BUCKETHEAD

'Buckethead' (born 'Brian Carroll' in 1969), is an American guitarist and composer. He is known for wearing a white plastic mask and Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket, a persona which Carroll created in order to emphasize his music over his personal identity . He is a prolific composer, having released 22 solo albums and performed on 33 more. His music spans a wide variety of genres including thrash metal, funk, electronica, jazz and avant-garde.
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.

Contents

Identity

Career

Current Projects

Discography

Buckethead's Bands

Former bands

Equipment

Guitars

Amplifiers

Effects

References

External links

Identity

Buckethead's real name is Brian Carroll. Only one photograph of him unmasked is known.^[3]
Buckethead's official biography claims that he was raised by chickens in a coop ^[4] (appropriately, several song titles, especially on early releases, refer to chicken, such as the song "Chicken" or the album titles "KFC Skin Piles" and "Enter the Chicken"). The more realistic biography states that he is a fan of horror movies and following a viewing of ''Halloween IV'' in 1989 purchased a plastic white mask, which he continues to wear during performances and on album covers. The original bucket was from a shop called Deli Chicken^[5]; later, however, he started using KFC buckets almost exclusively.
Buckethead is known for his on-stage robotic dancing, pop and lock break dance skills and rapid demonstrations with nunchaku, sometimes while continuing to play the guitar. He gives away toys at many of his shows and concertgoers commonly give gifts to him as well.
According to a 1989 local music magazine he cites Michael Jackson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Louis Jordan, Shawn Lane, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and Jennifer Batten as his main influences. He has also cited such influences as Randy Rhoads and Nicolas Slonimsky's book "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns"^[6].

Career

In 1988, Buckethead, as a teenager, entered a song called "Brazos" into a ''Guitar Player Magazine'' contest; it was a runner up. This is what was said about him:
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'':
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 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;
Despite this, Buckethead's guitar parts were found intact on leaked ''Chinese Democracy'' tracks "IRS", "There Was A Time", "Better" & "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. [1] [2]
[3]
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:
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; 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. However, the version of “Jordan” in ''Guitar Hero II'' is different to the one Buckethead plays at most live shows.
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.

Current Projects

According to IMDB, Buckethead will appear as himself in an upcoming movie entitled ''American Music: Off The Record'', due out in 2008.^[7]
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. Producer and lead singer for the band , Greg Hampton will supply lead vocals as well as produce the project. The album is expected in September 2007.

Discography

Main articles: 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).

★ Praxis (1992-present)

★ Shine/Shin Terai (2001-present)

★ Thanatopsis (2001-present)

★ Science Faction (2007-present)

Former bands

★ Deli Creeps (1991-2005)

★ with Jonas Hellborg & Michael Shrieve (1992)

★ Pieces (1993)

★ Cornbugs (1995-2007)

★ Giant Robot (1996)

★ Cobra Strike (1999-2000)

★ El Stew (1999-2003)

★ with Viggo Mortensen (1999, 2003-2005)

★ Moonraker (2000)

★ Guns N' Roses (2000-2004)

★ Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains (2002-2004)

★ Gorgone (2005)

★ with Travis Dickerson (2006)

Equipment

Guitars

★ Gibson

★
★ Gibson Les Paul - 1959 heavily modified, with all white hardware and covered DiMarzio pickups

★
★ Gibson Les Paul - 1969 heavily modified, all white hardware, killswitch, and uncovered DiMarzio pickups

★
★ Gibson SG

★
★ Gibson SST

★
★ Gibson Chet Atkins

★ 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

★ Steinberger

★
★ Steinberger GS "Kaiser's Gift"

★ Ibanez

★
★ Ibanez X Series Rocket Roller II - used throughout the Praxis era

★ Takamine

★
★ Takamine Acoustic

Amplifiers

★ Peavey Renown

★ Peavey 5150 head on a Marshall 1960 Slant 4x12 cab

★ Diezel Herbert

★ Mesa Boogie Triple rectifier

★ VHT Pittbull 50 watt heads

★ Matt Wells 17 1/2 watt head wired through a Harry Kolbe 4x12 cab

Effects

★ Digitech Whammy II (and IV)

★ Dunlop Cry Baby

★ BOSS TU-2 Chromatic Tuner

★ BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor

★ BOSS RC-20 Loop Station

★ Roger Mayer Octavia

★ DOD Electronics FX-25B envelope filter

★ Alesis MidiVerb II

★ Roland SE-50 multi-effector

★ Rocktron Intellifex multi-effects

★ a custom bicompROSSor by AnalogMan

★ MXR EVH phase 90

★ Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler

★ Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer

References

1. Behind the Scenes - "We are One"
2. http://www.randyciak.com/guitar/top_shredders_of_all_time.htm
3. Untitled article featuring a picture of Buckethead without mask.
4. Buckethead - Official biography
5. http://qfg.info/misc/destroyallmonsters.txt
6. Bucketheadland - Official website FAQ
7. [4]

External links

★ Bucketheadland – Official website

★ Young Buckethead - Official website to the "Young Buckethead" DVD

★ Travis Dickerson Recording Studio website

★ Ozzy Osbourne Interview

★ C2B3 Official live download site

★