22. NOVEMBER 1999-JANUARY 2001: LINEUP TURMOIL BUT A TRIUMPHAL RETURN

Bucket was playing with us in Primus, and I think this was like maybe the fifth or sixth year of Primus, and Bucket came in towards the end, and I think we kind of knew it was the end. I mean, it was kind of the elephant in the room type thing. It was just like... Okay, we're in Australia, we're gonna finish this tour, and then that's probably it. It was that kind of a feel. And Bucket had just done the Oz Fest with us. That's where he met Ozzy and Sharon and Jack or whatever. And then around that time, we're like, we gotta go to Australia, but we weren't gonna take Bucket. I think it was just financially, it wasn't gonna work out. So Bucket was like at home, and I think Josh, within Guns N' Roses at that point, Josh Freese, and Josh new Bucket because of the whole Disneyland connection and I think in his dad was the musical director, Josh's dad was the musical director at Disneyland, and then um... Bucket was always a huge, you know, Disneyland fan and all that so they had known each other and he was like, "Hey," you know, "we're looking for a guitar player for Guns N' Roses" [...].

Axl were on the other side [to Ozzy who couldn't accept Buckethead's mask and bucket], Axl was into it, you know. Axl wanted him to wear that thing and wanted it to be around the band.

[...] I think, we were just doing a random tour with Primus, it was, like, for the Rhinoplasty album or something, and Josh had called Bucket and said, "Hey dude," you know, "I think you should try," you know, "try out for Guns," and Bucket was like, "Oh, okay," you know. And then I guess he had met, you know, like, he went and met with Axl, hung out, did some stuff with them and Axl was, you know, like, saying he wanted to change the sound more like, you know, like a different sound and do some different shit and Bucket was super into it. And Bucket was just like, "Man, this is rad!" you know, "it's like so crazy," like, you know, "he's so rad!" and this is, like, all this... you know, like, "It could be really cool." And I was like, "Oh, that's awesome!" you know, "Josh is a great drummer, it's going to be good for you," type of thing.

You know,  [Buckethead] loved Disneyland. He signed his contract with Axl at Disneyland. [...] I think Axl went to Disneyland and they signed on the Haunted Mansion, I think as he was on the ride he signed the contract.

Oh, the first day I met him, he came in with a bucket. And he was wearing it. Yeah, it was his costume that he lives by it. He lives and dies by it. [...] whether it's good or bad, he's the real deal. What you see is what you get. He really lives that whole costume his... it's not a costume, it's really his existence, you know, more people have seen in that than, you know. He's got like three people he talks to and it's a lonely existence I think for him, you know, but there's always a price to pay for what you do [...]. You know, he truly lives and dies by his craft.

I met Bucket Thru Joe Gore who was the editor of Guitar Player Magazine at the time.

Since I was friends with Bucket, Les had met Bucket and was like, "We should take Bucket on tour with us and just kind of come out as a solo guest on the Ozzfest." And then that's when Ozzy wanted Bucket because he saw Bucket play with us and was like, "Shit, this is my new guy!" you know, but that didn't work out because I guess something to do with he wanted Bucket to take off his bucket and Bucket was like, "This is my look," you know, "I'm not gonna just... This is what I do," type of thing. And so that didn't kind of work out, I guess.

[...] so I remember I was with him around that time with the Ozzy the thing and it was kind of like, "Well, this is who I am, I mean, if I take this off and I'm not this, if it draws attention that's the, you know, cuz it's my insecurities of not wanting to show my face," or whatever his things are, you know, why he started that whole wearing a bucket and a mask. And so I think that, you know, he was I mean Randy Rhodes is one of his heroes and I think he would have loved to have been in Ozzy's band but, you know...

I think we [=Primus] were touring Australia, and Bucket called me and said, “Hey, I’m auditioning for Guns N’ Roses, and I think the drummer just quit. Do you want to come and check it out?” I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty weird.” I never really liked to play Guns N’ Roses or really was into the band. But I’d heard about them, of course, and knew about them, because they were, like, the biggest band in the world at one point, and I thought, “I’ll check it out.” I’d heard that Axl guy was a total freaky, crazy – you know, just rips on stage and all those crazy stuff. I thought it’d be kind of a cool thing to try. So he actually got me in the Guns N’ Roses gig.

The Guns album was in the works for fifteen years. Matt Sorum started it, then Josh Freese did it for four or five years, and then Josh quit. Then [guitarist] Buckethead got in there, and he and I have been friends forever. He told me that Josh had quit and said, “Axl’s an awesome dude. You should come check it out.” So I went in there, and I didn’t hear back from them for a while. And then one day I remember Axl calling me and saying, “You know, if you want the gig you can have it, and you can still be on other stuff. You can still do Primus or whatever you want to do.”

You know, I had heard the stories that Josh was sitting around for like three years and someone like him who's, you know, one of the greatest drummers and could play anything with anybody, that would probably kill someone who has that kind of talent to be sitting around for three years, not touring or doing something. So Bucket was just like, "I don't think Josh is gonna make it," you know, "I don't think he's gonna like, keep going off this thing." And I was kind of at the end of Primus, it was kind of getting to where Les wanted to break off into doing some other things in the jam band scene. [...] And then Bucket had called and said, "Hey, Josh is leaving. Do you wanna come and play?"

[...] and then I went on tour with Primus in Australia, we were doing a little Australian tour, and I had called Bucket just to see how he was doing and he was like, "Dude, you know, Josh just quit," you know, "you should play in this," and I was like, "Meaning Guns?" you know, and he was like, "Yeah," and I was like, "Oh, that's kind of heavy, okay," you know. So it was kind of like he was trying to push me into that thing and I guess telling Axl, and he gave Axl some tapes or something or whatever because I think Axl had already seen me play. And new Primus was kind of like a musician's bands, like I think he knew I could play the drums. So he was kind of interested in it. So I was like, "Okay, well, when I get off this tour," you know, "yeah," you know, "maybe I'll check it out."

[...] and so Bucket went and he was like, "Oh man, I just went to Axl's house, he's such a cool dude," and, "man, it's crazy," and, you know, "you should play in this thing," and I'm like, "Well, they have a drummer, it's Josh," and he's like, "Well, I don't know," you know. So I don't know, maybe Bucket knew something that Josh was about to leave or something because I think Josh was in it now for like two or three years and literally just sitting around in the studio and I guess he had a non-disclosure type thing where he couldn't play with anybody else so he was kind of feeling suffocated. So he left and then Bucket was like, "Well, I told Axl about you and he," you know, "and I sent him one of your videos or he saw your drum video and yeah I think he's into it," you know and so I was like, "Oh okay," you know and I was like, "Yeah, I guess I'll check it out, I'm really not..."

[...] I was in Primus and at that point it had been six years in Primus. I think Les, he kind of just realized that Primus is really him and Tim, you know, I think in a way and he was kind of going - and Ler - and he was kind of going like, you know, "I want to kind of get into his jam band scene." It was just picking up, he usually does anyways. He usually does Primus and then takes time off while he's doing the Lenin[?] thing. I think he was just like, "Look, I'm going to take some time off. I'm going to go do this thing." And, you know, Bucket was playing in Primus, I mean, on tour with Primus, and then we couldn't take him to this one tour, and it was in Australia, and I think, I remember Bucket calling me and going, "Hey, you know, Josh is in the band, Josh Freese, but I don't think he's gonna stay in the band, and I've been jamming with Guns," and he recommended me to play with Guns, and I was like, "Wow, that's cool." You know, that's pretty heavy, because there were still... those Metallica and Guns N' Roses at that point were still the two biggest rock bands in the world. He's like, "Yeah, Axl's cool, I want to go do this, I want to play." And I'm just like, "Would you want to play if Josh left?" Because he didn't know if Josh was going to stay. Because Josh is the kind of drummer that's one of the best drummers that I know and could play on anybody's- [...] He's like, "I think he's getting a little antsy, you know, wants to get out of here, you know, he's just like, they're not touring, they're not doing anything, and Josh just wants to move on and play [?]". His resume is probably 30 times bigger than mine and his discography is, you know, ridiculous. So he was like, if he left, would you want to come and check it out? And I was just like, "Yeah, whatever." I didn't even think about it. Yeah, because I think Bucket was going to try to recommend me or something. And then when we got off the road, Les kind of said, "Hey," you know, "we've had our fun." You know, he kind of let me go in a sense. You know, he was like, "How are you feeling about this?" And I was like, "Oh, I get it." You know, he's like, "Yeah," you know, "I just feel like, you know, the band's always like-" [...] I felt like he was wanting to get the old band back together. And so I was like, "Okay, I get it." And then, you know, like three weeks later, Bucket calls and he's like, "Hey man, I think Josh quit." That's when I started getting the calls from Guns.

That period of time, you know, of music I kind of missed, which was the... What was that like? Motley Crue...not that Guns is part of that, the Poison and the glam rock thing but yeah, I always thought they were cooler and different than that, like, I would have never joined Poison but um... I kinda missed that period. In that period I was really into I think fusion and in miles[?] [talking about the eclectic music he was into at the time]. So anyways, so when Buckethead called about it, I was like, "Yeah," you know, "whatever," you know, "I mean, I guess," I mean, I always thought it was cool because I had heard stories about the tour, Mike Patton would tell me stories about that Monsters of Rock tour because Faith No More was on it. And then they were opening for Metallica and Guns N' Roses. And then I saw on MTV him wearing like the feather boa, Axl, and like flipping out, diving into the audience, picking out one person, yelling at that person. I was like, "Oh, this guy is pretty cool," and he's, you know, wearing an NWA and I thought, "Well, this guy's a freak!" So I liked that part of it but I didn't really understand the music or even listen to it.

I was like, "Well, I don't know, that sounds kind of cool, I guess. I mean, you know, I don't really know. I mean, it's probably crazy." But I'm not trying to sound like a heavy but in my mind, I was like, "I don't know if I wanna play rock." I mean, I thought Axl was cool when he was throwing the mic around and going crazy with his ascots and be a freak. And you know, I thought that was cool, but I don't really listen to their music. I don't really know anything, I was really into, you know, like beat music and hip-hop and that's when like computers and music was just taking off. So getting into Logic, getting into Pro Tools, getting into Cubase and all the loop based type and recording in the computer stuff was was popping up. So I was like, "You know, I don't know, I don't know if I want to do that."

It was funny because when I joined Guns I didn't, you know, I mean, of course I heard the album and I knew about Appetite, I, you know, just saw it was huge. I think at that time, you know, they were doing the Monsters Of Rock with like... I kind of knew Kirk Hammett a little bit because I was in this band Godflesh and he was a huge Godflesh fan so he was hanging around. And then Mike Patton, so Mike was on that tour with Faith No More he's... Yeah, crazy it was, just what was going on. And so, you know, I was just always intrigued and kind of a just a fan of just Axl his vibe, you know. I'd look at his N.W.A. hat with his, you know, the crazy outfits and shit and I'd be like, "What?" you know, cuz I was always into hip-hop also. You know, at that point I was getting into hip-hop. But so I was into like hip-hop and fusion and it's funny because when I joined Guns I thought it was gonna be easy. You know, like, I thought, "It's just rock, man," you know it's just easy, you know.

I was like, "I don't know. I don't know if I wanna do this." And they were just like, "What? What do you mean you don't wanna do this?" And I was like, "Well, I don't know. I've never really played this style of music. I don't really get it. I'm not sure." And they're like, "Whoa, what do you mean? This is Guns N' Roses. Everybody wants this gig. And what do you mean you don't want it?" That alone kind of pushed them into, "Well, just come down and check it out," type thing, you know, or whatever. And I think also pushing for me probably helped. But so, you know, then I got the like, you know, limo service to this studio type thing, you know, to like go there.

But then Axl, they were like, "Well, why don't you just come down and meet everyone?" you know, "because everybody wants this gig." You know, "Kenny Aronoff's knocking on the door and all these people want this gig and they're saying, 'I'm the drummer for you,'" and I'm kinda out of just being like, not really interested. I'm thinking maybe that made Axl a little like, "Wait, no one says they don't want to play with me. This is Guns N' Roses." So I think there was a thing like, "We're gonna fly you out to meet everyone." So they get me a first class ticket from San Francisco to LA, like a a ridiculous, like, 550SL something something something Mercedes, black, all tinted windows, comes and gets me, they drive me to the studio, you know.

So when I first got on the phone I remember - I think it was Axl - and I remember talking to him and he was just like, "Well, you want to come and audition?" you know, "every, you know, drummer wants this gig, Kenny Aronoff's knocking on our door right now," like, you know, "because he's right...", you know, like that kind of stuff. And I was like, "I don't know, I guess," you know, and he was pretty intimidating so I didn't really, you know, I was just a, "Yes," going like, "Okay, yeah, sure, sounds great." But then when the management called, I kind of pulled the heavy and was like, "I don't know, I'm not really, you know, I don't want to come and learn songs and just audition." And they were like, "What? This is Guns N' Roses!" You know, that's how everything around it was, you know. So I was just like, "Eh, whatever." And so then uh...

