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Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
The full version of this interview was originally published here. It's by the same folks who did the Josh Freese podcast some time ago. Some of it has been rearranged to read out more chronologically.
Enjoy. 
BUCKETHEAD / OZZFEST (1999)
So, the Primus thing came with Les and I just being friends, really...
Buckethead kind of came into that thing, cause I had met Buckethead through Joe Gore, who's the editor of Guitar Player and said, 'Dude, this guy sent me a video cassette of him just saying he can take out [Letterman's musical director] Paul Shaffer and his band!' It's a video of him in his bedroom soloing, and he had Maximum Bob yelling into the camera, going 'Paul, you need to get Buckethead to play guitar!', and Bucket was just going [on guitar], woooo-oooo.
So, he had turned me onto Bucket, I turned Bucket on to Bill Laswell, and said, 'Bill, you gotta check out this guitar player!' [I had met Bucket] once, before Joe Gore brought him. He was just this kid from Claremont, CA, and never been outside of it. He was in San Francisco, and he was just this freaky dude, who showed up in a mask and did his whole shtick the whole time. And then, we hit it off!
[Brain mentions Bucket talks through his hand puppet, Herbie. Everybody in the studio cracks up for a whole minute.]
Joe just kind of said, 'I think you guys will get along, you should play.' I was doing the Limbomaniacs then, and I gave Bill Laswell this tape, and he gave it to Bootsy Collins - and Bootsy just flipped out. And Bill made a band called Praxis, which was Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, me, AF Man Flip from the Jungle Brothers and this guy Torture. And we made that album.
After I brought the cassette that Joe Gore gave me and said, 'This guy's amazing and he's out of his mind', and the first time Bill met him, he had the mask on and the puppet, 'cause he would talk through the puppet... They loved it!
The first time Bootsy met him, he had the mask on, I'll never forget it, we were at Greenpoint Studios in Brooklyn, NY. At that point, there was a building on fire next door and we all pulled up and there was chaos, and Bil's totally in that chaos. It was just crazy, Bucket's sitting there in his mask, with his puppet, talking to Bootsy, who was just going, 'Yeah, man, yeah! I get it, I got it, I got it!'...And I'm just sitting there, going 'What the...'. Chaos never died.
And then, that's how it got - as I was listening to your other podcasts, the Josh Freese one, and he was talking about how I got into Guns was through Buckethead, because I introduced Buckethead to Les and all that, to bring him on the Ozzfest.
...We were doing Ozzfest, and Les had known Bucket, because he knew us and the Limbomaniacs, and we introduced him to Buckethead and he was like, 'Hey, we should get Bucket to come in and sit in on a couple of songs.'
So, Bucket was out with us and I think Ozzy wanted him at that point, 'cause it was the Ozzfest and Sharon was like, 'Shit, Bucket would be great'. But they had a falling out, 'cause they didn't want him to wear mask or something. I don't really know what happened.
See also: Ozzy talks about the Buckethead audition
JOINING GUNS (2000)
That didn't really work out, and then, I guess, Josh recommended Bucket for Guns, and I had heard the stories that Josh was sitting around for like, three years, and someone like him, who's one of the greatest drummers that can play anything with anybody - that [wait] would probably kill someone who has that talent, to be sitting around three years, not touring or doing something.
Bucket was just like, 'I don't think Josh is going to make it, I don't think keep going with this thing', and I was at the end of Primus. It was kind of getting to where Les wanting to break off to doing some other things in the jam band scene...
And then Bucket had called and said, 'Hey, Josh is leaving. Do you want to come and play?' I was like, 'Ah, I don't know. That sounds kinda cool, I guess. I don't really know them, and it's probably crazy', but - I'm not trying to sound like a heavy - in my mind, I was like, 'I don't know if I want to play rock'.
I thought Axl was cool when he was throwing the mike around and going crazy just being a freak, but I don't really listen to their music. I was really into beat music and hiphop, and that's when computers and music were really getting off.
