Quite a few guitarists played in Guns N’ Roses between the time that Slash quit in 1996 and their reunion 20 years later. DJ Ashba, who played in GN’R for six years, doesn’t think that Buckethead, another previous member, “fit” with the group.
Buckethead, who’s known for wearing a white face mask and a KFC bucket on his head, was in Guns from 2000 until 2004, and played guitar on all but two songs on their 2008 record Chinese Democracy. Ashba joined the group in 2009, after the departure of Robin Finck.
Yes, Axl Rose had quite a revolving cast of members during the Chinese Democracy era of the band.
However, in an interview with Antihero Magazine, Ashba revealed his thoughts about Buckethead’s place in the group.
“I was hoping that one day Slash would come back, and the reason I took the gig is that, honestly, I was — no disrespect to Buckethead or anybody — but seeing a guy run around with a chicken bucket on his head, it’s, like, to me, that took the coolness out of the band that I grew up loving, and that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to get in there and try to do whatever I could do to get justice, bring back that reckless rock and roll vibe of what Slash was all about and Guns N’ Roses was all about,” he said.
“To me, it was in a sense losing that thing that I loved about the band. And I love Buckethead as a guitarist. No disrespect at all — it’s just, in my opinion, he didn’t really fit the band.”
Fortunately for Ashba, he got his wish — Slash officially returned to the band in 2016, along with fellow founding member Duff McKagan. But, there weren’t any feelings of hostility that his time as the band’s lead guitarist would be coming to an end.
“Actually, Axl wanted me to stay on board, and it’s one of those things where I was playing most of the Slash parts, and if he was coming back, that was great news for me as a fan and even better news for me as a musician, because it was never my band. I was just basically filling in till the big guy came back,” the guitarist recalled.
