.
Buckethead

Buckethead (born Brian Carroll in 1969), is an American guitarist and composer. He is known for wearing a white plastic mask and a KFC bucket on his head. He is a prolific composer, having released 36 solo albums and performed on over 50 more. His music spans a wide variety of genres including thrash metal, funk, electronica, jazz and avant-garde music.

Although a capable multi-instrumentalist (playing bass guitar, banjo,[1] and piano), Buckethead is best known for his electric guitar playing, characterized by diverse playing styles spanning thrash guitar, fingerpicking, and slap guitar. Guitar One voted him number 8 on a list of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time".[2]

Although Buckethead now works primarily as a solo artist touring the United States with a trio, he has had a wide variety of high profile collaborations with such artists as Les Claypool, Tony Williams, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Serj Tankian, Guns N' Roses, Saul Williams, Mike Patton, Viggo Mortensen and with Bill Laswell on Praxis.

Career

As a teenager in 1988, Buckethead entered a song called 'Brazos' into a Guitar Player Magazine contest; it was a runner up, and eventually released on the Deli Creeps' demo tape in 1991, titled 'Tribal Rites'. This is what was said about him:

An astonishingly skilled guitarist and bassist, he demonstrates post-Paul Gilbert speed and accuracy filtered through very kinky harmonic sensibilities. His psychotronic, demonic edge is very, very far removed from the clichés of classical metal and rock. A real talent to watch, he's still a teenager. Also known as "Buckethead".

This is also how Guitar Player Magazine editor Jas Obrecht came to know of Buckethead. Impressed with his demo recording he got in contact with Buckethead and they soon became friends. In 1991 Buckethead moved into Obrecht's basement (this is also where footage for the Young Buckethead DVD was filmed).

After a few self-released albums, Bucketheadland was released on John Zorn's Avant record label in 1992. Though available only as a pricey Japanese import, the record received positive reviews and earned some attention. At about this time, Buckethead fell into the orbit of prolific bassist/producer Bill Laswell (himself an occasional Zorn collaborator); as either a performer, producer or composer, Laswell was involved in many of the albums listed in the discography below, and Buckethead made many more appearances on albums by Laswell's collaborators.

One such Laswell project was Death Cube K (an anagram of "Buckethead" he created to circumvent legal complications with Sony Records, with which he was signed to in 1994 to release Giant Robot.). William Gibson later borrowed "Death Cube K" as the name of a bar in Idoru; quoting Gibson in an interview for Addicted To Noise:

Death Cube K is actually the title of an album. I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the group but Bill Laswell who I don't really know but out of the kindness of his heart occasionally sends me big hunks of his output, groups that come out on his label. And Death Cube K was the title of some vicious ambient group that he had produced. And when I saw it, I thought: a Franz Kafka theme bar in Tokyo.

According to Anthony Kiedis' autobiography, Scar Tissue, Buckethead once auditioned to play guitar for the Red Hot Chili Peppers shortly after John Frusciante left the band.

Buckethead performing live

Buckethead achieved a greater public profile as a member of Guns N' Roses from 2000 to 2004; however, the band only toured in 2001 and 2002 during this era. Guns N' Roses response to Buckethead's departure was:

During his tenure with the band, Buckethead has been inconsistent and erratic in both his behavior and his commitment, despite being under contract, creating uncertainty and confusion and making it virtually impossible to move forward with recording, rehearsals, and live plans with confidence. His transient lifestyle has made it near impossible for even his closest friends to have nearly any form of communications with him whatsoever.

Despite this, Buckethead's guitar parts were found intact on leaked Chinese Democracy tracks "I.R.S.", "There Was a Time", "Better" and "Madagascar". However, it is uncertain if Buckethead's guitar parts will be present on the final product.

Since that time, his cult following in the underground music communities has steadily increased. He frequently performs at festivals and in clubs nationwide, and often tours as the feature performer. [3] [4] [5]

In an interview with Revolver, Ozzy Osbourne stated that he had offered to have Buckethead play guitar in his band at Ozzfest. Ozzy quickly changed his mind after meeting with him when Buckethead refused to go on stage without his disguise:

I tried out that Buckethead guy. I met with him and asked him to work with me but only if he got rid of the fucking bucket. So I came back a bit later and he's wearing this green fucking Martian's-hat thing! I said, 'Look, just be yourself'. He told me his name was Brian, so I said that's what I'd call him. He says, 'No one calls me Brian except my mother'. So I said, 'Pretend I'm your mum then!'. I haven't even got out of the room and I'm already playing fucking mind games with the guy. What happens if one day he's gone and there's a note saying, 'I've been beamed up'? Don't get me wrong, he's a great player. He plays like a motherfucker!