I didn't even think about how big it was. Until then I got the call again from the management just saying, "Well, look, you don't have to come and audition, but we're at the studio. Why don't you just come and meet everybody and then maybe play on a couple songs so we can see how you play?" or whatever type thing. So I was like, "Okay, I'll do that." So that's when like the 550SSS something Mercedes shows up, you know, all blacked out, picks me up. You know, I take a first-class flight from here to LA, you know, another S50 million car picks me up.

And three months goes by, and you know Tommy Stinson, the bass player, calls and says, "Dude," you know, after three months, like, "Hey man," you know, "we need a drummer, so what's going on? I mean, you wanna do this or what?" And I remember sitting in a cafe in San Francisco while I picked up the phone, I was like, "Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it sounds kind of cool." And he's like, "Well, you should come down and jam," like, you know, like "learn some songs and do whatever."

And then I got home and then like I don't know like three or four months went by, didn't hear anything. And then, you know, I got a call - I think it was from Tommy Stinson or whatever - and he was like, "Hey man, we need a drummer, what are you doing?" and I was like, "Um," you know and he, you know, was just like, "You know, everybody wants this gig, you know, Kenny Aronoff's knocking on the door but, you know, Buckethead says we should check you out, like who the fuck are you?" you know, because Tommy was that kind of punk rock, you know, attitude thing. And then he found out I played with Tom Waits and he loves Tom Waits so then he started being cooler to me, you know, he was kind of like... and, you know, since then we're friends and everything, I love Tommy and whatever. But I remember at first he was like, "Okay," you know, "who the fuck are you? You gonna come down and check this out?" you know, "What are you doing?" like that kind of a thing. And so I was like, "Well, yeah, I'll come and check it out but I don't know if I want to jam on Sweet Child O' Mine, you know, and those kind of things, I'm not going to come down and audition." And, you know, they were kind of taken back and they're like, "What do you mean? Like, this is like, you know, like Guns N' Roses, dude," you know, and I was like, "Well, that's cool and everything but I don't know, I just don't...I mean, you know, what, I'm gonna come and just jam on these songs? I know them, whatever, who cares?" you know. I wasn't trying to be a dick but I was really like, "Well, I could go either way," I mean, you know, I didn't really care at that point, I was getting kind of burned out on playing anyway, I had just been on tour and I was just... I thought maybe I was better than I was or something, I don't know, so I just kind of blew it off in a way. And then they called and said, "Why don't you come down to the studio and just play on some tracks, you know, some of the tracks that we have? Will just check you out." So, you know, I got a call from the manager and they gave me like a first-class ticket from San Francisco to LA [...].

We go to the, you know, the studio, you know, I get in there, it's like every keyboard, every drum set, every thing you'd ever want, you're walking through the hall, you just, it's laying around. You know, you're just like, "Wait, there's like fifteen blah blah blah about that," you know, "or ten thousand dollar keyboards," and there's like four of them laying there. You know and you're just like, "What?" you know like that kind of shit. [...]  It's at the recording studio, Rumble. Just everything you'd ever want is just kind of laying around, you know what I mean? "Oh, there's a 70s Gretch something kit!" You know, you're just like, "Jesus!" like, you know. Then I started going, "Oh shit, okay, this is the real deal," like, "these guys, this is big," you know.

[...] it was mainly, you know, Tommy, Robin... Bucket wasn't even there yet. I think Bucket was already... they just wanted the other people. So it was like first person I met was Robin and then Tommy and then Mother Goose - who was Chris Pitman - and then the producer, Sean Bevan, and then the engineers, Caram Costanzo and Eric Caudieux, who is the Pro Tools master, dude. And that was who was at the studio. And then I jammed for a little bit on some songs that they had recorded.

I met Axl and they were like, "Well, you have to learn these songs," you know, like, "We wanna jam," you know, "You have to learn Sweet Child O' Mine, this, this, this and this". And I was just like, "I don't really know those songs and I don't really want to learn them because I don't really care," you know? I'm not saying like I'm a heavy, I'm just saying that through the my attitude of "Just, whatever," it was just kind of like, "No one says whatever," you know? "This is Guns," so "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!"

So I went down and met everybody, and everybody seemed cool. Axl actually showed up. He was super cool, you know?

[...] they called me up, you know, the management calls me up, is like, "You know, dude, this is Guns N' Roses and, you know, we're going to get you first-class ticket from here to LA," you know, they they got like a car to pick me up, like one of those S550 something, you know, Mercedes, and, you know, black car, and, you know, drove me to the airport, they picked me up from the LAX... No, I think we flew from Burbank because we were ar Rumbo at that point and that was in the Valley. Yeah, I remember, so, you know, they picked me up, you know, I go to the studio, you know, there's Robin, you know, who I'd never met, you know, for Nine Inch Nails, you know, he's sitting there and Bucket wasn't there yet, I don't think. And so the first person I met, I remember meeting Robin with his crazy hair and I'd seen him in Nine Inch Nails but I didn't, you know, he just had like his whole head was shaved except his sideburns, he had these long, like, you know, Amish eyeburn [?] type eyes. I was like, "Oh shit, this is getting weird," you know, "this is kind of crazy." And then I met the producer Sean Beaven who was really cool and then Roy Thomas Baker... Roy Thomas Baker wasn't there yet, I don't think. Yeah, I think it was still Sean Beavan. And so, you know, I go into Rumbo and, you know, they asked me to join, you know. They had some track set up and they were playing, you know, I was playing, you know, and doing my thing and Chris Pitman was there, then he showed up and then I think Tommy showed up, you know, because they all came to say like, "Okay, who is this Brain guy that Bucket keeps talking about?" So I was kind of put on the spot. And then it got heavy because all of a sudden I'm like playing on one of the tracks, I look over and it's fucking Axl sitting in the control room and I was like, "Oh shit!" like, "There's Axl!" like, "this is real now," you know, "Holy shit!" I kind of froze up, you know, and I was like I didn't know what to do and then they're like, "Hey man," you know, "come in," I was like, "Okay," and I knew that it was because Axl wanted to meet me. And, you know, he was super cool but that's when I knew the shit was real because, you know, he kind of had the presence of, like, you know, you're just like, "Oh shit, now it's real," like I was talking shit before because, you know, I wasn't really talking to the man but now I'm talking to the man, like, here he is, you know?

So, you know, I jammed that night, Axl came to the studio and I met him for the first time. He seemed really cool. That's when I was playing with Bill a lot and stuff. So he was asking me what I was doing. So I was just saying, "Oh, I'm doing sessions with Bill Laswell, just got back from Europe and did this and I went to New York and did this album and that kind of stuff." He's like, "Oh, okay, that's cool."

And then they're like, "OK, cool. You know, hey, man, Axl's going to come by." I was like, "What? Oh, no." You know, like that kind of thing. And then, you know, Axl shows up. Super cool. just chill, you know, and I was like, "Wow, this is kind of cool," you know, just like, "everybody seems cool." You know, little did I know how crazy it gets, you know, but I was just like, "Oh, okay." And I think that's the same with Bucket. You know, I both think when we got in it, it was just like, "Oh, this is going to be a cool thing."

And [Axl] just was asking me what I've been doing and and stuff and he was super cool. He even said to me - I'll never forget - he goes, "Yeah dude," you know, "Hey, if you want this gig you can have it and you can still play in Primus or Tom Waits or whatever you want to do, is just, you know, you got to let us know and we're first." I was like, "This is the fucking coolest guy ever!" Like, you know, I get that if I can do that and then, you know, and then I was like, "Alright, let's do this," you know. And then we started rehearsing for that first Rock In Rio gig.

And about three weeks later, I got a call. Axl was just like, "Yeah, man, you know, if you want this gig you can have it, you just can't..." Uh, I mean, "Just let us know if you're gonna play with other people, you can still play with other people, just let us know first," and I was like, "Oh, that's rad," and I was like, "Okay, I guess I got the gig, I guess I'll do it," you know but-

And you know, our first gig is Rock in Rio. And you know, and I didn't get it. I was just like, "Eh, whatever, I'm just skateboarding, having fun, doing my thing." And then what happens was, like two months goes by with nothing. And I'm just like, "Oh, maybe I didn't get the gig. I don't know". And then Tommy Stinson calls me from The Replacements. And I had met Tommy briefly at the studio that night, but that's the only other conversation I had with him. But he was a huge Tom Waits fan. So he had known I played with Tom Waits. So he was a like, I kind of had an in with Tommy because he was like, "Well, if Brain's played with Tom Waits, then he must be cool and good," and that kind of a thing. And so Tommy called and said, "Dude, we need a drummer. Where are you? What are you doing?" And I remember I was sitting in a cafe in San Francisco, Cafe Greco, and, you know, and I was like, "Well, what do you mean you need a drummer? Yeah, I don't know. I hadn't heard from you guys in two months. I'm just kicking it. I'm not doing anything." And he's like, "Well, you got to get your ass down here." "Okay, I'll start [?]," "We got to rehearse for the show." And so I was like, "Okay." So, you know, finally they get it together. You know, I remember, you know, packing my suitcase. I'm headed to Center Staging to rehearse for three months before we do our first gig at Rock In Rio.

So it finally hit me then because they flew me out, we went to a ridiculous rehearsal studio, I think it was at Center Staging or something and it was like the biggest room, and my drums are on like a 6 foot riser and all these things are said, you know, I'm just thinking like, "Whoa, this is kind of cool. This is like, you know when you go to like the 10th floor, this is 11th." This is like it!" you know, "shit man, maybe I made it if I take this gig. This is getting serious now." So I go in and Tommy Stinson shows up, you know, with his Replacements punk rock attitude, you know, and I had a boom stand. He comes, he fucking takes off his coat, sets it on my boom stand. I'm thinking like, "This motherfucker!" like, "Okay, they want to play here." So we're, you know, playing the songs and I am sucking cock. I mean, I didn't know any of them because I didn't. And Tommy's going like, "I thought you were a good drummer, like what the fuck's going on?" you know? And I'm like, "Dude, I didn't learn any of the songs. I don't know any of them." He's going, "Dude," and then like, the phone rings and I hear him talking to like, Axl, it's like, "So how's Brain's working out?" I just know this is what they're saying. And he's going, "Well, it's kind of cool but he doesn't know any of the songs." And I hear Tommy and him kind of going back and forth, and at that point I thought, "Oh-uh", like now I'm turning out to look like a fucking douche.

I think because it was so big I just didn't let it sink in, like, I didn't, like I said, these were the steps building up to, like, when I saw Axl then I thought, "Oh shit! That's the dude that I watch on TV with a feather boa and screaming and throwing the mic down." You know, that's why I was into him. I was into that he's [?] that, and the shit was crazy, because I was always into the, you know, chaos killer [?], chaos never dies vibe, you know, [?]. I was just always, like, into the whole thing, you know, the mystique of it and everything. So when I saw him I was like, "Oh shit!" you know, with his rings and shit, I was like, "Okay, the heavy's here," like, "Okay, this is where it gets deep." It started catching up then. So no, dude, I didn't have any preparation, I just kind of showed up like, "Oh, whatever!" you know, didn't rehearse, didn't know one Guns song, nothing.

So that's when the shit started going, "Okay, now it's like talking to management, okay, we're rehearsing at Centre Staging," you know, "Get all your gear here, we're starting this," you know, "three months of rehearsing before we go play our first show in Rock In Rio," and that kind of shit. And that's when I started going, "Oh shit!" So I call my tech to bring this drum set, and it's kind of my Primus fusion kit, and, you know, we're setting up - I'll never forget - I go to the first rehearsal, Tommy Stinson walks in and I have my mic stand and it's like - not my mics stand, I mean my cymbal stand - and it's kind of set up kind of like Neal Perthish with like, you know, like a giraffe it's got the boom stand and it's kind of sticking out, and Tommy walks in and he takes off his coat he just puts it on the boom stand, you know, like, "Oh, okay, you fucking dick!" So we started playing and we were just jamming, more jams, I didn't really know the songs yet and, you know, we started playing the songs and doing the shit, and then I remember - I'll never forget it - all of a sudden it's like the bat phone rings and it's kind of like, "Tommy," you know, "there's a phone call for you," and I knew it was Axl. And I can kind of see Tommy looking over whatever and talking, you know, was kind of like it was... I couldn't hear what he was saying but I can, you know, I was just kind of like vibing the whole thing and basically [?], "He's here but he doesn't know any of the songs and I don't know what the fuck's going on, dude, who is this guy?" But Tommy was like, he's like, "Dude," like, you know, "What [?] like your setup [?]," like, you know, and, "you don't know any of the songs, like, dude, you got to get your shit together or I'm just going to tell him, you know, you can't pull this," or whatever.

