Buckethead

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Biography

Brian Patrick Carroll (born May 13, 1969), known professionally as Buckethead, is an American guitarist and multi-instrumentalist who has worked within many genres of music. Buckethead's extensive solo discography currently includes 31 studio albums, one live album, two expended plays, five special releases, six demo tapes, & four DVD releases. Since 2011, Buckethead started releasing albums in the "Pikes" series, mini-albums usually around 30 minutes in length, each with a sequential number similar to a comic book. As of August 2024, Buckethead has released 655 Pike albums, 175 of which are live albums. His music spans many diverse areas such as progressive metal, funk, bluegrass, ambient, and avant-garde music.

Buckethead has also released seven studio albums under the alias Death Cube K (an anagram of Buckethead). He has released collaborative albums with Brain, Travis Dickerson, Melissa Reese, Viggo Mortensen, Shin Terai, DJ Disk, Bootsy Collins, That 1 Guy and albums with the bands Praxis, Cornbugs, Science Faxtion, Guns N' Roses, Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, and Deli Creeps, in addition to many other collaborations with bands and artists.

Buckethead is famous for wearing a KFC bucket on his head, emblazoned with an orange bumper sticker reading FUNERAL in capital black block letters, and an expressionless plain mask, which was inspired by his seeing Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. He also incorporates nunchaku and robot dancing into his stage performances.

As an instrumentalist, Buckethead has received critical acclaim for his electric guitar playing, and is considered one of today's most innovative guitarists. He has been voted number 8 on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the "Top 10 Fastest Guitar Shredders of All Time" 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".