Have Bucket, Will Travel
There are guitar players. There are peculiar guitar players. But there’s not one guitar player who’s even as remotely peculiar as Buckethead, a 6’6” masked man who performs under an enigmatic persona while donning a chicken bucket upon his head.
He’s an instrumental guitarist who doesn’t remain in one genre, maneuvering between various metals including progressive, funk, and even ambient, a genre quite contradictory to his feral stage presence.
It’s effortless to note that Buckethead’s music catalog is overwhelming: in 2015 alone, he released 118 albums, averaging an album every three days. These albums, or “pikes” as he refers to them, are typically made up of songs of ten minutes, more or less, which reach a total length of half an hour or so.
If you’re seeking an answer as to why Buckethead wears the chicken bucket, it’s a feature of his animalistic persona: a man “raised by chickens” who seeks to “alert the world to the ongoing chicken holocaust in fast-food joints around the globe.”
But despite his enigmatic persona and his almost implausible rate of music output, Buckethead’s skill as a guitarist has ultimately led to his fame and collaboration with greats such as Iggy Pop and Bootsy Collins, and, for a time, status as a member of Guns N’ Roses.
He may have an eccentric image, but Buckethead’s prowess as a multi-genre guitarist is his most definitive feature.
Buckethead will be performing at The Signal this Friday at 8:30 p.m. For tickets, visit thesignaltn.com.