Getting into Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase... All the loop-based recording in the computer stuff was just popping off, so I was like, 'I don't know if I want to do that.' That was like what happened in 2006 when I really dove in [to computers], I was thinking that actually around 2000.
But then, they're like, 'Why don't you just come down and meet everyone?' 'Cause, everybody wants this gig. [Big time studio drummer] Kenny Aronoff's knocking on the door, and all these people are saying, 'I'm the drummer for you', and I'm kind of being not really interested, and I'm thinking maybe that made Axl a little like, 'Wait, no-one says they don't want to play with me. This is Guns N' Roses!'
So, they gave me a first-class [plane] ticket from San Francisco to LA. A ridiculous 550SL-something black Mercedes, all tinted windows, comes and gets me. They drive me to the studio.
I met Axl, and they were like, 'Well, you have to learn these songs. We wanna jam. You have to learn Sweet Child O'Mine and this, this and this.' I was like, 'I don't really know those songs and I don't really want to learn them, 'cause I don't really care.'
I'm not saying like I'm a heavy, I'm just saying that through my attitude of 'Oh, whatever', it was like, 'No-one says whatever! This is Guns!' I went down and met everybody. Everybody seemed cool. Axl actually showed up - he was supercool. I go home and three months go by.
Tommy Stinson, the bass player, calls and says, 'Hey man, we need a drummer, so what's going on? You wanna do this or what?' I remember sitting in café in San Francisco when I picked up the phone, and I was like, 'Yeah, well, it sounds kinda cool.' And he's like, 'You should come down and jam. Learn some songs and do, whatever.'
So, it finally hit me then, because they flew me out, we went to a ridiculous rehearsal studio, I think it was at CenterStaging or something, and it was the biggest room and my drums are on a six-foot riser... I'm just thinking, 'Whoa, wait. This is kinda cool. This is like when you go to the tenth floor, this is eleven. This is - IT! Shit, man! Maybe I've made it if I take this gig! This is getting serious now!'
So, I go in and Tommy Stinson shows up with his Replacements punk-rock attitude. I had a boom stand, he fuckin' takes his jacket off and sets it on my boom stand. I'm thinking like, 'This motherfucker. Oh, OK. They wanna play here, so OK.'
We're playing the songs and I am sucking cock, 'cause I didn't know any of them. And Tommy's going like, 'I thought you were a good drummer, what the fuck's going on?' I'm like, 'Dude, I didn't learn any of the songs, I don't know any of them.' And he's going, 'Dude...' and then the phone rings - and I hear him talking to Axl.
'So, how's Brain working out?' I can just know what they're saying. And he's going, 'Well, it's kinda cool, but he doesn't know any of the songs.' I hear Tommy and him kind of going back and forth, and at that point, I thought, 'Uh oh. Now I'm turning out to look like a fuckin' douche.'
So I said, 'Tommy, give me a day. Just give me a fuckin' day and we'll come back.' Came back, I re-set my drums totally different, at that point, I had a kind of Primus' fusion set, so it didn't really work with Guns, anyway. Just having all these small toms and fuckin' splash symbals and shit.
Told the drum tech, 'Dude, set up a bottom kit. 26" kick drum, 13, 16, 18, fuck it, I'm going in with just power.' Sat up all night, learned the five or six songs, and when fuckin' Tommy comes in one more time and puts his fuckin' jacket [on my boom stand]... I went in and just played so hard that four of five drums fell off the risers and Tommy was like, 'Yep, he's our guy, that's it. Let's just do this.'
I knew I had the kick to do it at that point, because I was just like, 'I'm going to have like, "That guy SUCKS!"' So I said, 'OK, I need to kick some ass and get my shit together.' And then I felt like this is the real deal, with these guys, this is as big as it gets... This is when I gotta step up now.
