⠀BUCKETHEAD is an avant-garde virtuoso guitarist who has remained mostly anonymous throughout his 35 year career by wearing a white, expressionless mask and KFC buckets on his head. his discography boasts over 500 albums, mostly self-releases called "pikes" which range anywhere between a handful of shorter tracks to one or two ~30 minute tracks. his repertoire spans a diverse range of genres; he has recorded ambient, funk, blues, metal, experimental, and even bluegrass songs! a good amount of his music is inspired by the things he loves: horror movies, his family, Giant Robot, martial arts, and basketball. he is primarily a solo act but has collaborated with many different artists like bootsy collins, serj tankian, les claypool, and even guns n' roses during their chinese democracy era.
⠀like i stated initially, buckethead has remained mostly anonymous throughout his career. he goes to extreme lengths not to let the general public see his face. iranian musician and collaborator azam ali recounted first seeing buckethead in his gimmick attire after getting to know him out-of-bucket. he frequently wears masks while recording if a camera is around. however, over the years he has given us bucketbots some insight on himself. the dvd Young Buckethead has this special feature. the cover of pike 13 is a childhood photo of him and his father. he even gave an extremely rare out-of-character interview of sorts in 2017, talking about overcoming anxiety, navigating grief and dealing with health challenges.
⠀buckethead the character is shy and childlike, speaking very rarely. if he does speak, he does so through his puppet friend named herbie. he was raised by chickens in a chicken coop. he has an intense interest in slaughterhouses, slunks and cemetaries. he operates his very own amusement park, bucketheadland! he's well-versed in the art of nunchaku and doing the robot.
⠀a lot of his music simply just resonates with me. my boyfriend actually introduced me to buckethead with Colma when we were teenagers, so that album will always have a special place in my heart. while i lived in the bay area, i had a few chances to actually visit that album's namesake, a necropolis in south san francisco. i spent time driving around the many cemetaries and taking photos while waiting for my boyfriend during his top surgery at a nearby hospital.
⠀i listened to Bucketheadland for the first time while stoned out of my mind and it was nothing short of a life-changing experience. i listened to Electric Sea while going through a huge transitional period and it was (and still is) such a huge comfort to me. when i feel my lowest, i always reach out for a buckethead song. he's good at that—comfort. i know that whatever i face in my life, i will always have his music to anchor me. what a blessing that is!
⠀i've noticed buckethead and i have some interests and traits in common: we both love horror movies, (like texas chainsaw massacre, hellraiser and halloween) he's even turned me onto other horror flicks that i'd never heard of! we like a lot of the same music, like classic prog, classical, jazz, and country. we're also both incredibly shy people. i myself am autistic, while i can't say for sure if he's on the spectrum, he gives me the impression that he might be, too. (a twitter mutual of mine even wrote a piece on medium entitled The Autistic Awesomeness of Buckethead about this very subject!) we also both have old web websites! granted he has more street-cred than i do in this respect, since he's had one far longer than i have and full-on rejects social media. i love browsing his website through the wayback machine, reading lore and seeing old promotional stuff.
⠀his comments from his 2017 interview on overcoming fear by facing it head-on and even welcoming the pain that fear brings made such a huge impression on me — it was incredibly connecting to hear him talk about struggling with some of the same things that i struggle with. it inspires me to know that he continues to create his art authentically through these emotions, sometimes even using them as a catalyst for his art. for example, Pike 65: Hold Me Forever is an entire album that is an expression of grief and love for his late mother. songs like like Soothsayer, Watching The Boats With My Dad, All in the Waiting, Healing Inside Outside Every Side, and so many more are packed to the top with gentle, vulnerable feeling. even with very little of his music having words, it's some of the most emotionally expressive i have ever listened to.
⠀my love for buckethead was heightened even further when i had the chance to see him live twice in 2023, once in sacramento and once in san francisco. they were his first shows since the before the pandemic. it was such a treat seeing him perform, i felt so grateful to witness him in his flow state in person and honestly i'm still at a loss for words on how to describe the experience. hopefully i'll get to see him again someday!
