You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Pages: 1
- elevendayempire
- Rep: 96
Re: Bit o' goss from Holy Moly.
Holy Moly is, of course, the scurrilous online UK gossip rag:
"Back when Guns N' Roses - well, Axl and co. - were recording Chinese Democracy, Axl got Buckethead in to do some guitar parts (he's the one that wears a mask and a KFC bucket on his noggin).
However, he told Axl that to record his parts properly, he needed to have a chicken coop built in the studio for him, as that's where he felt most comfortable. Axl was desperate for the guitar parts to be put down, so complied and had the coop built.
Some days later, Axl came in to oversee the recording, only to find a couple of engineers with concerned looks on their faces. Axl asked what was wrong, and they just pointed towards the studio, so off he frowned to find out what was wrong.
Upon arriving at the coop, he discovered Buckethead was sitting inside it, howling like a wolf, and smearing his own shit on the coop's walls.
Suffice to say, Buckethead didn't stay long.
A few months later, sans Buckethead, Axl eventually managed to tour the album, but found it impossible to go onstage at the time he was supposed to. Every minute he ran over curfew, the venue fined the band.
Axl's tour manager was tearing his hair out about how much money they were losing, so the promoter came up with a plan...
He walked into Axl's dressing room one evening with some sheets of A4 paper, on which were printed pictures of a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Porsche. Each page was then placed on the table in front of Axl. He was told that every night he wasn't fined, he'd find one of these supercars on his driveway at home. It did the trick."
The Buckethead/shit story is kinda skewed; from what I remember, Axl had a pet wolf/husky hybrid and it was that which went for a shit in Bucket's coop; Bucket then insisted, over the objections of the engineers, that the shit be left in the studio 'cause it helped the whole animal vibe. Oh, and since the Bucket/shit story was from circa 2001, it had fuck-all to do with Bucket's departure from the band.
Re: Bit o' goss from Holy Moly.
sounds like mick wall to me.. he's been peddling that bucket/chicken coop story around for best part of a decade now.
edit: after reading Gong's post i realise it's tom zutaut i meant, not mick wall. both fat has-beens, that's why i got 'em confused see? no i saw zutaut on some aussie comedy panel quiz show (that was broadcast in ireland 'cause it had that douchebag who used to be in westlife on it) & zutaut was peddling these bucket stories & all the bucket stories we've read about through the years..
Re: Bit o' goss from Holy Moly.
After Buckethead left officially in 2004 they didn't tour for 2 full years until 2006. So this part doesn't make any sense to me, with the time frame.
"Suffice to say, Buckethead didn't stay long.
A few months later, sans Buckethead, Axl eventually managed to tour the album"
Re: Bit o' goss from Holy Moly.
Buckethead was born Brian Carroll in 1969 and, aged 13, moved to Claremont, California where he took guitar lessons from future Mr Big guitarist Paul Gilbert for a year.
By the time he joined Guns N'™ Roses in 2000, he'™d already released five solo albums of dysfunctional funk metal and scorching shred guitar, building up a sizeable cult following, particularly among guitar players. With his blank white mask (redolent of Michael Myers from the movie Halloween) and signature KFC bucket hat, Buckethead was pretty much the polar opposite/ negative image of top-hatted, easy going Slash '“ and an inspired replacement for that very reason. (For a while the rumour among hopeful GN'™R fans was that Buckethead was Slash in disguise. To this day Paul Gilbert still gets asked if he is Buckethead.)
By the time Zutaut joined the Chinese Democracy project, Buckethead had left, frustrated by what he saw as the band'™s inactivity. Axl wanted him back.
So Zutaut arranges a meeting with Brian/Bucket at a deli in LA and listens as the guitarist explains why he left: he doesn'™t get on with Roy Thomas Baker, he'™s frustrated at the whole situation '“ at coming in to the studio everyday when Axl'™s not even there, playing the same parts over and over. Axl'™s his hero, he tells him, but he just spent a year going nowhere. He doesn'™t think the record will ever come out and he just has to move on with his life.
Tom leans in to him: 'Look,' he says, 'I got almost six albums out of GN'™R. I'™m talking to Axl everyday. I feel pretty good. I think I can get the record finished. 'You'™re a genius,' he tells him, 'I'™d love to work with you. You'™re one of the few people that can be in GN'™R and make GN'™R special the way Slash made it special. I promise you that I will be in the studio with you everyday and I will help you get what you want done and I won'™t tell you to be Slash.'
What, Zutaut asked, could he do to make the recording experience better for him? Suddenly, says Zutaut, Brian Carroll was transformed in front of his eyes. 'He went into Buckethead mode,' says Tom. 'I mean, I was talking to Brian, who was confiding in me, and suddenly he was Buckethead and he was telling me some story about how his parents were chickens and he was a chicken'“how his mum was a hen and his dad was a rooster. I couldn'™t tell whether it was fantasy or reality or who I was even talking to. But he believed it!
'Then it'™s like Brian comes back and he'™s kinda saying, '˜You know I'™d really like to make a movie of my life story and how I was raised in a chicken coop '“ it'™s the only place where I really feel comfortable'™.'
Which is when Zoot has a brainwave. 'Well, you'™ve just told me how you don'™t feel right in the studio,' he says. 'What if we built you a chicken coop in the studio for you to record your guitar parts?'™
Brian'™s jaw drops: 'Would you really do that?' 'Well,' says Torn, 'it'™s my job to find out whatever it is that will help you get the best creativity out of yourself.'
'If I could have my own chicken coop in the studio,' says Buckethead, 'my own world to live in, I could play a lot better.'
Two days later, it was built. 'It'™s like an apartment within the studio that'™s a chicken coop,' says Zutaut. '˜He'™s got his chair to record and a little mini sofa in there, and there'™s, like, a rubber chicken with its head cut off hanging from the ceiling and body parts. It'™s totally Buckethead'™s world. It'™s like Halloween in the chicken coop: part chicken coop, part horror movie. We built the coop and then he brought in all his props and toys and put straw on the floor. You could almost smell the chickens.
'No one was allowed to go in there apart from the assistant engineers to adjust mics '“you could not destroy the spirit and karmic vibe of the coop, his personal retreat. But '“ it'™s chicken wire. You could stand outside and talk, looking through, hut nobody was allowed in there with his hacked up dolls and rubber chickens and heads...'
With Buckethead back to work (Q: Does he come in with a mask on and a KFC bucket? Zutaut: 'He'™s got a bucket, but he doesn'™t wear it always'“just sometimes for inspiration' ), once again Chinese Democracy, is a work in progress, with a lead guitarist ensconced in a chicken coop, wailing away. (Q: Does everyone call him Brian or Buckethead? Zutaut: 'Just Bucket. Like, Whassup, Bucket?' )
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Bit o' goss from Holy Moly.
The interesting thing about this is that it's the stories we've read before but magnified to be more dramatic and worse.
We all read that they made the studio friendly to bucket, and why wouldn't you? The guy is one of the best guitarists in the world, if he says he needs an action figure hanging for the roof to make him play something astounding, then I know I'd be getting myself some toys. It's just logical from the business end to do what needs to be done to foster creativity.
And i'm pretty sure the orgin of the shit story, is from some other interview, where someone said that at some point a dog pooed in there, and for whatever insane reason bucket wanted it left around, or didn't want cleaners comming in, and they complied for a while until it stunk to hell.
While i'll grant thats wierd, he's clearly not pasting his own shit around the walls or whatever this article says.
Pages: 1
