Guns N’ Roses ruled the world from 1988 – 1993, releasing several huge albums. The band struggled to write new material after the Use Your Illusion Tour in 1993.
In 1995, Slash formed a side project which released an album titled It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere. Slash left the band the following year and was followed by bassist Duff McKagan in 1997. Drummer Matt Sorum was fired by Rose the same year.
Axl Rose is the Only Member Left in Guns N’ Roses
By 1998, Rose was the last man standing from the 80s lineup of the group. While a lot of people came and went over the next 2 decades, one of the more interesting members to join Guns N’ Roses was guitarist Buckethead.
As Axl assembled his new lineup of Guns N’ Roses in the late 90s, he brought in Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, who played with the band in 1998 and 1999 before departing the group.
Future GNR guitarist Richard Fortus was asked to audition but the audition fell through. In an interview with the Times Union, he stated, “Before that audition happened, Axl saw Buckethead play and he decided to go with him instead.”
Rose wasn’t sure how to get a hold of Buckethead but Guns N’ Roses’ drummer, Josh Freese knew the guitarist and helped Rose track him down.
Things weren’t solidified until Buckethead was invited to Rose’s own personal home for Christmas in 1999. It’d been a tough holiday season for Bucket who was holding out hope that somebody would get him a certain type of leather face doll. To his surprise, Rose found the doll and Bucket took it as a sign that he should join Guns N’ Roses.
Buckethead Joins Guns N’ Roses
Josh Freese ended up leaving the band by 2000 after his contract expired and was replaced by drummer Brain. Brain revealed how Buckethead officially joined the band, recalling to the I’d Hit That podcast, “I think Axl and Buckethead 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.”
“You’ve got two lead guitar players trying to kill each other with their abilities.” – Axl Rose
Robin Finck rejoined the band and the band started to play shows in the early 2000s. Axl Rose compared the chemistry between the two guitarists, telling Detroit radio station WRIF in 2002, “When we did our first show in Vegas, Robin and Buckethead didn’t know each other at all. You’ve got two lead guitar players trying to kill each other with their abilities. I think they can be cordial to each other, that whole kind of thing but when they’re actually playing, it gets that kind of alpha-male thing going, like who’s the real elite guitar player.”
By the early 2000s, Guns N’ Roses were spending a good amount of time and money in the studio, working on their forthcoming record Chinese Democracy. Producers came and went and Interscope, the band’s label brought in A&R man, Tom Zutaut who signed Guns N’ Roses back in 1986, to help push the project towards the finish line. By this point in time, the album was past due and costing the label millions of dollars.
Frustration got to Buckethead. He was tired of the inactivity in the band and he quit Guns N’ Roses in 2001. There were also reports that producer Roy Thomas Baker, who worked on Chinese Democracy in the early 2000’s, didn’t get along with Buckethead, which created tension.
“Bucket’s frustrated at the whole situation…” – Tom Zutaut
Rose wanted to convince Buckethead to change his mind about quitting the band. He told Zutaut to make things right with the producer. Zutaut recalled to Classic Rock Magazine, “There was a bit of creative tension with Roy Thomas Baker… Bucket’s frustrated at the whole situation, at coming into the studio every day when Axl’s not there, playing the same parts over and over… 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.”
Buckethead Has a Chicken Coop Built in the Studio
Buckethead would agree to come back to the band after Zutaut offered to build him a chicken coop in the studio. Zutaut added in the same interview, “As the weeks went by, the chicken coop joke started to wear thin so Bucket comes and says he needs a TV so he can sit in the chicken coop and watch porn and that seemed to really inspire him to record some great stuff.”
According to Zutaut, Axl turn up to the studio one day and saw the kinds of movies Buckethead was watching in his chicken coop to help inspire his guitar parts. Rose was visibly shaken, according to Zutaut and had a chat with Bucket, saying he didn’t want his album being tainted by adult movies.
By the summer of 2001, the band was slated to tour Europe but Buckethead developed an undiagnosed stomach condition, forcing the cancellation of these dates. It was during the same time that reports came out that Bucket had once again left the band but he was lured back by Axl Rose.
In 2002, Guns N’ Roses continued to record Chinese Democracy with no firm release date and made their first public appearance in America at the 2002 VMA’s.
Following the VMA’s, the band embarked on an ill-fated tour through North America that was eventually cancelled due to low ticket sales and riots in Vancouver and Philadelphia.
Buckethead Quits Guns N’ Roses for the Final Time
2003 proved to be another quiet year on the recording front and by the end of 2003, Buckethead’s manager revealed that the guitarist finally quit the band due to the group’s inability to deliver an album.
Axl Rose released a statement in March of 2004, cancelling their planned European tour, citing Buckethead’s departure as one of the main reasons. In his statement, Rose wrote, “During his tenure with the band, Buckethead has been creating uncertainty and confusion and making it virtually impossible to move forward with recording, rehearsals and live plans with confidence… Buckethead’s transient lifestyle has made it impossible for even his closest friends to have nearly any form of communication with him whatsoever.”
Chinese Democracy was finally released in November of 2008 and Buckethead was credited as playing on all the songs on the album except “Catcher in the Rye” and “This I Love”, in addition to coming up with arrangements for the songs “Shackler’s Revenge”, “Scraped” and “Sorry”.
A few weeks after the album came out, Axl Rose spoke about Buckethead during a fan chat online where he said, “I have a blast with Bucket on tour and get a big kick out of this guy… I have no issues with Bucket. It was hard to tell what was real or not… A lot of feelings were hurt on this side of the fence and how things went down.”
“…The guitar players that played on Chinese Democracy, Buckethead being one of the main ones, are effing amazing guitar players.” – Slash
Slash told Guitar World in 2018, 2 years after he rejoined Guns N’ Roses, “…The guitar players that played on Chinese Democracy, Buckethead being one of the main ones, are effing amazing guitar players. I have to give those guys a shoutout because the stuff was really cool. Very different from what I normally do so it’s been interesting learning some of the stuff that was on the record. I definitely have to figure out ways to adapt to it.”
As for Buckethead, when he’s done interviews since leaving Guns N’ Roses and the topic of the band comes up, he’s been pretty quiet.
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