And I show up, I set up, you know, my tech sets up everything and Tommy is looking at me and he goes, "Okay here we go," and I'm like, "Wait, we're gonna start what?" He goes, "You don't know any of the songs?" "I don't know, dude, I just showed up, I haven't haven't learned - what are we playing? I don't know what is supposed to happen." And I remember him going, "What the...!" and then the phone rings and it's Axl, and Tommy's just like, "Dude, I don't know what's going on," you know, like, "What the fuck," like, "Brain doesn't know any of the songs," and that kind of thing. Then Tommy comes back and he's just like, "Dude, you got to get your shit together." At that point, right then, I went, "Oh shit, okay, I get it." "I got to learn some song, yeah, I gotta get my shit together."

So I said, "Tommy, give me a day, just give me a fucking day and we'll come back." I came back, I reset my drums totally different. At that point I had kind of the Primus fusion set so it didn't really work with Guns anyways, right? You know, just having all these little small toms and fucking splash symbols and shit. I told the drum tech, "Dude, set up a bottom kit," you know, 26 inch kick drum, 13, 16, 18, fucking, I'm going in with just power, sat up all night, learned, you know, the five or six songs and went, "If fucking Tommy comes in one more time and puts his fucking jacket on my... I'm gonna go..." and went in and just played. I kicked over... by playing so hard I'd say four or five drums fell off the risers. And then Tommy was like,  "Yeah, he's our guy, that's it. Let's do this." So I knew I had to kick do it at that point, because now I am going have like, "That guy sucks!" You know, so I said, "Okay, this is it. I gotta kick some ass and get my shit together." And then I felt like this is the real deal. I mean, these guys, you know, this is as big as it gets.

And I was like, "Oh shit, okay," I go, "Dude, give me fucking, give me two days, I'll be back in two days, just give me fucking two days." So I tell my tech, "Look I want a bottom type setup, I get this now, no fucking boom stands, no..." And that's when I started doing, Art, what you're asking, you know, I started to get my shit together.

So I said, "Dude, give me two days, just give me two days and I'll come back" And at that point I had brought like my Primus kit and it was all just wrong for it. So I told my tech, "Look dude, bring the Bonham kit, I just want a 26 inch bass drum, 13, 16, 18, three cymbals. Just bring that kit. I'll see you in two days." I told Tommy to give me two days.

And so I was like, "This is when I gotta step up now." And then it was like, "Oh, this is cool," you know. I started actually listening to fucking... I owe it a lot to like that first Guns album and whatever. And really listening to and going, "This is a well crafted album. The parts are orchestrated." You know, I was just like in fusion and playing, you know, Primus was like jamming a lot and it was good and there's a certain side that you have to be able to do that. But I had learned by studying that album and listening to parts and like how Adler played and the feel and just the whole thing, I'm thinking, "This is a well crafted album. This is like good rock'n'roll," in that sense or whatever. Because I mean, I would always listen to Zeppelin and all that kind of stuff of course, and learn that, but it was more just like, "Oh shit! Trying to get Bonham's kick drum, trying to get..." you know, what the parts he's playing. This was actually kind of going like, "Wow!" listening to the parts and seeing how it works with the guitar and seeing how it moves with everything [...].

And that's when I started [...] to get my shit together. I learned every fucking song that they wanted me to learn, I sat there for night and day with headphones and a pad at the fucking hotel and learnt every break, every thing, had my tech set [?] a whole different kit. We showed up, this time Tommy couldn't put his fucking coat on my cymbals down because it was smooth like bottom, straight [?]. I fucking just, you know, first song I just went as hard as I could, just went cra... you know, I knocked over like two cymbals, I just hit every drum like I was going to kill somebody and Tommy just looked at me and was like, "You got the gig, let's go get a drink!"

And I just went in my hotel room for like, you know, 12 hours a day or more, and just sat there, learned the songs the best I could. And I came back and I just remember just having like the first three down to a T, like I was just like, "Let's play these three songs," I knew I had the best, and I just killed it and Tommy goes, "All right, let's go get a beer," and we just got a beer and I was in the band and that was it.

I mean, it was pretty bad that first couple of days. I think [Tommy] was looking at me and was just going like, "Wait, what the fuck? Like really?" You know, like "This is Guns N' Roses and, dude, you're just going to walk in thinking you can like, just, you know, like this is an improv, you know, like jazz jam or something" You know, he kind of had that look like, "Oh no, this ain't gonna fly." So that's why I think I started learning the songs and he worked with me. [...] I looked at it more like jazz, you know, I approached it like jazz. Because that was probably the biggest gig I had before Guns N' Roses. It was like, "Okay, I did the eight or nine years of Primus." And what happens with Primus is it's kind of like, "Okay, this is what Tim played, but you can interpret it," I can kind of interpret it the way I would want to do it or whatever. So when I was learning the songs, it was more just song form. You know, I would just go, "Oh, eight bars is this part, 16 bars is this part, four bars here. Oh, there's a little tag here of two bars." And I would, you know, listen to what Tim played, but I never wrote out the beat and never did, you know, the intricacies of it. Because I think with Primus, maybe even the fans, I don't know. I mean, it's probably, you know, I mean, some fans hated my style and hated my playing and some fans loved it. But I think that that was kind of a given in Primus, if that makes sense. You know, it's just kind of like, "Oh, okay, they got this guy now and they're still playing Tommy the Cat but this is the way he plays it and does it. And he changes the kick drum pattern a little bit." And, you know, I'll go to the ride at a certain section, but, you know, I'll do accents a different way. But with Guns, it was like, "Wait a second," you know, these were probably, you know, Appetite was like, you know, the biggest album of that time, I guess, or whatever. So it was like, "Wait, no, this is the way you have to play it." You know what I mean? It was like I couldn't just put eight bars here. So when my first rehearsal with Tommy, you know, like I think I said it before, you know, I came in with like a Primus kit, you know, I came in with this drum kit, my drum tech brought in like three toms, front, two floor toms, two snare drums, I think some splash cymbals and shit, you know, and I was like, "Wait, I get..." you know, and I had some of the forms I knew and had written out, you know, like, or something made, you know, I don't quite remember, but I kind of was like, "I kind of know how the song goes." But I think Tommy was just like, "That's not right, or, "This isn't working," you know, "The sound is weird," or whatever. So like, literally, when I went back for a couple of days and started learning the songs and woodshed it and then came back, my drum tech brought the more bottom kit. You know, it was like a 20, I think I even tried a 26 inch bass drum. I didn't end up using that, but I think we ended up using the 24, but it was like a 24 bass drum, 13 tom, two floor toms and three cymbals. Like get rid of the splashes, get rid of all the high, this shit doesn't need this shit. You know, like, so I started to kind of realize, "Oh, this is the way he played this part. Oh, I see it's orchestrated. Oh, I see. Slash is doing this here. This is a build and the drums are actually following it in this way and this style with this sort of swing." You know, it was like that kind of stuff. I had to start. I had to do with them. And I had never done that before because before that I was just mainly in bands that were allowing me to just do, "Here's the form, but just do your thing." And even with Tom Wait, that's sort of how his stuff was. You know what I mean? When we played every night with Tom, every night I probably played every song totally different. Like if you go back and you watch anything on YouTube, you know, each night it was like a different... I'd play it differently depending on how I was feeling, the tempos were different. Cause a lot of times I just go off of like how I'm feeling. So the songs will be really fast or too slow. Well, with Guns it's like, well, Axl can't sing it if it's this fast or, you know, because it just doesn't make sense, and the fans are expecting it to be a certain way.

Oh shit, I don't know if it ever made it on Chinese. I'm kind of embarrassed that I can't even remember if it was on Chinese. But it was a song Mother Goose had written and it was kind of a punk rock song. I forgot what the title of it at that point was. I don't think it was the working title, it was just the one that they... what they were calling it while we were doing it, but it was definitely something that was supposed to be on Chinese. [...] It wasn't The Blues. It was kind of a fast punk rock kind of feel. It might have been Prostitute. [...] I remember the name Prostitute was up. And I did a couple. I did like three. But the one that I kind of choked on when Axl walked in was the fast punk rock one.

I’ve always been a fan of Mitch Mitchell and John Bonham. Then there’s Bernard Purdie; I’d listen to a lot of R&B, a lot of Stax recordings. My dad was heavy into Curtis Mayfield and Shuggie Otis when I was growing up, and he’d play those records all the time. He took me to the Keystone Korner to see Tony Williams when I was really young, and I think I gravitated toward that kind of swing and groove. I think Josh [Freese] is the precise, technically proficient, perfect kind of punk drummer – I saw him with Nine Inch Nails recently and it was incredible. He was killing it. But my style is a little looser, and I’ve always had that kind of swing to my feel, even if it’s rock. I just hear music that way. I think that’s what Axl heard and thought, Okay, Brain puts the pocket in a different slot, a different place.

I got it because I was going to PIT. [...] But I was going there and I was playing, practicing a lot. I was so into Terry Bozzio and Vinny. I was into portraits [?] and rhythm. I wanted to learn everything about that book, you know, Anthony Cerrone, I wanted to like just be a master at that book because I heard Terry Bozzio knew how to play it. So I would just have a snare drum in that book. And the kids there were into partying, you know, going out into Hollywood, going over the West side here and going to the beach and doing all this partying. And I would be like, "No, dude, I'm on page 17 and I got to learn these 32 note triplets and all this," you know, five tuplets with a triplet within this, you know, all this crazy shit. And they were like, "What are you, some kind of brain?" You know, they just kept saying, like, "You'd rather do this? Come on, we're gonna go check out chicks and stuff." And I'm just like, "No, dude, I gotta get this. I gotta get this down," I mean, you know, "Because I heard Terry Bozzio learn this." I was all into it. Then it kind of stuck. They would just call me 'Brain' there and it'll just be like "Brain!" It just kind of stuck. And my mom calls me Brain.

[...] the nickname that was given to me when I was in going to PIT, that Percussion Institute of Technology, you know, MIT or whatever, in Hollywood, and I was always just, you know, I really wanted to practice like all the crazy Terry Bozzio stuff, was a huge fan of Terry Bozzio because of Frank Zappa, and then his Missing Person stuff and all that stuff so you know I was just learning, I was trying to learn this Portraits [?] and Rhythm book and it was a very, it's a classical snare drum book that Anthony Cerrone [?] wrote and it's just, you know, it looks like someone just thew, you know, shit on fly papers, you know, just it's black, basically, and how many notes are crammed into each bar. And so, you know, everybody kept saying, "What are you? Some kind of brain?", cuz, you know, I wanted to sit there and learn this because I kept thinking, "[?] as good as Terry Bozzio," or something, you know some stupid shit like that. So that's just where the nickname came from and then since then, you know, it just kind of stuck, all my friends started calling me it, and then it became a thing and I thought, "Ah," you know, "might as well keep it, sounds kind of cool, a little different," so.

I mean my mom calls me 'Brain' at this point so you know I figured, yeah, everybody calls me that so. My daughter even says 'Brain' so I'm just like, "Oh-oh, shit!"

The first instrument I picked up was violin. I had an affinity for Paganini, which quickly turned into a hatred.

At that time I was toying with guitar, I was trying to do everything, you know, I was taking guitar lessons, bass lessons, piano lessons, at first before I even started drums. [...] I wanted to be in music, you know, I was hanging around a bunch of fools [?] in school that played instruments so, you know, and one group of people I hung around with they needed a bass player so I was like, "Okay, shit, I'll get a bass and learn how to play some bass." And then it was like, "Oh, you know, we need a guitar player," so I was like, "Okay." I was taking lessons trying to learn guitar and then piano was something I was doing, you know, because my parents were just like, "Hey, take some piano lessons." But keyboards were kind of uncool, you know, like it was like in Ted Nugent - I don't know if you've ever seen that video - it's like one of my favorite videos where he's in the woods and you've got like his guns and shit and he's like searching for the enemy and then he finds the enemy and it's a keyboard.

So I got into the drums because my mom, actually, took me to the mall and I saw Buddy Rich absolutely shredding the drums to pieces, and I thought, “Man...” – you know, I knew right away that’s what I wanted to do.