In 2005, Buckethead released an album as Buckethead & Friends called Enter The Chicken. Released by Serj Tankian's label Serjical Strike, the album features Tankian, Maximum Bob, Death By Stereo singer Efrem Shulz, and others. The album is marked by its leaning towards more traditional song structure, while still featuring Buckethead's guitar skills.


In 2005 Buckethead finally released his first DVD "Secret Recipe", originally sold only on tour; the only places for other fans (those who either didn't go to a show or live abroad) to get hold of the DVD were auction sites such as eBay. Bootleg copies were also sold on eBay for a short period of time. Eventually Travis Dickerson held a raffle for copies of the DVD on his website. Those who wanted to "win" a copy had to enter their name and email address. When entries were closed he picked 200 names at random from those who entered and they were allowed to buy a copy of the DVD from his website. In March 2006 the DVD was finally made widely available.

Released in November 2006, the cross-console video game Guitar Hero II features Buckethead's song “Jordan” as an unlockable bonus track. Though the game states Buckethead wrote the song "Jordan" for the game, only the solo was written for the game, and was composed of several different solos. The song itself has been played live for years (It was played on the 2004 tour, and possibly earlier than that, though the earlier recordings were far different and far easier played), prior to even the release of the first Guitar Hero game (Released in 2005). The game merely marks the first studio recording of the song to be released.

In late 2006 Buckethead released a two volume DVD entitled Young Buckethead featuring rare footage from 1990 and 1991. The DVD also contains three complete Deli Creeps shows, a sound check, backstage footage and solo footage of just Buckethead. All the artwork was drawn by Buckethead himself.

In February 2007, tdrsmusic.com announced the release of a new Buckethead CD, entitled Pepper's Ghost. The album was released on the 1st of March.

Also in February 2007, tdrsmusic.com began shipping In Search of The, a 13 CD set of original music that is said to be handcrafted, numbered, and monogrammed by the artist.

In May 2007, Acoustic Shards, an acoustic album taken from 1991 recordings was released.

In August of 2007, 400 limited-edition, hand-numbered Death Cube K albums were released.

Current Projects

According to IMDB, Buckethead will appear as himself in an upcoming movie entitled American Music: Off the Record, due out in 2008.[6]

As of July 2007, Buckethead is working on a project by the name of Science Faction, a band very similar line-up wise to Praxis. The band also features Bassist Bootsy Collins and drummer Brain. Greg Hampton will supply lead vocals as well as produce the project. The album is expected in early 2008.

Buckethead released 3 new solo albums on October 30, 2007: Kevin's Noodle House, Decoding the Tomb of Bansheebot and Cyborg Slunks. Upon its original release, Cyborg Slunks will be limited edition. However, it will later be reproduced as a standard CD.

Discography

Main article: Buckethead discography

Buckethead's bands

Note as well as being a solo artist since 1992, Buckethead often releases albums as Death Cube K - he has used this name as an alias since 1994 (most recently used in 2007). The name Death Cube K is an anagram for Buckethead.

  • Praxis (1992-present)
  • Shine/Shin Terai (2001-present)
  • Thanatopsis (2001-present)
  • Buckethead & Friends (2005-present)
  • Science Faction (2007-present)

Former bands

Equipment

Guitars

  • Jackson
    • Jackson Y2KV - "coopwood" custom made, with larger body and headstock due to Buckethead saying normal guitars looked like toys in his hands
    • Jackson Y2KV - "KFC" same as the "coopwood", only with the KFC red stripes, Di Marzio X2N PUs, kill switch and an Original Floyd Rose (that he never uses)
    • Jackson doubleneck - a custom doubleneck half guitar, half bass
  • ESP
    • ESP MII custom - used throughout his concert in the Wetlands, broken as seen in one of the Binge Clips
  • Ibanez
    • Ibanez X Series Rocket Roller II - used throughout the Praxis era
    • Ibanez(Purple) RG550 - As seen in the Buckethead Dvd Secret Recipe

Amplifiers

Effects

References

  1. ^ Behind the Scenes - "We are One"
  2. ^ http://www.randyciak.com/guitar/top_shredders_of_all_time.htm
  3. ^ http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/03.13.03/buckethead-0311.html
  4. ^ http://www.bingebuddies.com/Promo_index.htm
  5. ^ http://www.bingebuddies.com/BINGEART_index.htm
  6. ^ http://imdb.com/title/tt0887710/
Preceded by Guns N' Roses Lead Guitarist
2000-2004 		Succeeded by
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