Buckethead, 11 December 2024

Brian Patrick Carroll (born May 13, 1969), known professionally as Buckethead, is an American guitarist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has received critical acclaim for his innovative electric guitar playing. His music spans several genres, including progressive metal, funk, blues, bluegrass, ambient, and avant-garde music. He performs primarily as a solo artist, although he has collaborated with a wide variety of artists such as Bill Laswell, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Iggy Pop, Les Claypool, Serj Tankian, Bill Moseley, Mike Patton, Viggo Mortensen, That 1 Guy, Bassnectar, and Skating Polly. He was also a member of Guns N' Roses from 2000 to 2004. He has recorded 325 studio albums, four special releases, and one EP. He has performed on more than fifty albums by other artists.

Buckethead performs wearing a KFC bucket on his head, emblazoned with an orange bumper sticker reading FUNERAL in block letters, and an expressionless plain white mask inspired by Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. At one point, he changed to a plain white bucket without a KFC logo, but subsequently reverted to his emblematic KFC bucket, but without the funeral sticker. He also incorporates nunchaku and robot dancing into his stage performances.

Buckethead is voted Number Eight on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the "Top 10 Fastest Guitar Shredders" as well as being included in Guitar World's lists of the "25 all-time weirdest guitarists" and the "50 fastest guitarists of all time". Buckethead writes and performs music for major motion pictures, including Saw II, Ghosts of Mars, Beverly Hills Ninja, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Last Action Hero, Falling, and contributed lead guitar to the track "Firebird" featured on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie soundtrack.