...The Guns thing was, that was the first time... Joining Primus, it was like, 'Oh OK, I get it, it's a job. It's not a bad job, but hey! We have to tour and you have to show up and you have to do stuff.' It's not like, 'Oh, I play in a band when I want and sometimes I get a gig and do a studio session or something like that.'
I was never the studio session kinda guy. Maybe I just never had the talent to pull it off or whatever, but there'd have to be more. I could never just go in, and read a chart and play something. I wanna know what are we playing, what are we making, what are we saying with this that we're making. I couldn't just go, I just need to get my paycheck and play.
...Then, I was like, 'This is cool.' I owe a lot to that first Guns album and really listening to it and going, 'This is a well-crafted album. The parts are orchestrated.' I was like, in fusion, and playing in Primus was jamming a lot.
It was good, and there's a certain side you have to have to able to do that, but I've learned by studying that album and listening to the parts, how Adler played and the feel, and the whole thing, I'm thinking, 'This is a well-crafted album. This is good rock n' roll in that sense.'
I would always listen to Zeppelin and all that kind of stuff, of course, and learn that, but it was more like, 'Ah, shit! Trying to get Bonham's kick drum! Trying to get the parts he's playing.' This was actually listening to the parts and seeing how it works with the guitar and seeing how it moves with everything.
THE ROCK IN RIO REHEARSAL (2001)
The stories I have with Guns... Everybody, who, I think, has been in Guns, can write a book. Eight years, or whatever I was in, I figure I could write one, too. The most ridiculous stories ever. The tours, and I don't know if you even want to get into those, or whatever, but...
The thing that wore me out was... At first, I thought it was funny, it was cool, to be at a gig that was supposed to start at 10PM, or maybe even earlier, 8.39, and now it's 12.30PM, and the crowd's going crazy and Axl's still getting his masseuse, and the tension.
But you do that for three years, and you start go, 'I'm kind of ready to play at 8PM. I just wanna do that and eat my fuckin' pizza and go to sleep.'
[Host: You're on his clock.
Brain: Yeah, and after a while, that just kinda got me. To me, the whole 'Chaos Never Dies' with Bill Laswell, and Buckethead and the puppet, and then with Axl - you know, he's the ultimate puppet master, because nothing happens unless he says yes, or whatever. And some of the freedom we had, it was all also like, what killed it for me, because it was just too much.]
I can describe it in one story. We were getting ready for Rock in Rio. I think we rented out the Sony [lot], where they did the Wizard of Oz. It was this huge lot. And he wanted the whole stage set up that we were gonna have at Rock in Rio, so we had to go there, because they had to mark it out.
So, we're there rehearsing. Rehearsals started at midnight. First of all, you need to switch your whole schedule around. We rehearsed the set for a month. He didn't show up. We'd always get that call at 4 in the morning, saying, 'Uh oh. He might come.' So, we'd all have to be ready to play, but I think it was the day before the gear was supposed to leave.
I think the crew had been there since 8 in the morning, setting up. They have to break it down and the gear has to leave, literally the next morning. Well, we're there and on this particular day, we rehearsed the set, two and half hours. Did the whole set.
It's probably 3 in the morning, now. Axl calls from Malibu. He's coming. And he wants to see the whole set again. He wants to watch the show. Everybody's like, OK. We'd rehearsed only the music. He would never sing with us. He wants to come and watch it, so they put a couch out, we're on this big soundstage and there's a little couch next to the soundboard, right in front of the sound guy.
We'd already played for two and a half hours. He's coming to check it out. Well, an hour goes by. 'Is he REALLY coming?' The road crew, everybody's asleep by now, next to their gear. 'Yeah, he wants to come, but the problem is, he wants to see the WHOLE show, pyro and everything.
So, we're like, 'Wait. I think, each time the pyro guy hits the fuckin' thing, it's like $300,000 for each bomb that's gonna go up. But, we're going to do it on this soundstage, and in order to make that happen, they got to get the fire department down here.'