So when I got into drums, I was in high school and I was pretty much like... either I was gonna pick the drums or skateboarding. Then I went to the park one day and I broke my foot skating; and I thought, “Oh man! Maybe I’ll just practice the snare drum.” So I bought Anthony Cirone’s “Portraits in Rhythm.” I just practiced, like, all day, every day, and I’d just, like, go around school and say, “Hey man, you play...” - you know, “I heard that you play guitar,” “I heard you played bass” - and we just gathered these guys together. And once my foot healed, I just started jamming with them.

It was weird, because when I first started playing with them, I had just only practiced on the snare drum for, like, six months. We were playing AC/DC and I could barely keep a 2/4 beat [...] and everybody’s just looking at me like, “Dude, man, that’s AC/DC! Come on, man, keep the beat, man! What the hell is wrong with you?” So I’d just sit there and put AC/DC Back in Black on all day and just, like, play to it and stuff.

But anyway, so, you know, it was kind of like, "Okay, so it's going to be either guitar bass or drums," and then a friend of mine, you know, who was playing in school, you know, during like recess and shit, you know, be like, "Hey, today in the squad [?]," you know, "Mirv's going to be playing with his band," and, you know, he was playing Led Zeppelin, he was playing like Black Sabbath, he was playing all this rock shit and I just was like, "Oh my god," you know, I want to play with this guy and [?] guitar player. And, you know, he had in his band he had also a bass player so they were really tight. But it was a drummer who was the kind of the loose cannon and then at that time my sister was like, "Hey, I know Mark, and," you know, "they kind of are looking for a drummer, "and I was like, "Fuck! Okay, I want to be in this band, I'm gonna learn drums." So, you know, I started listening to like Rock Candy [?], Ronnie Montrose, all that kind of shit that was, you know, was kind of big at that point. Even Journey, old Journey, you know, [?] Neil Sean [?] with that whole tuhoe tech [?], I think it was, it was one of the first shows I saw was Journey at some, you know, like Civic Center show or something. And then so I was like, "I'm going to play drums." Then I got into AC/DC. I remember I was into skating really heavily and this dude, Blackheart, that was his name, he had the coolest name in town, and, you know, it was like, "Oh, Blackheart's here to skate this pool," because we'd be just cruising around trying to find pools to skate because that's when it was like popular to like find empty pools around town and I was kind of living in suburbia so it was like, you know, empty pools were like things that you can find very easily if you just cruise around and just like went in the neighborhoods, rich neighborhoods, and just looked over the fence, you know. So there was this one pool and the guy was cranked that we were skating and the guy had a ghetto blaster was cranking AC/DC and I was like, "Oh-oh," like, "this is the shit, right here," like, "I want to play this shit on drums." And so, you know, I found a teacher, you know, brought an AC/DC and he was like, "Oh yeah," you know, "this is great stuff," and he showed me it and I just played the songs. Then my sister said, "Hey, you know this Mirv guy need a drummer and he wants to jam with you," because, you know, she's like two years younger than me and so was this guy. And I started kind of late because I was really into skateboarding more than anything, so I was trying to become a professional skateboarder but then I broke my foot and I kind of had to stop skateboarding and so I got into just practicing on a pad and, you know, learning stuff and my foot got better but I really dove into drums. But to make a long story short, I joined his band and it was like, "Well, you're going to be a drummer." And then since then I swear to you I just haven't stopped, the phone kept ringing, one thing led to another, you know, I didn't go after it like, "Oh my god, I have to be a drummer," I could have went bass or I could have went guitar, depending on what situation happened. So that's sort of how I got into the drums and then I just basically started meeting people, you know, just hanging out playing and people offered me gigs and I just kept going and going. And I swear to you I never thought about it since then.

I wanted to play first, first I dabbled, you know, with, you know, string instruments, you know, guitar, bass, and then I was like, "Ah, shit, this isn't really working." So, my friend Mirv, [...], said, you know, he was at school, he was like two years younger than me and my sister was in his class and he was like, "Oh man," you know, "he's got a band and he's playing some AC/DC and Led Zeppelin and all that shit." And I was like, "Oh shit, that's the stuff I've been hearing, you know, at the skate park and stuff. Shit, I'm going to try to learn some of that shit." And the easiest thing to pick up was the drums and it kind of just came naturally. You know, I was just kind of like, "Oh shit, AC/DC, a straight beat. This is cool. I can just like rock out," going, and they play riffs over it. So that's sort of how I kind of got into the whole, you know, like, music, was through skating and hanging out at the pools and people would be playing all this music that I was just like, "Oh shit, this is rad!"

And, I mean, I, you know, I grew up with rock, like, you know, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Rush, you know, cuz I was kind of gravitating towards drums at that point so, you know-

[...] Keith Moon, John Bonham, Neil Peart, all that kind of stuff I was really into it. Or Pat Travers, Tommy Aldridge, you know, I was just a huge fan of Tommy and just that whole thing. And then when I started studying music, I started learning how to read, taking lessons, doing all that stuff, I started getting into fusion. And, you know, with fusion it's more like, you know, it's like beaten off [?] or, whatever, it's, you know, you're just like getting, you know, you're like tons of notes, different odd time signatures. "I got high on my own supply" type of thing.

I’ve always been a chameleon. Even in school – I’m half-Japanese and half-Italian – I could hang with pretty much any situation. I would hang out with the brothers and listen to funk music, and then with my white friends and listen to Van Halen. It always seemed like I was a chameleon, and the way I play is kind of an extension of my personality. Like when I’m with CCBOBB [=Colonel Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains], I’ve got this big Neil Peart-ish kit with ten cymbals, an Octapad, Roto-Toms, and it’s all about improvising. The more notes, the more people go crazy. Then with Tom [Waitz], I’m using fewer drums; a 26” kick drum, a floor tom, and a snare. No cymbals, four congas, and all this percussion – stuff you couldn’t even find in a junkyard. I’m going from more hi-hat notes than Stewart Copeland ever played, to no hi-hat. It is weird, but I’m able to adapt.

I mean, I think it was really the area, like, I think, you know how like, it's like being the big fish in a little pond work for me here. You know, it never worked in LA for me. You know, it's like there's just so many great drummers and so much talent there. Or New York. You know, I happen to just be lucky and be in the Bay Area where I think it was just, you know... and I work my ass off. I'd play with anybody, I was playing three or four shows, you know, a week, somewhere in San Francisco, with three or four different bands, you know. In every club, any popular, two gigs a night type shit, you know. Like, I'd go from the Kennel Club over to the Nightbreak, over to the EyeBe [?], like in one night, playing with three different groups. So I just became like the drummer of like, "Oh yeah, Brain's [?] play a punk rock thing," so I'd play with, like you know, I think they were called the Frontier Wives [?] at that time and they were like a punk type of band. It was like, "Oh, Brain could also play," you know, like, "weird, moody, you know, Depeche Mode type stuff," and there was some electronic, you know, band coming up trying to do that shit. I'd play with them and then I'd go, you know. And I'd literally put my change in the car and put it on different outfits for the gig.

And at that point [=when Brain met Buckethead] I had already made an album with this band called the Limbomaniacs - that was a childhood friend band from that guy that I saw playing the Quad, Mirv [=Marc Haggard], who was playing Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Ted Nugent and all that shit, Robin Trower [?]. And he was in this... we got a childhood band, we got signed, we called it the Limbomaniacs and we got signed on Relativity Records.

I met some guys, jammed around town, then I just... the biggest man at that time, there was this World Deep Movement [?] they called it in San Francisco and I think David Rubenstein or something was the, who was like Herbie Hancock's manager at the time, was like, you know, heading this whole huge movement of like three of the, three bands are blowing up, it was like The Freaky Executives, Big City and then The Looters, and I think he was managing all of that at that point. I'm not sure, though, he might not, but he was definitely managing Big City and they saw me play with this band I was playing around locally in town and then they asked me to join their band.

[...] we were supposed to get signed, become his next huge band, or whatever, but we kind of just... it just never really worked out, we had, I don't know, bad management, just bad ever, you know, just didn't work out.

Before I was in Primus, I was noodling around this, like, world beat scene - it was, like, afro beat, Zulu jive and that kind of rhythms - and they would influence it with rock. One of the guitar players was the editor of Guitar Player magazine, and he turned me on to this cat, Buckethead. He said, “Oh, Brain, dude, you and Bucket should get together, man, cuz you guys are both gone;” like, you know, we talked about weird stuff, and Bucket was in real weird horror movies and all this crazy stuff. So he introduced me to him and we became good friends, and he ended up playing with us on the Ozzfest; he came on tour and would sit in, like, on three songs. Then, from there, we were, like, playing and stuck.

[...] I had met Buckethead through Joe Gore, who was the editor of Guitar Player, said, "Dude, this guy sent me a video cassette of him just saying he can take out Paul Schaefer and his band." [laughing] So it's a video where he's just in his bedroom soloing, and he had some, Maximum Bob was his name, just yelling into the camera going, "Paul, you need to get Buckethead to play guitar!" Buckethead was just going [imitates squealing guitar sound]. So he had turned me on to Bucket [...] And, you know, he was just this freaky dude who, you know, he showed up in a mask and did his whole schtick the whole time and and then we hit it off.

So Joe Gore at that time was like a, you know, musicologist or whatever, I think he was teaching at Berkeley at the time, but he just, you know, he was kind of like my mentor as far as like different ethnic styles of music and that band sorta was a hybrid of of African beats with rock. And he basically just, you know, knew everything. So at that point he became the editor of Guitar Player. So he called me one day, it was just like, "You have to meet this guitar player because I got a tape of him and his friend sitting in his, like, bedroom on a videotape just shredding and soloing and just they sent it to I think Paul Shaffer saying, you know, 'Hey, you should get this guy in your band,'" you know- [...] It was like Bucket was sitting there with his bucket on and his mask and he was just shredding, I mean, just like really like crazy [imitating high-pitched shredding]. And, you know, Joe Gore was like, "Hey man, I think you would be perfect to play with this guy, I really think you guys would get along. You want to meet him?" And so, you know, I was like, "Yeah, that sounds cool." So Bucket, you know, I think he was living in Claremont at that time or somewhere in down south, so he came up and, you know, he was just this really shy, really sweet dude that was just a shredder, and right away he was into like, we talked about basketball, Jordan, he was into Bruce Lee, and, you know, and we just kind of got along, we just kind of hit it off, and we kind of became friends. And we didn't really do too much, you know, playing at that point, we would just kind of hang out.

Well, I met Bucket through this guy named Joe Gore, who I was in a band with after the Limbo's broke up, I ended up getting in this band. There was this world beat scene happening in San Francisco, which was like made up of like, I think a core of, I think three or four bands, the Looters, Big City, The Freaky Executives... And I think there was one more, I can't remember. But I joined this band called Big City and the guitar player was this guy named Joe Gore, and Joe became the editor of Guitar Player magazine. And we were living in the city, still in the Limbos kind of, but it was kind of flailing and breaking up and Joe was like, "Hey, this guy sent a tape, you know, and his name is Buckethead and this guy named Maximum Bob sent it. And it's like a pretty funny video. But this guy's shredding, Brain, you got to check this guy out." And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Here, let's plop it in." And it was VHS. He puts it in, and it's Maximum Bob yelling to Paul Schaefer going, "Paul, you're going to have to get this guy to play in your band. He's something. He's like, you got to check him out." And there was this dude playing guitar like I had never seen anybody play it, yeah, pretty much like, you know, the shredding quickness and the athleticism of like an Yngwie, the scales and stuff of like computer music like Star Wars, you know, weird- [...] Yeah, like game machines meets metal meets, you know, Disneyland. And I was just like, "Whoa! I've never heard that sound before." You know, like it's like, you know, when you know exactly where you're sitting every time when you hear an amazing piece of music or an album. The first time I remember when I first heard Eddie Van Halen, where exactly where I was, when I heard Fishbone, some of my favorite bands, the Chili Peppers, you know, when I was growing up. And yeah, I remember I was sitting there in the house and he played that tape, you know, on 23rd and Mission in San Francisco. And I was like, "Oh my God," and he's like, "Yeah, well, you know, he really doesn't get out that much and stuff, but he's coming to San Francisco to meet me. You gotta meet him. I'll bring him by the house." And so Joe Gore brought him by the house. I think Les was even there. You know, we kind of had the rock and roll house right there above Scott's Comics on 23rd and Mission. You know, it was literally like four houses down from, you know, Mission Street and stuff in between Mission and Valencia. And so we had the party house. So it's like everybody was hanging out and Les was there. And Joe Gore brings this guy Buckethead and, you know, we're just like, "Oh," and he's playing the bass and Les was like, "Wow, you're pretty good on that thing." And Les like standoffish at first or whatever, because Buckethead was doing all slapping.

