What's Axl/GnR's stance on Buckethead?

[RochesterRox19]

I'm confused by the whole Buckethead exit. From what I recall, there was a press release by Axl wherein Big B was given his walking papers. It stated that Bucket was planning on using GnR for solo gain and that he had erratic behavior or something of that nature. I even heard that there was some kind of rift between him and Robin Finck (is there any truth to that and if so, what for?).

However, when Dr. Pepper omitted Buckethead from their free can of soda; Axl offered to share his with him. Furthermore, although jetisonned (sp?), Buckethead is featured alongside Axl in the opening two pages of the "Chinese Democracy" liner notes. It also seemed to me that his guitar work was the most prominent on the entire album.

So is Bucket blackballed in Axl's eyes? Have they simply patched things up since the press release and amicably moved on from one another?

Lot of questions, I know. But i'd appreciate the knowledge.

As I watch my DVD of Rio '01 and his solo on "November Rain", I can honestly say that i'd want Buckethead to return over any other past GnR member.

[tippasaurus]

Axl somewhat answered this question a few years ago when he did his online chat: 

I have no issues with Bucket. It's hard to tell what was real or not in things we were told by Merck. He's more than welcome to tour with us in some form or other provided we're both interested at the time and come to some type of reasonable terms. Personally I have a blast w/Bucket on tour and get a big kick out of the guy. A lot of feelings were hurt on this side of the fence in how things went down and unfortunately others used our silence and the public's not knowing for their own purposes at both Bucket's and our expense.

I'd be very surprised if anything has changed in the intervening years.  My gut feeling (i.e. guess) is that Buckethead kind of feels like his involvement w/ GnR has run its course.  If you read between the lines, Buckethead's "thank you" section of the liner notes of Chinese Democracy seemed to indicate as much.  It's especially hard to envision him returning now that Brain is no longer involved. 

That said, I'm hopeful, at least based on Axl's lack of animosity publicly towards BH, that whatever unreleased songs are left from the Chinese Democracy-era will feature some of Buckethead's work, so we may not have heard the last of him.   

And, as much as I love Buckethead, Ron is doing about as well as one could hope for in terms of picking up the "slack". 

[LunsJail]

Tommy gave an interview at some point that shed some insight on the Bucket situation. It sounded like he came in with the total wrong impression of how the band operated. He thought he'd be writing all the music and Axl would put lyrics over it. I also read somewhere that he grew bored with all the recording and playing the same parts over and over for CD.

[Fingers]

I think his stance is a little better-when he left Guns, Axl accused him in the press release of joining Guns mainly to secure a record deal, or something like that-"great guy", I think Axl said.