Now the fire department comes down, but I think they're digging it. They're thinking, 'I get to watch Guns N' Roses rehearse, so whatever.' They show up, we play the set and now, it's probably 5AM.
All I can remember is, I'm playing November Rain. They have the curtain of sparks bouncing off my cymbals, burning my face, getting on my shorts and shit like that. The door opens - it's DAYLIGHT! You see people coming to work.
We're playing now, we've been up since 12 o'clock, the road crew has been up since 8AM, for 24 hours. He's in the chair with his arms crossed, just watching. Bombs, fireworks, everything's fuckin' going off.
We end with Paradise City, doing the fuckin' shuffle thing [in the last part of the song], they blew the confetti shit, the shit that they do at the Superbowl that goes all over, and has six inches off the ground of a football field, so you can imagine how much it filled this place up.
And dude, I'm not joking, it's like 7.30/8 in the morning. It's the most surreal moment. In my mind, I'm just going, 'Who's gotta fuckin' clean the confetti? What are we doing? Some poor guy has to sweep fuckin' six inches of confetti.'
We hit the last note. He gets up, walks out. Never said a word, didn't see him. We just get up, everybody goes home and the next time we saw him was in Rock in Rio. That's sort of Guns in a nutshell. The chaos and what happens.
[Host: There's no such thing as hanging as a band with Axl.
Brain: Well, I mean, there is. We hang, but I just meant that's the kind of chaos that would be around it.
Host: Just stupid shit.
Brain: Well, you would just think like, 'What are we doing? Someone's gotta blow confetti at 7.30 in the morning at the Sony lot. It has to happen, it REALLY has to happen.
Host: Really?
Brain: Yeah.
Host: We're doing this now?
Brain: Yeah, dude. I don't wanna talk shit, because it was the greatest time ever - it really was awesome! I have to tell these stories, but it's nothing against Axl. He was always very good, it's just this is how he rolled. This was the gig.
Host: This is what he gets away with.
Brain: Yeah. This is the gig. We're gonna blow confetti at 7.30 in the morning. Playing in a shuffle. A fuckin' shuffle! Buckethead's doing fuckin' breakdancing on the side while the shuffle's happening. He's moonwalking. Really? This is as good as it gets.]
Just the boogie woogie shuffle is what really took me out. The stupidity in me going like, 'I wonder if I can really do at 7.30 in the morning what Adler was doing on the album, which is three notes in a row?' He's doing it with fuckin' one foot! I couldn't do it. 7.30 in the morning with the confetti? Not good enough.
[Host: That's one of the toughest grooves.
Brain: Yeah! That's hard to play.
Host: Yes, it is!
Brain: With one foot, it's really hard to play.
Host: It gave you a new respect for Steven Adler.
Brain: Yeah. But he might've not had to do it at 7.30 with the confetti. And I had to do the set three hours before or whatever.
Host: Did you ever talk to Matt Sorum or any of the guys at that point?
Brain: He never came around. Steven Adler came to a couple of shows, he came to the Vegas show. But, I've never met Matt Sorum.
Host: I was just curious if you ever talk shop with any of the other guys?
Brain: No, there were stories that were going around about the previous band and the chaos in that.
Host: The Josh thing.
Brain: Yeah. That's why I was like, everybody can talk about this. Everybody can write their own book. It just keeps going.]
AXL IS LISTENING (2000/2001)
That's one thing about Axl, too. He knows his shit, dude. I'll never forget, we were working on a track... I forget the name of the track, I don't know if it even made to Chinese Democracy, but we were working on it for two weeks, maybe even longer.
We would work at Village, which is a studio in Santa Monica. Everything would be dropped off to him. At that point it was, like, giving him CD's. So, there'd be a runner ready to go right when we were done at midnight, to bring it to his house in Malibu, and we'd wait about 35-40 minutes until it got there and get the call. 'Yeah, this is cool', or, 'No, we gotta change something or whatever.'