And it was interesting because out of everyone, I think for some reason, you know, him and I just hit it off the best, you know. He was just talking about basketball, talking about all this crazy stuff and I was talking about, and you know, and martial arts and Bruce Lee and Jordan, you know, all the things that you know, as a Buckethead fan. [...] And I think that, you know, he's talking about all the horror stuff and I was really never into horror. So I think he and I just hit it off because the stuff I was into, he didn't really know about it, but I was more into fashion stuff and all that kind of stuff. He was into all the horror stuff, so I think we had a good juxtaposition. For some reason we just kind of hit it off.

Yeah, he was always in, he's pretty much always in full gear, you know, doing his thing. [...] I mean, that's his vibe. I mean, he lives and dies by it, you know, that's his thing. He's like, that's his gig.

I mean, he kind of [talked], he was talking with a puppet. And then we just hit it off. [...] he has this puppet that he talks through.

He doesn't let too many people get behind the mask. I would have to say, you know, me and about three other people have been the only ones that have probably ever got behind the mask.

Bucket and I now at this point we're hanging out like, you know, we were really close friends and you know, he'd come here from LA because I was based in the Bay and I had a studio in Berkeley and you know, he'd come and we'd go to the cemetery every day for like, you know, five hours. That was his thing and he'd do nunchucks on all the graves. And we were having a ball together, you know, just doing stuff. We would just go down to the wharf and just trip out on people. We'd love watching people. We just love to go to malls, not because of we like to buy clothes there or stuff. It was more just tripping out on people and going, "Oh man, check that guy's vibe." And we'd watch movies all day. We'd just sit in the studio and watch movies for like, you know, 12 hours and then go get pizza, you know, and then come back, you know, basically just binging.

You know, so I was doing the Limbo Maniacs then and I gave Bill Laswell this tape, right? And he gave it to Bootsy Collins. And Bootsy just flipped out. So Bill made a band called Praxis, which was Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, me, AF Next Man Flip from The Jungle Brothers, and this guy Torture. I mean, and we made that album. [...] [Laswell] said, "This guy's amazing and he's out of his mind." You know, and the first time Bill met him was, he had the mask on and the puppet, because he would talk to the puppet.

First time Bootsy met him [Buckethead] had the mask on. I'll never forget it. We're at Greenpoint Studios in Brooklyn, NY, and, like, at that point there was like a building on fire next door and we all pulled up and it was just chaos, and, you know, Bill's totally in that 'chaos never dies' William bro stuff [?]. So it it was just crazy. Bucket's sitting there in his mask, like, with the puppet talking to Bootsy who was just going, "Yeah, man! Yeah, yeah, I get it. I got it. I got it!"

So we really wanted this guy [=Laswell] to produce us and so he did, so we became kind of friends and he had called and said, "Hey, I want to put a band together with, you know, some of the Funkadelic guys," and I said, "Well, you got to see this guitar player," and I gave him the tape, the videotape of him [=Buckethead] playing and his friend going, "Hey Paul [Shaffer], you got to get this guy in your band! That guy you have sucks!" and he's talking while he shreds, you know. [?] So that's sort of how Bucket and I made Praxis with Bill Laswell. And that was, you know, with Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, it was me, and then from the Jungle Brothers it was AF Next man Flip and this guy named Torture. And he put this band called Praxis together and we went to New York, went to Brooklyn, we recorded it there.

Well, that was what I think I was started to lead up to also earlier when I was saying that. After the Limbo, after we hung out at the Limbo house, and Bucket came by. He came into town, I think it was only the second time or something. Well, wait, no, let me get the timeline right. Because I think what happened is after we met Bucket, I got the tape, that Maximum Bob tape, to Bill and Bill saw it and I said, "Not only is this guy, you know, a crazy guitar player thing, he also loves Bootsy," and Bill was like, "Wow, okay, cool." Bill would never say, "Wow," but yeah you know it's just like he was like, "Cool," you know. [...] and out of nowhere we're just sitting you know Bucket came to visit again and we're sitting - I remember this because we're sitting at my mom's in Cupertino I was visiting - and I said, "You got to come and meet my mom and hang out for a couple days," or whatever. I think he slept over for a couple days and you know this was one before there were cell phones and the phone rings and my mom's like, "Hey, it's for you," and I get on the phone and it's you know I think it was like one of Bill's assistants, maybe John Brown or something, I don't know if John was then or there then, but they were just like, "Hey, I got Bill on the phone for you," and I'm like, "Oh, okay." Bill's there and he's like, "Hey, how's it going?" I'm like, "Oh, cool," and he goes, "So, hey, I want to do this project." And I'm like, "Well, that's funny, Bucket's here. You want to talk to Bucket?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." And Bucket's all, "Oh, geez, oh yeah." He talks to Bill and he gets off the phone, gives it back to me. He's all like his eyes are all lit up and I'm like, "What?" you know and get back on the phone with Bill, he's like, "Hey, so, you know, I just talked to Bucket and seems like we're a go for this, I'm going to do this band called Praxis. It's going to be you, Bucket, AF Man Flip from the Jungle Brothers, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Warrell." And I'm like- [...] "Sign me up." [?] Yeah, you know and before you knew it there was plane flights and we flew out to New York and we set up and Bucket's doing his whole shtick and his whole outfit. I'm practicing drums and we're at Greenpoint Studios at this point, Bill's old studio, what was like a converted church or something that he built. He made in a warehouse type space and there was like church chairs in there. Maybe it wasn't a church. It was just that he had bought all those long rows of church seating for people in this area. It was just a crazy place.

So, you know, after I figured out how to play AC/DC and play in time, I was just playing around town and there was this band called Primus. And this bass player, Les Claypool, goes “Oh man, hey dude, I play bass. Come and play with me.” So I was just like, “Oh okay. Yeah, I’ll check it out” - you know, and he called it Primus. So I started jamming with him. Then, at that point, I was still skateboarding, and he booked a show at the Berkeley Square, and I think something happened when I was, like, in a competition skateboarding, and I couldn’t play the show. So he got Tim Alexander to play the show, and he actually took over the gig, and I went to this other band called The Limbo Maniacs, which was friends of mine from high school. So we started that, and then Tim decided to leave at one point – I think it was in, like, ’99 – oh wait, no, ’97 or ’98 – and so they asked me to rejoin. But I was actually in Primus before Tim, and then I went back in and, you know, just did the Primus thing for, like, five years.

[...] and then when Tim [= "Herb" Alexander; drummer in Primus] left, you know, I remember one day I was here in L.A. doing studio work and I got a call, I was living in Silver Lake, and, you know, it was Les [=Claypool; bassist in Primus] and he was just like, "Hey Brainer, what's going on?" I just be like, "Oh nothing, dude just, why? I don't know, what's happening?" He's like, "What if Jane's Addiction called you right now and said they need a drummer?" And I was like, "I don't know, that'd be cool. I'm kind of hurting, you know? I'm just kind of sitting here doing things," like "What if the Chili Peppers called you right now and said they needed a drummer?" And I was like, "Wow, I mean, that would be great." "What if Primus called you right now, said they needed a drummer?" And I was like, "That's that sounds cool, too." He goes, "Well, I'm calling you, why don't you get over here and do some jamming," you know. So I went, did some stuff, and I think at that point he was trying Jay Lane out and me, we were the last two going. And Ler [=Larry LaLonde] and I we had this like Frank Zappa cover band called Caca together and, you know, we do all Frank Zappa covers and stuff. So I think Ler and I had this connection that was pretty tight and I think Les just saw that and just thought... .You know, because Jay is a great drummer and he went off to play with Primus. He was Primus', I think, original drummer, before even Tim. I think he was doing some stuff with them. Yeah, I think it Jay Lane and Tim came in. Yeah, I think so, I think that's how it went. But anyways, Lest was just like, you know, "So what do you think, you want to do this?" And I was like, "Well, I know everybody, this would be great, yeah." So I went and did Primus.

[...] it was really funny because the way I got in the band [=Primus] was, it was like I joined that band Big City and there was just dude loading my drums in and it was actually Les and Les was like, "Hey man! I play bass," and you know the guitar player- [...]And he[?] was like, "Hey man, you gotta like go see this band, it's a killer," like it was one of those things. And then, you know, I think they were opening for the Chili Peppers at the Berkeley Square in Berkeley, it was kind of this cool, you know, club where all those bands kind of came through, Fishbone, Chili Peppers, all that kind of punk, trash, group of people. You know, we're playing at this place and Primus opened and I went and saw them and I was just floored, you know. I was like, "Oh shit, this guy's sick!" You know, it's like, "He's the real deal." And so it was just like I met Les that way and then I was supposed to be in the band and then that's when I like I think something came up where I was like supposed to play and somebody else was asking me to play or whatever. So it was just kind of this thing where I was in the band but then I kind of just bailed, and then Les got Tim. And then Tim and Les and Ler, it blew up, you know. All of a sudden it became big because it got picked up by Interscope. You know, they were one of the first bands on Interscope. And then they started getting big and big and, you know, and then they got bigger where there's like playing headlining at Lollapalooza, you know, with Alice In Chains, doing all this crazy shit. And, you know, and they became their own thing kind of like the new Rush to me or something, you know what I mean? With the way Tim played and all that kind of stuff. And then I was just kind of... At that point I think that was, I think that was my lowest point in drums where I was kind of like... it wasn't like the phone wasn't ringing for like a while, I was just kind of going, "Huh? Is this really what I want to do?" you know, it's like, "Hmmm?" Now I'm starting to see like, "Oh-uh", like I had I had like a year of where I was like just trying to hustle gigs, you know, or something and I was like, "Oh shit." And that's when Les and Tim kind of had a falling out and he was like, "Hey man," you know, I think I remember I was just sitting there and I was just like kinda just like not sure what I was doing, I was like buying some electronic gear at that point, I was trying to figure out how to do some, like, I guess, pseudo beat making or composing at that point, and I remember the phone rang and it was Les. And he's like, "Hey Brain, what are you doing?" I'm like, "I don't know, just kind of sitting here, just fucking around with some gear," or something like and he's all, "Huh. Well, what if the Red Hot Chili Peppers called you right now and asked you to be the drummer?" and I was like, "Wow, that would be kind of cool I guess, I'm not really doing anything." He go, "What about if Jane's Addiction called you right now and said, 'You want to be the drummer'?" "I guess, you know, whatever." And then he was like, "What if Primus called you?" "What are you trying to say, dude?" And he's like, "I don't know, come up here, let's do some jamming, you know, I think Tim's out." And I was like, "Okay." So, you know, I went up there and I jammed and Les was like, "Well, you want to play?" You know, because I didn't know at first, I just was like, "Huh!" you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do and I think it was that kind of a looseness that - and I'll get into that with even Axl when I was dealing with their camp and stuff, it was kind of a funny story -  but with Les I was kind of like, "I don't know," and he's like, "What do you mean, you don't know? Dude, we make a lot of money," and I was just like, "Okay, that's kind of cool," you know and I just kind of.. he was like, "Alright, well you're in the band," you know and I was like, "Okay, cool." So yeah at that point I was like, "Uh-oh," because I remember he was like, "Okay! So I'll see you at rehearsal on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and the next week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday," you know, and I was like, "Oh shit, these guys are serious!" Like, we got to record an album and we go on tour for 18 months and I was like...

So yeah, we were doing Ozzfest and Les had known Bucket around, you know, because he knew us and the Limbo Maniacs and that kind of stuff and we had introduced him to Buckethead and, you know, he was like, "Hey, we should get Bucket to come out and sit in on a couple songs." So Bucket was out with us and I think Ozzy wanted him at that point, you know, because it was the Ozzfest and Ozzy was like, you know, I think Sharon was like, "Shit, Bucket would be great." But I think they had kind of a falling out with like, they didn't want to wear the mask or something like that. I don't really know what happened. [...] So that didn't really workout.

[...] and we're on tour with Slayer, and the cases started coming down the ramp, you know, they were loading in, you know, because we were like getting to the... sometimes we get from the venues and we'd have to bike in the bus and we didn't get a hotel so we would stay there and I would get catering in the morning or something. And I got up early one day and they were loading out the anvil cases and the drum cases started coming out and they were just beat up to like a nub, they had every sticker from every country on there, they had just... they were just torn up and I was like, "Holy shit! Is this like what happens if you just stay on the road for the rest of your life," you know, "and do this?" So in that moment I thought, "Okay, I want to go doing composing," like, "I'm gonna start getting into," you know, "like taking piano lessons again, theory lessons, classical," you know, like I was taking chamber music lessons from someone, you know, like that kind of shit. I was just doing everything I could on the side while still doing shows with like Ozzy and, you know, we're on the Black Sabbath tour, I think we're on that Ozzfest at that point. And, you know, and all my off hours I was just trying to get into computers and music because that was where it was going, and that kind of stuff. But I always thought, "Oh no, I'm gonna end this," at one point and get into composing, that was like my main goal after I saw like what the road can do to you.

