While his phrasing is unmistakable, a trule personal, distinctive tone has always
eluded Buckethead. Possibly his best recorded sound was on Praxis'
"Metatron", on which Axiom house guitarist Nicky Skopelitis hooked him up
with a Well's 17 1/2 watt head designed by gear wizard Matt Wells. The Wells
amp wired through a Harry Kolbe 4x12 cab produced a full, bright tone that
was particular effective on Buck's Eddie Hazel-ish auto-filtered clean chords
and psychedelic shred-blues passages. It also tracked his hyperspeed leads and
trill-punctuated chunk rhythms equally well. But Buckethead, a fan of solid-
state gear's even response and good tracking is just as likely to turn up at a gig
with a VHT Pitbull 50 watt head, and for a recent "Buckethead and Friends"
show at Manhattan's Wetlands he rented TWO Mesa dual rectifier full stacks
and ran them in stereo. "That sounded soooo gnarly", he gushes "I was freaking
out." Then again, the devastating tones on Sacrifist were recorded direct
through a Zoom multi-effector. Go figure.
For all those nightmarish, chandelier-smashing swirls, Buckethead plays his
characteristic tapping flourish through a Roland SE-50 multi-effector set to
harmonize the part in four ascending half-step voices above each pitch,
essentially forming a cluster above or below each note. Apart from that, his
effects are limited to a ProCo Rat, an Alesis Midiverb II for echo, occasional
wah and a recently acquired Lexicon Jam Man for looping. "I think a lot in
loops now", he says, "because of rap and dance music. Sometimes instead of
using a harmonizer, I'll take one of those tapped things and record it four times,
moving it up a half-step each time. You can get some really dense harmony that
way."
It's getting late and Space Mountain, the last ride of the night beckons. Chowing
greasy fries in the shadow of the Matterhorn, a stone's throw from
Tomorrowland, Carroll squirms slightly at the thought that he's unmasking
Buckethead for this interview. Like Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne,
Buckethead has always tried to protect his anonymity, although he feels it's
finally time to learn to co-exist with this monster. Buckethead, the story goes,
was raised in a chicken coop. But Carroll, who first performed in character
regularly with his old band the Deli creeps remembers a parallel genesis.
"I had just seen Halloween IV", he recalls of a dark night in 1989, "and as soon
as it was over I went into a store across the street and said 'Do you have any
Michael Myers masks?' They had a white mask, which really wasn't like a
Michael Myers mask, but I liked it a lot. That night I was eating chicken out of
a bucket that my dad brought home. It wasn't a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket
either. It said "Deli Chicken" on the outside. I was eating it, and I put the mask
on and then the bucket on my head. I went to the mirror. I just said
'Buckethead. That's Buckethead right there.' It was just one of those things.
After that, I wanted to be that thing all the time."
The combination of Buckethead the friendly ax murderer with Buckethead the
guitar wizard and robotic stage performer was practically instantaneous. "I
thought it made sense with the way I play", he explains. "I play all this weird
stuff, but if I just look like me, it isn't going to work. But, if I'm like this weird
freak..." If anything, Carroll feels that becoming Buckethead has allowed him to
express himself more freely than he would as unassuming Brian Carroll. "It
opened the door to endless possibilities", he concurs as fireworks erupt in the
Tomorrowland sky. "I can work anything into that character and make it totally
work: all the thing I love in my life, like Disney, Giant Robot, Texas Chainsaw.
Even though I'm wearing a mask and have a character, it's more real, more
about what I'm really like, because I'm too shy to let a lot of things out. Every
reason I became Buckethead and am Buckethead has to do with the way I live.
It's not because I thought it would be successful. I never use anything that isn't
part of what I really loved as a child or love right now."
You can contact Buckethead and purchase CDs directly by writing to
Bucketheadland, Suite 545, 976 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont, CA 91711 or e-
mailing to
buckethdlnd@aol.com.