We'd been doing that for about 2,5 weeks on this song, let's say. Finally, he loved what we were doing, but we had to change something with the drums. So, I remember replaying the part, but, on the beginning of the second half of the intro, there's a kick drum that I had missed on the final take. We had already figured out all the parts and everything was going great, and producer Roy Thomas Baker was like, 'That was the take.'
But I had noticed that I'd missed one kick drum. One kick drum on the one, on the second half of the intro, OK? We send it there, and I'm not shitting you, he says, 'Everything sounds great, except I think Brain missed a kick drum on the one.'
So, he's fuckin' listening. We thought we were sending this shit and he's literally sitting there like King Arthur with seven chicks on his pipe. He's listening, he's working. After that, I respected... I was like, 'Holy shit! He caught that?!' Yeah, he's listening to every little thing. It was my time on getting the drums right, so he was focusing on that... It's pretty amazing. You'd think someone like that, does he need to care? That one got me. I was like, 'Wow. He caught that.'
BUCKET DEALING WITH GUNS MANAGEMENT (2001/2002)
In Guns, the greatest thing was, he would do the puppet thing and wore out the managers. There's millions of dollars on the line - and they're talking to a fuckin' puppet!
So, finally, he went MIA and the only way to get a hold of him - was through me. It was kind of fun and at that point, I was kinda like, 'Oh, OK, get a hold of the main guy keeping it together, Slash's replacement, was to go through me'. So, I kinda felt like a big cock, whatever, just thinking, 'Oh, they gotta go through me, this is cool.'
That's how close we were... He got off on that it wore everybody out and I was together enough to speak for him... He cared so much [about being in Guns], that I think that was his protection, 'I can't get worn out by this, because I care about this'.
It wasn't from a punk-rock attitude, it was from, 'I'm scared. I don't want to get worn out by these lawyers. I have a talent here.' I think he knew he had talent that people wanted, so he would wear them out, with, you couldn't get a hold of them for a month. 'We're going on tour, is he coming? 'I don't know if he's going to show up.'
I think they actually had people, like undercover cops, checking him out at one time. He'd call me and say, 'Brain, there's a car out front and it's been there for, like, three days.' And I'm like, 'What?!' And he's like, 'Yeah, I don't know what's going on.'
And this was before we were supposed to go on a major Guns N' Roses tour. We didn't know what was going on, and he was paranoid and scared, so he said, 'OK, I'm gonna go out there with a mask.' And he had a hatchet. He said he went out with a mask and a hatchet and just stood next to the car... and they were looking at him and just took off.
So, I think he was being followed. He never found out the truth, but that's the game he was playing, because he was MIA for a month at a time. 'Where's Bucket?' I'm like, 'I don't know.' And I'd always know, it was just like, part of the game...
Aw man, the letters he would get from the [GNR] lawyers, because he would just wear them out so much. 'You'll never work again, you'll work in a gas station before you'll pick up a guitar again!' Because, they'd try to call him and Looney Tunes would come on the answering machine. And there's a huge tour coming on... The Haunted Mansion would come on, I mean, he loved Disneyland. He signed his contract with Axl in Disneyland.
I think Axl went to Disneyland and they signed in the Haunted Mansion. I think, as he was on the ride, he signed the contract. I mean, you can't make this up!
[Host: Like, he was doing the whole puppet thing with Axl?
Brain (suddenly solemn): Yeah... with everyone.]
Even in rehearsals, he had the mask on. No-one ever saw him without it.
[Host: And Axl loved it?
Brain: Yeah.]
How could you NOT love it? It was just the greatest... Every time, it was like, 'What mask is he gonna walk in this time?' I've got a picture of him, just swamped in Rock in Rio, coming off the bus, and he's got a Freddy Krueger mask on, and he's just signing... You know, no-one ever saw him.
...We'd put on horror flicks and just solo and jam and stuff like that. I think Axl and everyone loved it. I think Bill loved it, Axl loved it...
[Host: Axl didn't even care when the lawyers were pissed?