Les Claypool is a neighbor of his, and he said Tom was asking around about drummers. Les said, “Oh, you should get old Brainer, he can play some stuff.” I kept hearing that Tom was going to call, and I was like, “Yeah, okay, whatever, dude.” And then I remember the phone ringing one night at 11:30. I didn’t recognize the number. It was Tom, and the session was the next day. He goes, “Can you come tomorrow?” I’m like, “Yeah, I guess.” “Okay, I’ll just see you there. Do you know the area?”
I had to be there at ten in the morning. That’s pretty good. Never heard from him, never talked to him on the phone, never met with him, never talked with management, didn’t know what I was getting paid – nothing. I just showed up. He’s like, “Just bring some stuff.” But he’s usually there three hours before you, loading in stuff – just tons of percussion, weird crap, stuff he’ gathered throughout the years.

Well, that was a good story because I didn't really even know who Tom Waits.... I'm kind of embarrassed. But I had heard of him. But I didn't really know. That's all I want to really say. I guess he needed a drummer and he was up, where Les is, Sebastopol area, and I think he's in Valley Ford Tom or whatever, you know that area or whatever. And it's kind of all close together up north in, you know, past Marin, San Francisco Bay area, about probably an hour and a half outside of the bay, north. He needed a drummer. This was before I was in Primus and he just said, you know, Les was just like, "Oh man, you gotta get Brain, try out this Brain guy!" you know, because I was around town playing, doing some stuff. And then Les calls me and says, "Dude, Tom Waits is looking for someone and I recommend you do." And the idiot that I was, because I was into fusion, like, I was into like Zappa, you know, Terry Bozzio, Vinny Caliuta. [...] So when he said that, I didn't know about, oh shit, songwriting and just fucking, just vibe and feel, and making you know, a pot chick cry or something, you know what I mean? I was a music dork. Just, drumming nerd. So Les calls and says, "Dude, Tom Waits," I'm just like, "OK, yeah, I mean, sounds good," you know, I'm just thinking in my head like, "Well, you know, shit, I want to get this new Joe Montanari snare drum or this pork pie kick drum so maybe he'll pay me enough so I can get the," you know, something cool, you know, or something, you know, like that. I'm living at my parents at that point because I'm flat broke and Les says he's going to call and I'm just like, "OK, great." Heard nothing. Then it was probably 11:30-12:00 at night, I get a call and my mom literally is like, you know- [...] And so it's like, I get on and it's literally like, "Right, this is Tom," I'm just like, "Oh, hey, what's going on?" He's like, "Hey, man, I need you to come down tomorrow." And I'm just like, "OK, cool." You know, I'm just like, "Yeah, that sounds good. Like where, where are we going?" And it was.... It was where the tubes.... I forgot the name of the studio. [...] I can't remember the name of the studio but it was up north and he said, you know, "Here's where we're gonna meet this is what we're gonna do." But, "What kind of drum set do I bring? Like what do I do?" "Just don't bring anything that you can buy in a store." And that's all I remember. And I'm just like, "Oh, OK," you know, so and I'm just like, that was it.

And then Les was like, "Hey man, this guy Tom Waits is looking for a drummer," like, you know, "Oh, okay, that sounds cool," you know what I mean?

Well, now I started panicking. So I woke up in the morning, I called a friend who knew about Tom. And he goes, "Oh, you know, bring some cool stuff, bring some cool weird percussion, just bring some, like, whatever you can find, like a garbage can lid as a cymbal, stuff like that." It was Joe Gore, I think, who was telling me about him. And Joe Gore was the editor of Guitar Player at that time. He's a great guitar player, plays with PJ Harvey and actually was playing with Tom Waits also, I think a little later Joe Gore got in because I think that was another Les hook up. But anyways, let me finish the story because it didn't end then. It went from 'don't bring anything that you can buy in a store' to calling back and literally just going - he didn't even really even say like, "Hey Brain, what's going on? It's Tom again," it was literally just, I answered the phone and it was like, "Can you bring some shoes that have wooden soles on them or wooden like, like heels or something?" I'm like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, we're just gonna pound on some stuff with our feet." And I was like, "OK," and he was like, "OK, I'll see you tomorrow." And then that was it. So I'm like, now I gotta find some, like, clogs with like, you know, so the next day I gathered a bunch of junk, threw it into my old beat up like Honda Civic, drove out there and I think we were recording for Bone Machine. That was the album. The one snare I brought because I thought he would get a kick out of it was a Joe Montanari metal snare that was made out of a bullet shell. [...] it was a bad-ass snare drum. And I don't know where that snare drum is to this day. I think I lost it somewhere on the road or something because, you know, I had so much shit. But yeah, I remember that. So I brought that. And after I told him the story, he was really into it, you know, he thought, "This is bad-ass," you know, like, "Yeah, let's use this." I use that on the album [...]

[...] but for, I think, two or three of the songs we literally, he just set up a bunch of wood and I literally put these like clogs on that I had found that had kind of like wooden soles, and we tapped out rhythms together. Like the song would just start and I never heard the songs before and he would just say, "Roll!" and it would just... There's one song on there I think - I forgot what song it was - where I had never heard it and he just said, "Roll!" and I had my headphones on and I had a snare drum and like a piece of metal in my hand that I was like hitting another piece of metal and we had like an old 26 inch like marching band drum that didn't have any [?] so every time I kicked it, it just kind of wobbled away. And he rolled the tape and because it was 24 track at that point, and he rolled tape and I'd never heard the song and I'm missing breaks, just never knew what the feel was, I just kind of heard and just started going through it, and at the end he like pressed the button, he was like, "That's awesome! Sounding like it was recorded in jail," like I was in another cell or something and he was... and he left it and it's actually on Bone Machine. And it's like, that's the track, I can hear myself missing breaks, like I played this like a snare fill the wrong time and then it goes into the next break and he just thought it was cool. Like it just sounded gone and so.

Yeah, it was Mark Ribot, me, Larry Taylor, and Tom. We recorded in this old…it was kind of a cross between a church and a barn. Tom says, “Show up at this place, this is where we’re going to do it.” I’m like, “Okay, is there a studio there? Should I call the studio owner?” He says, “Aw, no, nobody’s really there, there’s no phone service.” “Okay, is there a bathroom? A kitchen? Anything?”

Basically he just brought the studio in there. The producer kind of set it all up and made it pretty comfortable. We sat around and just started jamming. He’d come in with an idea and go, “Okay, so maybe it goes like….” He basically told me, “Don’t bring a drumset, don’t bring anything that you can buy at Guitar Center.” So I went to some pawnshops and some junkyards, grabbed whatever sounded cool, and brought it. And he has his own stuff. We’d make a drumkit out of, like, a manhole, a carburetor, maybe a traditional cymbal that was broken, a 1930s Ludwig 26: kick drum…. The snares were old, vintage, whatever was lying around.

The other thing was, Tom asked me to bring hard leather-sole shoes. There was a bathroom that had a really nice-sounding ambience, and the tile on the floor sounded really good when you stomped on it. Most of the backbeats on that album were done by stomping on the bathroom floor.

Real Gone was a pleasure because it made me realize that you can make it happen pretty much anywhere, and actually doing it in that kind of environment and using the ambience was so much hipper than going into one of those posh studios built by experts to make it sound “pro,” whatever that means. In that sense it’s a great experience every time I work with Tom.

Tom had given me a cassette of him making all of these percussion sounds in his bathroom at like four in the morning. I took the cassette, blew it into Peak, which is a two-track editor, chopped it all up, and exported the WAV files. I have this program called MPC Maker, which allows you to create the programs on your Mac to put onto your MPC 3000. And so I just grabbed them, dragged and dropped them, threw them on the Zip drive, and put them in my MPC. So when you hear [makes beatbox sounds] and all those weird vocal sounds, that was Tom.

Next to the kit – which could have been me playing a log with a piece of metal in one hand and a mallet in the other – I also had the MPC 3000 with all those sounds set up. So that hip-hop-based beat stuff was me playing the MPC live – no programming – just live on the pads with Tom’s voice cut up from the cassette. All those whistle sounds or cowbells, those are all samples I made of him. We did the same thing live. We did a tour of Europe and some dates in the States, and on half the songs I just played his samples on the MPC, next to my hi-hat. So the jamming was done like that. It was kind of just like, Make the weirdest, most “gone” setup you can think of, and then just start.

Tom has an interesting way of working. I was sitting there one time and I asked Marc Ribot about a song that he and Tom had worked on the day before. And he was saying, “Well, it goes like this, with this kind of feel….” Then Tom walks in and goes, “Hi, what are you guys doing?” Ribot goes, “Oh I’m showing Brain the song,” and Tom goes, “Aw, don’t ruin it.”

That’s the whole album in a nutshell. He doesn’t want you to know it. He wants it to just be whatever it is at that moment. “The tape’s always rolling” type of thing. It’s pretty interesting. Totally opposite from Guns N’ Roses, you know. [laughs]

And so that song, The General was a song that, you know, we like, Extrakd and Mirv and I, when we, when I wasn't doing Guns stuff would just jam in my living room type of thing. I had a Pro Tools set up and we were jamming and we were trying to come up with songs for Guns. [...] it all comes back around because we were writing all these crazy songs to try to turn in. And these were coming from like, like Extrakd is an old school DJ type, he's a bass player, but he loves old school break beats, you know, crate digger type of guy. And so the shit we were putting together was crazy. You know, we were just, we were just kind of going like, "Okay, you know, like what samples should we find for Axl?" Like, "Well, he's kind of like Julius Caesar." So we were like sampling Julius Caesar, like looking for albums that, you know, and old school crazy shit. And I think we sampled like Ben Hur and chopped it up and cut it up. And that became a jam called Seven. I think we called it Seven. And then, you know, and I remember bringing them to, you know, the studio to have, I think Roy Thomas Baker was producing at that point, and you know, and he was—we'd be playing the stuff and he'd be in, you know, like one of the songs that actually is called—the album that we're making now is called Mars Mechanics. And one of the songs we have on the album, we put that one on the album. And it was one of the ones that I played for Roy. And you know, he was like, "What is this, reggae?" You know, and I was just like, "No," because it was like a Neil Young old school jam that, you know, Mirv was just going off on. But the whole thing was just like, you know, I was turning in all these like weirdo songs that were coming, you know, like way far to the left or whatever, and you know, it was just kind of a crazy story of how that's one of them was The General and I think Axl actually sang on The General.

Yeah, you could say that.

I think I have the record for my drums being set up for the longest time in any studio. I think they were set up at Village Recorders in Santa Monica for six years. Six years.

It was awesome; huge production! We drove around L.A. in (producer) Roy Thomas Baker's Rolls Royce trying out every kick, snare, tom and hi-hat. I had the best drum kit you can piece together. It was incredible!

[...] and[Axl]'s always been cool to me despite what you hear or whatever from other people. He's always been super cool and always like trusted my playing and what I wanted to do on the album when we were doing Chinese and, you know.

Not on the whole record, but yes, I made some recordings.

Okay, so with Chinese Democracy which, I think this is the first time I'm telling the story in any kind of interview or anything, but... That was, its... I think I have the record for how long my drums have been set up in a studio, and I think it was five years the drums were set up at the Village Recorders in Los Angeles. My drums are up there for five years, I think it went through three different producers. It went through Sean Beavan, Roy Thomas Baker and then I guess Axl's the producer now. [chuckles] That's five years my drums were set up.

And basically how it started was Josh Freese was the drummer before and he had basically played on about 30 songs and he had left. Axl really liked my feel so he was like, "Well, I really like what Josh was playing, but I want your feel," and I was like, "Okay" so I'm gonna need songs and go in and re-play them. And it was like, "No, I really liked what Josh played but I want your feel," and I'm like, "What does that mean?" And Roy was the producer at that time and he's like, "Well, basically what you're gonna have to do is play exactly what Josh play, exactly note for note, but you play it." So I'm like... So, I'm gonna have to transcribe every like 30-something songs and I'm like, "Man, I'm not getting paid enough for this," so I'm like, "I don't mind doing that but you're gonna have to get someone else to transcribe it". So I went to the head transcriber at Sony Studios and I brought him two CDs worth of, like, 30 songs and I said, "Dude, I want note-for-note you to transcribe everything that's on this drum-wise." So about a month later he calls me and I get back, I go and pick it up at Sony Studios, I get, like, it must have been that thick [gesturing thickness approximately 35 cm] sheet music. And it was every song written out note-for-note and these were some seven-minute songs with, like, at the end Josh doing soloing, actually, like [gesturing solo drumming with sounds], like every note was written out and he had like the exact solo at the end of There Was A Time [?] that was like, literally... I don't know, like two minutes of that at the end, of Josh just going crazy all written out.

