Well, I was looking for a challenge...
I first encountered He That
Is Named Buckethead in an ancient issue of Guitar For The Practicing
Musician – and with all of a year's playing under my belt, I'll be
honest with you, I could make no sense of what this apparent sorcerer
was trying to demonstrate.. but as with Malmsteen & Shawn Lane
last year, I wanted to dip a toe in the pool of Impossible Guitar
Playing and see if I could get a feel for what was going on with the
benefit of a few years of hindsight. And I have to say that I
actually found it nowhere near as daunting as I was expecting – not
easy mind you (not by a LONG shot), but who wants easy? You never get
better by just trying the easy stuff!
So as is customary, a
brief potted history of the 'Head... as much as I can glean, at
least, there are few confirmed facts about Buckethead floating around
the internet and I would guess that's just the way he likes it.
However, it is generally agreed that he was born Brian Carroll on May
13 1969, and grew up in a California suburb not far from Disneyland,
where he spent a lot of time as a boy.
He began learning guitar age 12 and progressed through a number of teachers - including notably Paul Gilbert - and first started gaining recognition when he entered a competition in Guitar Player magazine in 1988 (so age 19 - 7 years experience...) with a song called Brazos, scoring runner up and getting a very favourable write up from the editor. This led to a number of collaborations before an unsuccessful tryout with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - now isn't THAT a what if moment? - which seems to have become a recurring theme throughout his career... but we'll come back to that.
1988 was also the year that Brian grew (and grew, grew and grew..) to become a man named.. Buckethead. After seeing the movie Hallowe'en IV he went out and bought a Michael Myers- a-like face mask and then later, while eating a KFC bucket that he had the burst of inspiration to put the bucket on his head and ths was born the character of Buckethead.
Hmm.
Now having been in many and varied states of inebriation over the
years I can attest to having had this same flash of inspiration
myself, and now it's got me thinking I might have been missing a
trick..
As Buckethead, he has performed and recorded with a
wide variety of collaborators and solo projects, having a near miss
being Ozzy Osborne's guitarist - Oz was not a fan of the buske,
apparently, although he did credit the man beneath it with "playing
like a motherf*cker", but his next real breakthrough moment came
in the confused years after Axl Rose sacked Slash and the entire rest
of Guns & Roses, replacing them with a raft of session
musicians.. including our man Buckethead. Legend has it they
actually signed the deal on a rollercoaster in Disneyland after Axl
presented him with a leatherface doll he'd been hankering after.
Buckethead
recorded Chinese Democracy with the band and toured with them in
2001/02 but.. "creative friction" between him and Axl saw
the two part ways.. Buckethead citing the sheer difficulty of getting
anything done with the band - which tracks well with the interminable
delays on the album itself and the notorious G'n'R habit of coming on stage
hours late.. whereas Axl cited Buckethead's demands for a private
studio called the Chicken Coop wherein he could watch hardcore pornography in order to "gain inspiration"...
..yeah. It's at this point
that you realise that Buckethead's commitment to a role has probably
cost him more than a few career opportunities. Since then he has
continued as a busy and successful solo artist, and here is where I
want to bring up the man's UNBELIEVABLE work ethic and creativity. I
mean, I spent lockdown finally getting Two Pint Solos done and felt
pretty good about that.. only to discover that in the same period
(2020-21) Buckethead recorded... 19.
And that's only the tip
of the iceberg. In 2015 he recorded... 118.
Not
a misprint. 118 solo ALBUMS. With a conservative 5 tracks/ 1/2 an
hour length, that's 590 tracks, 590 hours of music. That's an album
every THREE DAYS. Whichever way you look at it, that is beyond
incredible. To hell with the mask and the bucket and the gimmicks,
that is a simply phenomenal cognitive load to come up with all that,
let alone play and record it. Even assuming everything is one take –
and I really don't see how it could be anything else – that is a
staggering accomplishment. So whatever your feelings regarding the
mask/bucket/ various psychodramas, it's undeniable that Buckethead is
clearly an awe-inspiring, incredible musician.
And with that,
let's turn our attention to some of his licks! Most of this month's
examples are taken from “Soothsayer” - knowing very little of his
material, in time honoured fashion I turned to google, typed in
“Buckethead” and “Soothsayer cropped up as his most famous
piece so I started there. As it turns out though, it's almost ten
minutes long.. so a bit of a switch from tearing through “Axis:Bold As Love” last month!
We'll start with the rolling legato scale fragments - “Soothsayer” is in Bb minor, and Buckethead is using the 3 note per string relative major scale of Db. This line focuses mainly on the E & B strings and notice the subtle changes with each repetition – Buckethead tweaks the pattern each time to ensure it's never a straight repetition and you can apply that approach to your own playing.
The second example illustrates Buckethead taking a legato pattern – one that is a defining feature of Slash's speedier licks, interestingly – extrapolating it across a six note “octave block” fingering idea (students of mine are going to be familiar with this way of visualising scales and then finishing it with an EVH-style 3 note per string run.
Example three showcases a more melodic, intervallic approach as Buckethead uses slides to create a slippery futuristic melody, managing to craft the Bbminor scale into something altogether weirder! Notice how using slides instead of bends, hammer-ons or pull-offs gives even a familiar set of notes a slightly alien sound!
And I have left this little cracker for last – just as I thought I was done with “Soothsayer”, Buckethead pulls this on me – a 2nd inversion Bbm arpeggio (based on a Dm shape), extended out with b7 and 9th via a tap and slide manoeuvre and then a first and third finger tap on the repeat.. wow!
As always, I can wax lyrical on what I've learned from this incredible player, but what I'm mostly taking away is the more accessible scale fragment legato stuff – similar to Sophie Lloyd, I recognise a lot of what I do, but just done better! Meanwhile, I've got a lot of practicing to do before the demo video goes up.. don't forget to Like, Share & Subscribe out there and keep your eye out for some John Mayer next month!