Brain: I think he was making billion dollar deals and trying to rebuild the Guns N' Roses hotel. I think it was just the chaos, it was just another thing.]
POST 02
...At that point, I was just talking to somebody about that two days ago, as they worked over at Sanctuary. I had some friends, and I was with Pablo and Kenny, and they were talking about that point, when money was being thrown around like, whatever.
I was telling them the story of how, during the Tom Waits period, I wasn't - I guess I'll get in trouble for this stuff - we'd just played Madison Square Garden and it went great and we were supposed to play the Spectrum, and, to make a long story short, it just fell through.
It was one of those things, where Bucket and I are in a hotel room and we're watching chairs being thrown on Channel Seven, and they're like 'Ooh, the Guns N' Roses show isn't going to happen!"
Then, ClearChannel calls and says the whole thing is over and we're flying home. So, I went out with Tom Waits for like, two years, and did his Real Gone album, that was that period.
TOM WAITS
"[Tom Waits' band] was all about the vibe, I think. Kinda opposite of Guns N' Roses. You know, Guns N' Roses was like, 'let's rehearse Welcome to the Jungle, seven million times.' And that feel wasn't exactly the same. I'm not dissing Guns, but we can get into those stories...
The way [joining Guns] kinda went, was, the stories I was telling you about Tom happened somewhere before Primus, and then, post-Primus. In between, when Axl didn't do anything in two years, I went out with 'Real Gone'.
But, it basically started with I did Tom Waits before I even did Primus, because Les [Claypool] had recommened me, 'cause I had known Les around the Bay Area, just from him being in this rad band Primus, and I was doing Limbomaniacs...
2006 TOUR
Then, they asked us to come back and to do [a Guns tour], and between those two two years, I was supposed to get paid. But I didn't know, I was making money somewhere else doing that stuff, so to make a long story short, they paid me for the two years when I got back in. Which would be unheard of, to write a cheque for somebody doing nothing.
[Host: You were on retainer.
Brain: Yes, but a ridiculous amount of retainer, like hundreds of thousands of dollars. They would just throw it at you.]
Nowadays, well, I'm sure Paul McCartney still pays 15 grand a week or something - but to be getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to just sit around...
[Host: That's over, man.
Brain: Yeah, that's over. I don't know who would get that. I mean, I've been out of it for a while, so I couldn't imagine...]
And these guys, my friend Pablo, who was in the record industry at the time, was telling me that was a period when money was just being thrown around.
POST GUNS
[Axl] was always good to me and it always like, any time I was hanging with him or whatever, it was all good. There was no weirdness with that, it was just happening. That's why I don't feel bad saying this stuff, because I'm not looking at it as it's a bad thing. I'm looking at it as it's kinda rad.
I just think I got older and was like, 'Wait a sec. Waiting until 2 in the morning is not fun anymore.' There comes a point where I just wanna do my work and get some shit down.
...I left because I had a kid and I just thought, I wanna get this composing thing going, I wanna give it a shot... And I'd done this. How many more shows do I need to play? I've toured the world 5 times with Primus. With Guns, 3-4 times we did it. I was the first [drummer] that toured once he got the band back together. I don't think Josh played a show.
...I do miss playing live. I would wanna do stuff [with Guns] as one-offs. I wish I could get back into one tour, knowing that was gonna be it.
...I don't know, it was good for me. It was great that I did it, to learn and to do it. So, I don't regret any of it at all... It just felt like it was the right thing. It was a good learning experience and some of the techniques I know about recording were from some of the most amazing engineers that were on that gig.
There was a lot of downtime. Josh would tell you something about being in the studio... I think we were at the Village for six years. I think I must have the record of the drums being set up in the studio the longest.
I would just wear out these engineers that were the best in the world about recording, and how to utilize the software in the most efficient way. I learned most of the techniques for the composing I'm doing from those guys, and I never would've had that unless I was thrown in that situation, and on the highest level, too.