Josh had come up with some pretty good parts for the album. Axl was like, “Hey, I like what Josh did, so could we start out by you doing his parts, but with your feel? Because your feel’s different.” So I went over to Sony Music and found the dude who did their orchestrations for films and asked if he could transcribe the drums on the thirty songs. He’s like, “All right, yeah, I’ll let you know when they’re done.” He would do about six a month – literally these six-page drum transcriptions of what Josh had played.

Axl is a perfectionist. Josh [Freese], who is one of my favourite drummers, had already recorded some beautiful tracks but they didn’t have the sound. They were very digital sounding, there wasn’t a lot of air moving, they were electronic sounding. Axl liked some of the parts so he asked if I could play what Josh did but in my feel. He wanted me to replay it note for note.

So I thought if they want that somebody’s going to have to transcribe this. I made some calls and went over to Sony I went over there and dropped off a handful of CDs and they transcribed it. They set it up on a teleprompter, I learned it and recorded it note for note. After that Axl was like, ‘Now do it your way!’ I think what came out on the album was a hybrid of a little of Josh and what I did.

Well, it was funny because like with Chinese at first, you know, Josh is a very linear drummer also, you know, he's probably like the best, you know. I can't think of a better drummer than Josh Freese. I mean, he's one of my favorite drummers. He's technical, you know, he's very technical and perfect. I mean, you know, with the Nine Inch Nails shit, I love watching those rehearsals on YouTube, you know, because he's playing with a click in the machine and it's like perfect, you can't tell the difference. And I guess that's how Sorum is a little bit, I guess, you know, I don't know Matt's playing that much except for that stuff. Josh, I followed for years and I just, you know, still talk to him and I feel like he's, you know... And I've seen him with Sting and Devo, he's awesome, you know, or whatever. But when I first joined, yeah, I'd say about 80% was done and Axl was like, "Well, I want to see what you can do to these things." And so, you know - and it's a story I told before in print, I don't know if I've said it in a podcast - but, you know, it was like at first he was like, "I like Josh's parts and playing," so I was like, "Then what do you want me to do?" you know. And Axl's like... I'll tell you a story about what happened in a second and just blew me out, but before it, you know, Axl was like, "Well, I want to see what you can do but with Josh's parts," and I was like, "Wait, so you want me to play his part but with just, you know, I'm playing it? Replaying it?" He was like, "Yeah." So I went to like Sony Music cuz I was like, "Dude, I can transcribe this but that's like a full-time job to transcribe all this stuff," so I went to like the orchestrator at Sony Music and I remember dropping off a bag of CDs and just saying, "Can you orchestrate all this stuff, write out all the drum stuff, even the crazy solo at the end of [There Was A Time]..." [...] But anyways, which is crazy so the guy transcribes all of it, right? And he gives them back and I literally had like huge, you know, like literally like a, you know, a six-foot chart above my head that I just learned to play all the parts, you know what I mean? Like literally note for note. I did it. And I was like, we did it in my feel, because my feel, what I think I give to it is a little different feel, it's a little more of a swing to the whole thing. So I think that that's where Axl was like, "Okay, I like Josh's part but I like the way you feel with his parts." So that's where I was like, you know, because Axl is, I mean, he is ridiculous. I mean, I'll never forget - here I go again, probably forgetting what song it was - because, you know, I mean, dude, I did that album for like six years, after a while every song and every title became the same-

They had recorded a bunch of stuff and Josh Freese had recorded a lot of stuff. I think he recorded 90% of the drumming on the 25-30 tunes that were floating around. When I came it was right when they got [producer] Roy Thomas Baker. He was coming from Queen, The Cars, Journey, more the rock thing. He said we had to go re-record the drums because they sounded very industrial.

I have to say there was like 20 songs recorded with Josh, I would say. So there was at least enough for a couple albums, almost two albums of material that Josh had played on. And I literally came in and, you know, replaced his parts exactly to the T, like exactly what he played. Then re-did it again, the way I'd play it. So I recorded what was there twice, with Roy Thomas Baker over a period of, yeah, it seemed like three years. It felt like something like two and a half years. [...] and I was like, "Okay," you know, "sure. I'm not going to transcribe these so let's take him to Sony and, you know, get a dude who does this for a living for orchestral scores and," you know, "transcripts." Took them there, took a stack of CDs, will never forget it, you know, in Culver City over at the Sony Building, and just dropped them off and they're like, "What is this?" And I'm like, "Well, here's like twenty CDs of material," you know, kind of thing, like, "Just start sending us the drum parts." And so, you know, like every week we'd get one or two, I'd go up there and we would like, you know, go up to - we were at the Village at the time - and, you know, and I'd have them like an orchestral chart above my head and I'd go in for a day, learn it, and we'd start recording the next day. And then we'd get another chart would show up. "Oh, we got two more charts! Okay." I played, you know, like Josh Freese's, I think, There Was A Time, his solo at the end note for note, like I had to learn it. What became on the album was a combination of mine and his. Because, you know, I had learned his so, you know, I just started playing it that way but then I would let loose sometimes and do my thing. So what ended up on the album was like half Josh, half me.

Oh, shit, I can't remember now, but I felt like I played on at least twenty-something, you know, maybe more. You know, but I mean, don't quote me on that, but that's what it felt like. [...] I mean, there could be [50-60 "out there", as suggest by the interviewer]. I didn't play on all those. But yeah, there absolutely could be, yeah. Because I don't know what they did after I left. But I could say, you know, at the highest, there could be 30 when I left, that were around. I'm not sure I played on all 30, but I know I played on at least 20 something that were finished, I think, myself. Then I think Frank came in after I left and he played on some more. And then since then, I'm sure people were still writing, you know.

So basically I went in and we set up at the top of this, like, in the Village we decided to record... I went in and I heard the room in the Studio C and I was like, "Well, you know, this is cool but you know we're making, like, the Guns N' Roses album! Come on, we can't just be in the studio where, like, everybody else records. You got to have something better than this?" And the owner Jeff was like, "Well, we have an auditorium that used to be able to be a Masonic Temple upstairs," and I'm like, "There you go, now we're talking, you know, like Led Zeppelin, we're getting into something here." So we go to the top and it's all cold up there. It's like, you know, just really eerie feeling and I'm like, "This is it. This is where we got to record all the drums." So we basically ran everything up to the top of this, this, Village Recorders, and we set up the drums in this auditorium. And so it really just had a huge kind of bottom-ass [?] sound.

So we brought all those drums into the main studio at Village, where Fleetwood Mac recorded Tusk. I set up and started playing, and I was like, “Wait a second, man. We’re doing Guns N’ Roses here.”

I talked to Jeff Greenberg, the owner, and said, “Jeff, man, we gotta have something better than this. I mean, the room sounds great and this is cool, but you just had, like, Kenny G in here. I can’t have my shit sounding the same as a Kenny G album.” So he’s like, “Well, what are you saying? Is it the drums? We can have any drum put in here.” I say, “No, it’s not the drums. The drums sound good and the room sounds good. But we gotta get a vibe.”

He tells me there’s an old haunted Masonic temple upstairs where the Masons would give their speeches, and nobody ever goes up there. It was a theater. So we go up, he opens the door, and it just felt like, Okay, now we’re talking. I’m thinking, We’ve got to set up here. We found the sweet spot in the room and I set up the drums there…and that’s were they stayed for six years. This was a Guns N’ Roses album – it had to be overblown.

I wasn’t going to just sit in the studio. I was kind of coming from the school of Tom Waits. One of the best studios I ever recorded in was Bill Laswell’s Greenpoint Studio, just an open cement building, and the only baffling that he had were these little foam pillars, and it sounded amazing. We recorded the first Praxis album there, with Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, Bucket, and AF from The Jungle Brothers, and it was the best – the drums sounded killer. I was using Steve Jordan’s Yamahas, and they just sounded incredible. It sounded so much better than the studios I had worked in, which were built for acoustics. So going into the Guns thing, it just felt like we had to do something better that what you’d normally get in a studio that’s built to sound good. All of a sudden there was a vibe, and it clicked. I got the album then. I started getting what the drums should sound like. Josh’s drums were kind of tight and precise, and we loosened it up. The sound became a little bigger, a little sloppier. And that became more of what the album is now.

We literally drove in his green Rolls Royce around LA and we picked up from every drum company probably every famous drum and tried out every drum. We had them ship it to The Village in LA where we were recording.

We set up all the drums and I said, ‘This is the Guns N Roses album, we need a vibe’ and there was a temple upstairs that people used to do their speeches in. We went up there and it was a mini auditorium. As soon as I put drums up there and hit them I said, ‘Oh s***, this is the vibe’.

But when I was there recording, no, I was just like, "Oh shit, this is a big thing, this is kind of rad," you know, it's like, "This shit has to be killer," like, you know. I'll never forget, we were at the Village and we're in the front, the main room where they did, I think, Rumors so it was like Studio A, I think, it was the big room I guess and, you know, we were setting up the drums and I was like, "Whoa, wait a second," I go, "dude, this is Guns N' Roses, you know, like, I said to everybody and I was just like, "Dude, we can't just record here, like, we got to fucking like, you know, like, we got to do something rad or whatever," and I remember the studio owner, Jeff Greenberg, who became good friends, you know, he brought me into his office and he's like, "What's up?" you know, "Do you need a new tech? Do you need new drums or whatever?" I'm like, "No dude, we need to record in a rad place, I mean, this is Guns N' Roses. Really, I'm just going to record where every other Joe Schmo sets up?" He's like, "Hold on, there's an auditorium upstairs that was an old Masonic [?]", and I'm like, "Okay," and so he's like, "You want to check it out?" and like, "That sounds better." And so we walked up there, he opened the door and it was like a fucking, you know, [?] or something, you know, just like it creaked open and it was just shit everywhere and it was just this, you know, really cool auditorium and I was like, "Dude, this is where we got, this is where [?] set up," [?], "All right," and they ran cables up and they cleaned it out, they built Bucket a chicken coop and, you know, like, "Now we're recording! This is now Guns N' Roses, this is cool now," you know. And, you know, he took pictures and it became kind of a famous thing that they built Bucket a chicken coop, you know, to do his guitar stuff, and they did. And then my drums are set up in this auditorium and they just ran cables up there and had TVs and shit for us to talk back and forth and stuff like that. [...] So they probably just said, "I don't know, sounds good to me," you know, like, "Why not record up there? Does it sound good?" you know, and it was like, "Yeah, sounds amazing," like, "Okay." Cuz really down in Studio A is cool, you know, it's great, but I was just like, "Dude, it's got to be better than this," you know what I mean? Like, "Anybody comes here to record, where has somebody not recorded in this building?" you know. So it was this kind of like, "Okay, now we got something going." So I think that's what I loved about it was that it was just on that level, you know [...].

Yeah, at first I didn't get it. At first I was just like, "Oh, Guns N' Roses, whatever." Then I started going, "Whoa, this is a big thing, okay, well wait." So they bring us to the Village Recorders and we're in their studio. You know, the one where like Mick Fleetwood set up for, you know, Fleetwood Mac and did Rumors there or whatever the big album was, or Tusk or whatever, you know? And we're there in the studio and I'm playing, I'm like, "Wait a second," I'm like, "this is Guns N' Roses, you guys want this? This isn't good enough. Other people have recorded here." And I remember Jeff Greenberg coming in the studio just going like, "Wait, what's the problem here? You don't want to be recording here?" and I'm like, "No Jeff, you know, this is Guns N' Roses. Really? This is the drum sound I'm gonna get?" And he just like, "What do you mean?" I'm just like, "Well, what else do we got here?" and he's like, "Well, there's an old masonic, you know, like theater upstairs, you want to go check that out?" and I was like, "Wait, masonic? "Yeah," "Theater? Sounds cool to me - what is it?" We go up there it's all toasted, you know, there's boxes in there, all this crap and like this little theater. And I'm like, "Whoa, this is perfect!" It's all dark and gloomy. And I'm like, "Yeah, let's set up the drums here." And then they built a chicken coop for Bucket in the corner. You know, so I feel like in a way I was getting into it. I was like, "No, let's do this." "Yeah, let's get Sony to transcribe these things and let's do it. If we're going to do it, let's do it perfect."

I had my drum tech [Gersh] bring in over 30 different kits from the Drum Doctor, Drum Paradise, and Drum Fetish. I literally slept in the rehearsal space for three days, looking at angles. I just sat there staring at the stage. I was on the ground looking at angles to see how the kids are going to be looking at it from this angle. And then I would climb up on the stairs and get on a ladder and look at it from above, and say, 'Okay, the people in the balcony are going to be looking at it from this angle. What's going to be the right vibe? What's going to work for this situation?'

I have an idea of what I want when I go in. And since there are 50 snare drums and 40 kick drums, or whatever, you know it's kind of like, 'Well, this song would be great if we start with a 26" kick, 14", 16", 18" toms, because it's a huge sound - a very slow, huge, grunge-type of sound. Let's get some big hi-hats in there. Where's that really deep snare? Let's get a 7" or an 8". Let's try it.' It usually works right away.

And sometimes we get bored and we're like, 'Let's set up in that corner up in the balcony and get a little baby kit. Let's get an 18", and a 12" snare, and 12" hi-hats, just for something to do. Let's put it in the chorus.' This is probably one of the most creative things I've been in, because I've just been allowed to experiment so much.

[Producer] Roy Thomas Baker drove us around L.A. in his Rolls Royce to try to find the exact drums that we wanted for the recording. We went to every company, and it wound up being a mash-up of all the best drums we could find around L.A. We pretty much gathered the most ridiculous kit you could ever have, to rerecord Josh’s parts.

It was a constant sound thing. Each song started from scratch, so it was like, “Okay, here’s ‘Madagascar.’ This DW 13” tom – a Timeless Timber model that my drum tech had – sounds huge. And it sounds really great with this Gretsch floor tom. And this aluminum DW snare sounds great with this particular setup….” Then, next song… “Okay, this is a tighter kick drum, let’s use this one.” And every cymbal would change. That was fun. Like I said, I’m kind of a studio tweaker, and it was fun to be able to do that. We had the budget, so I was like, Let’s just do this. When am I ever going to get a chance to do this again?

At one point I probably had forty snares lined up on the ground…twenty different kick drums…cymbals just thrown all over the place – it was insane. But then I’ve got pictures of the Tom Waits thing, and it’s the same thing, but it’s just junk. All of the great albums that I’ve been lucky enough to play on have always had that kind of overblown type of tweaking. I feel comfortable and at home when it’s like that. I was a chameleon on every song, just like on the Tom Waits stuff. Every song I was like, Okay, now I’m this, now we’re in this situation.

There was another room with literally 30 snare drums lined up, 15 kick drums, cymbals stacked up like a music store and it’d literally be, ‘This one looks cool, let’s try it with this’. We’d just play some beats and see how it sounded.

There was no time constraints, there was nothing. I don’t think anybody was keeping track of it. I was going, ‘I don’t know who’s paying for this, or what’s going on but I don’t really care because I get to come here and f*** off in one of the best studios in the world with some of the best drums and some of the best recording gear, everybody talks s*** about Axl and Guns N Roses but this is killer for me!’

Towards the end we probably came up with one kit that sounded pretty solid and we’d just change out the snare. ‘I’m Sorry’ was more the Pink Floyd thing so I think I used a bigger kick, a 24" or a 26", on ‘There Was A Time’ we used a 22", we were just experimenting. We were having a ball, me and my drum tech. We would try something, record it and send the CD to Axl. He’d check it out and saying, Yeah that’s cool’, or sometimes he’d come in but his hours are pretty crazy so he’d come in at four in the morning and listen.

And, "Yeah, let's get every drum set..." I remember driving around with Roy Thomas Baker, you know, in his custom-made green Rolls Royce and we're in search of Ringo Starr's 22-inch kick drum. You know, we heard, "Oh, the Drum Doctor might have that," and, you know, we're driving to his place, hitting every kick drum in LA. You know, "Oh no, let's go over here, he's got it!" you know. [...] "No, the Drum Fetish has it!" You know, because that's what we have to get, that's what's got to be on this song is this, you know. I have pictures of like, you know, like 40 snares lined up, you know, 20 kick drums and, you know, and we're trying different ones, you know, on every song. And I kind of started getting into like, "Okay, if we're going to make this crazy, let's get crazy."

I'm totally into using a computer-based sequence setup. I use Logic and Pro Tools, and I have a G4 titanium laptop. I have this bag where I keep a nice DAT machine with a nice mike, or I have those toy samplers that you buy at Toys R Us. And I just sit there after whatever session I'm in, whether I'm even at the rehearsal space or at the studio, and I just hit my drums, make weird sounds, make weird loops, and then I take them home. I get home at about 2:00 in the morning and from 2:00 until 4:00 in the morning I sit at my laptop, cut up all my beats, make more beats, more sounds, and then bring them into the producer and say, 'Hey, check this out. Are you into this?' That's what I spend most of my free time doing.

What I've noticed with this situation is that I've kind of made it my own, tow here I'm getting what I want out of it and what I want to do. It's really been inspiring in that way. At first it was different. It was hard for me to get into this process. But I kind of turned it around. I said, "Wait. I've got access to the studio and to do what I want. I'm going to start calling the shots to say, 'Let's try this or let's do this.' I want to add what I want to this project. I'm looking at this as a musical education.

We listened to some prerecorded tracks that Josh had already played on. Sometimes we did some stuff all together, but most of it was done when there were already bass and guitar tracks. And whatever feel that we put on it, maybe they’d go back and rerecord to that. I took one song at a time, learned each as an orchestra piece – literally note for note, every fill, every crazy thing. I replayed it with my feel and the new sound in the new building. And that process happened for a few songs, so it took a while. After that was done Axl said, “Okay, that was cool, now do your thing.” So I went in, forgot all of what I’d just done, and did my thing, and I think it became a combination of both. In the end I redid it again by kind of doing half my thing and some of what I remembered from Josh’s original drum parts. We were also writing as a new band with me and Bucket. We had some songs that we started from scratch, where I just recorded myself without charts.

We set up all the drums in the corner and we literally put... when I open the charts they were like 1 page, 2 page, 3, 4, 5, like 6 pages and they wanted... Roy didn't want me to do it in sections so it wasn't like, "Okay, here's the verse," and I'm playing it. It's like, "No, you got to play it as one piece." So I'm like, "Dude! I got to, like, practice this and get..." So each song we had up, like, we had this huge, like, banner made where we could have the whole chart across. So I would look at from here [gesturing to one side] all the way to like, like [gesturing to the opposite side], almost like a 90 degrees, I would just see this huge chart. And I learned every song for, like, I don't know, maybe two weeks. Learned all the parts. I sat there and, like, got it down like it was orchestrated. I just practiced until I got it. Then I would say, "Roy", and while everybody down [?] to the studio, it's $2,000 a day in studio, which would just be sitting there, like, like, watching, like, cartoons or The Exorcist or something, there's like, well, I'm upstairs practicing and I would call downstairs and be like, "Yeah man, I think I got it so maybe we should try." Two weeks have gone by, I think I got it, we try to record, track it for two days until I got the perfect take. One song done. "Okay, let's start the next one." About seven to eight months later I was done and that's how that album was recorded.

You know, that's one thing about Axl too, is he knows his shit, dude. I'll never forget. I don't know how much time we have. We were working on a track and we probably were working on this track, I forget the name of the track, I don't even know if it made it on Chinese Democracy. But we were working on it for about two weeks, maybe even longer. We would work at the Village, which is in Santa Monica, at studio, and everything would be, like, dropped off to him. At that point it was like giving him CD's was a thing so it'd be a runner ready to go right when we were done at 12 midnight to bring it up to his house in Venice, and we would - I mean, in Malibu. We waited about 35-40 minutes till it got there, get the call, "Yeah, this is cool," or "No, we gotta change something" or do whatever. We've been doing that for like, I don't know, 2 1/2 weeks on this song, let's say. Finally, he loved what we were doing, but we had to change something with the drums. So I remember replaying the part but on the beginning of, like, the second-half of the intro, there's a kick drum that I had missed on the final take that we... We already had figured out all the parts and everything was going great and the producer Roy Thomas Baker was like, "That was the take." But I had noticed that I just missed one kick drum. One kick drum on the one of the second-half of the beginning of, like, the intro, okay. We send it there and I'm not shitting you, he says, "Everything sounds great, except I think Brain missed a kick drum on the one." So he's fucking listening. We thought we were sending this shit and he's literally, you know, sitting there, King Arthur with seven chicks on his pipe and licking his, you know, and no, he's working, he's listening, he's working. I mean, after that I respected.... I was like, "Holy shit!" Like, "He caught that?" Yeah, he's listening to every little thing, because that was my time of getting the drums right. So he was focusing on that. And he was like, "No, you guys missed this kick drum." We're like, "Oh shit," you know? Anyways, I don't know what that means or anything but, I mean, it's pretty amazing because you would think someone like him wouldn't like, does he need to care? I mean, he's, you know, the puppet man. [...] Yeah, that one got me. I was like, "Wow, he caught that."

I have a love-hate relationship with that album, you know. When people ask me, "Do I like it?" you know, yeah, I like it, but, you know, some of the process was pretty hard, you know, doing it. Because Axl wanted it to be so great that, you know, we had to keep pushing it and pushing the boundaries and, you know, he would just... and that was my story about, like, on the charts [=of drum notes Josh played] -  which he never saw the charts - on one of the songs it was, like, I remember recording the whole song with Roy Thomas Baker, you know, maybe spending three days on this song until we got the perfect tape because, you know, I had to play everything that Josh played exactly how he played it, and we finally got it. But I remember when we were listening to the playback, and this was like at two in the morning or something, I go, "Oh shit," I was looking at the chart, I go, "Dude, I missed this one kick drum right at the beginning of the verse," and we listened back and we're like, "Yeah, but you hit the cymbal and you hit everything and then you kind of come in there, I don't...you know, I mean, let's just send it to him and check it." You know, we send it to him, you know, he gets it around four o'clock in the morning, we get the call and it was literally, "Yeah, I liked it but I think Brain forgot to hit a kick drum at the beginning," like, he doesn't miss, I was like, "Holy shit! Again!" This gig kicked me out, like, he's not is not fucking around, you can't get away with shit. And it was like, you know, this like lightest kic, too, it was like, you know, three fucking peas [?] on the fucking quarter note, it was, like, just tap it, just, you know, a little tap. And I was like, "I just forgot to tap it," it's like, "Yeah, but Brain forgot to hit that," I was like, "Oh, this is some serious shit," like, he knows his shit, he's listening, not like the, you know, we're just sending it up there for no reason and shit, you know.

He doesn't miss anything though, man. I remember one time, on the chart there was like this... it was at the beginning of like Prostitute or something, I think it was, and there was a kick drum that happened, like this one little tap, like [make tap noise], like little tap. not even like a big boom or anything, it was just kind of like, okay, the ride cymbal comes in with a little like trill and like [make trill sound], and you hit the one with the kick drum and I go, "Oh shit, on the chart, I missed that." I thought, "Man, no one's gonna catch it." And in the control room, Roy and engineers no one caught it. We sent it Axl and like, you know, like a couple hours later it was like, "Hey, did Brain miss like the downbeat of...?" "Holy shit! Wow!" Yeah, that's pretty good.

I mean, you know, it was more, I think, at that point, you know, people that have never played together that have all been in awesome bands and done, you know, has a history and everyone in themselves has a history and now they're all together kind of like a super group type of vibe and... I don't think anybody was thinking about it, I think we're just thinking like, "Oh shit, here's a catalog of you know these 40 songs we got to learn and, you know, we gotta kill it. We gotta, you know, like get this shit down." So we're just kind of like in that kind of work mode for like three months. So when that show happened, I remember it just felt like a dream. It was just like, "Shit, now we're on stage and we're playing." I don't know, it wasn't like, we didn't know what to expect ourselves because, you know, that was it. It was like, you know, usually bands, you know, you get, you know, start by just your friends hanging out talking shit, you know, in high school you start a band, you start touring, you develop the sound and who you are like on the road in a van, stepping on each other's heads and just, you know, like doing crazy shit, you know, and then it becomes a sound and then that sound, you know, you develop that and then blah, blah, blah. But with this, it was more like, when I got done, I remember just going, "Shit, did we pull it off? What do people think? Like, what happened?" Because it was like, "Here's the biggest band," that was the biggest band in the world, "Here we are, we're coming out." And I don't know even know what we thought we were supposed to expect, if that makes sense. Because it wasn't like choreographed either, like you're playing for Janet Jackson. You know what I mean? Playing the songs and people are expecting, just, you know, it was like, "Well, they want to hear a band. I mean, you're replacing some of the... Duff and Slash." You know what I mean? It's like, "Wait a second." So, you know, I don't know what the audience thought, but the way I was feeling was just like, "Whoa, what the!" I remember getting that, you know, finishing the show and going back into the elevator and going up and just being like, "Wait, did we just play?" Like it felt like it was just like a dream. [...] you know what's crazy that I wanted to add to that really quick was that since that was the first show and that's what it felt like, it was just like, I think everybody was just like, "Whoa, what the fuck happened?"