The people over at the Village, Jeff Greenberg, who I think is the owner now, they were just so nice to me. Just let me go in there and wear everybody out on recording and stuff, so that was good, that stuff.
...Even when I was done with Guns and I was trying to get into this composing thing, bands were calling and at that point, I think even Korn called and they were just like, 'You know, Terry Bozzio wants like, five million dollars to go on the road, so can you do it for this amount of money?'
I'd be like, 'Nah, I'm just sitting here. We're trying to figure out how the ASIO [Audio Stream Input/Output] driver goes into the blah blah blah folder', and I remember the manager going, 'Do you not like money? Hello?'
FRIENDS WITH BUCKET
[Bucket and I,] we're best friends. He doesn't let many people get behind the mask. I would have to say, me and about three other people have been the only ones who have ever got behind the mask. I haven't seen him in a couple of years, because I just think we played each other out, if that makes any sense. We've been working together for 15 years in solo projects, like Giant Robot we did together, we were in Guns together, he was my best friend... He doesn't let too many people in.
...We were doing a track for a video game. I think it was Twisted Metal. The last time I saw him was here. It was just a weird vibe. Something was weird. And he left - and I haven't talked to him since. And it's been about two years.
Up until then, I thought everything was great. I don't know if it was me, or if it was he like, 'Oh, I'm sitting here and Brain's getting all the credit', or if he was just done with playing for other people. Even though I was like, 'Hey, they know if you're playing. You've got credit on it. If you look at iTunes, it says 'Brain & Bucket' on the tracks. And that was it.
...My joke is that I have like 5 fans. Wherever I go, I have 3-4 fans that show up. 'Oh, Brain, we like you!' Axl has 30,000, Buckethead would have 15,000. I have 3. But those three know everything and they dig it, and that's all I care about. If I could get that on the composing side... Oh, man. I think, I'd be happy.
...I see he's still touring and stuff, solo. I wanna reach out to him, but I just really don't know how. Everybody's got their problems, and I gotta worry about other stuff. But I do miss it, that's part about creativity and the craziness. I mean, he's such a genius.
I miss the 4 in the morning calls, when all you hear is wooo-ooo-woo-ooo-ooo. He just solos for about ten minutes. And then, he's like, 'Dude, I think I'm getting faster.' He just plays guitar. And I miss that.
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Kind of a sad interview. He obviously loves Bucket, so that sucks. And it amazes me Bucket loved being in GN'R that much. I would guess it was Merck doing the threatening?
Cool stuff.
"And this was before we were supposed to go on a major Guns N' Roses tour. We didn't know what was going on, and he was paranoid and scared, so he said, 'OK, I'm gonna go out there with a mask.' And he had a hatchet. He said he went out with a mask and a hatchet and just stood next to the car... and they were looking at him and just took off."
BTW - I guess it confirms the rumors Brain wants back in, even for just one tour.
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Yeah, I originally thought Brain was referring to the ClearChannel tour in '02, but he could've meant the aborted '04 tour - there was apparently a whole tour in the works, which we eventually got in '06. Comparing it to Axl's press release:
The band has been put in an untenable position by guitarist Buckethead and his untimely departure.
He would do the puppet thing and wore out the managers. There's millions of dollars on the line - and they're talking to a fuckin' puppet! ...The letters he would get from the [GNR] lawyers, because he would just wear them out so much. 'You'll never work again, you'll work in a gas station before you'll pick up a guitar again!' Because, they'd try to call him and Looney Tunes would come on the answering machine. And there's a huge tour coming on...
His transient lifestyle has made it impossible for even his closest friends to have nearly any form of communication with him whatsoever.
So, finally... he was MIA for a month at a time... and the only way to get a hold of him - was through me. It was kind of fun and at that point, I was kinda like, 'Oh, OK, get a hold of the main guy keeping it together, Slash's replacement, was to go through me'. So, I kinda felt like a big cock, whatever, just thinking, 'Oh, they gotta go through me, this is cool.'
During his tenure with the band Buckethead has been inconsistent and erratic in both his behavior and 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.
It wasn't from a punk-rock attitude, it was from, 'I'm scared. I don't want to get worn out by these lawyers. I have a talent here.' I think he knew he had talent that people wanted, so he would wear them out, with, you couldn't get a hold of them for a month. 'We're going on tour, is he coming?' ... I'm like, 'I don't know.' And I'd always know, it was just like, part of the game.
Then, in February we got word from Brain that Bucket had called him and said he was back in Guns!? Apparently, according to Bucket he had been "Gone" but had turned himself around and was really excited to do Rio-Lisbon and a European tour.
He got off on that it wore everybody out and I was together enough to speak for him... He cared so much [about being in Guns], that I think that was his protection, 'I can't get worn out by this, because I care about this'.
Last time I talked to Bucket, he called to tell me he had bought a bootleg DVD off EBay and how proud he was to be in Guns and how impressed he was with everyone's performance.
Host: Like, he was doing the whole puppet thing with Axl?
Brain (suddenly solemn): Yeah... with everyone.
According to those who have actually spoken with Buckethead it appears his plans were to secure a recording contract with Sanctuary Records which I encouraged my management to make available to him, quit GN'R and to use his involvement in the upcoming Guns release to immediately promote his individual efforts...Nice guy!
It's hard to tell what was real or not in things we were told by Merck.
- Communist China
- Rep: 130
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Has he told the Rock in Rio rehearsal story before? That was hilarious.
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Lots of great stuff.
That was a magic time. No wonder so little ever actually got finished given the chaos driving lots of the parties involved, but the talent, synergy & potential was undeniable.
Those lawyers tho..
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
that is some funny shit right there....I do wish one day he would get more in to talking about certain songs. He is an interesting guy and a helluva drummer.
"So, he's fuckin' listening. We thought we were sending this shit and he's literally sitting there like King Arthur with seven chicks on his pipe."
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Oh yeah....just another reason why Tommy is the only dude in the band with a set of brass balls....
So, I go in and Tommy Stinson shows up with his Replacements punk-rock attitude. I had a boom stand, he fuckin' takes his jacket off and sets it on my boom stand. I'm thinking like, 'This motherfucker. Oh, OK. They wanna play here, so OK.'
We're playing the songs and I am sucking cock, 'cause I didn't know any of them. And Tommy's going like, 'I thought you were a good drummer, what the fuck's going on?' I'm like, 'Dude, I didn't learn any of the songs, I don't know any of them.' And he's going, 'Dude...' and then the phone rings - and I hear him talking to Axl.
I'm going in with just power.' Sat up all night, learned the five or six songs, and when fuckin' Tommy comes in one more time and puts his fuckin' jacket [on my boom stand]... I went in and just played so hard that four of five drums fell off the risers and Tommy was like, 'Yep, he's our guy, that's it. Let's just do this.'
Classic. 
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
Yeah, killer stuff. The only song I ever heard Brain talk about was Seven, which was his favorite. It was a hilarious quote.
EDIT: Found it.
It's a timeless ballad with a blow-your-face-off chorus and a suck-your-ball-sack bridge!
Re: Big Brain Interview - 'Who's going to clean up the confetti?'
I think Brain used a portmanteau of a mic stand and a boom arm. The whole point of those is to get the mics up close to the kit while taking the least required space on the riser.
A "boom arm" can be attached to the top of the stand in order to allow the placement of the microphone to be moved in the horizontal plane. This might, for example, allow a guitar player to place the microphone directly in front of his mouth without having the upright portion of the stand in the way of the guitar.
It also allows the microphone to be placed closer to the sound source when floor space is at a premium. This can be particularly useful when placing microphones on a drum stand when the microphone stands must compete for space with things like cymbal stands. Wiki
So, it was one of the mic stands used with his drumkit.
