Brain (musician)

Mantia was born February 4, 1963, in the South Bay city of Cupertino, California, to an Italian American father and a Japanese American mother.[1] As a teenager, Mantia became interested in such artists as James Brown, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix, acts that featured groove-heavy sounds.[2] When he was 16 years old, he started playing drums. Because of his 'obsessive' study of the drum book Portraits in Rhythm by Anthony J. Cirone, Mantia was given the nickname "Brain" by members of his high school concert band.[2]

Mantia attended the Percussion Institute of Technology in Hollywood, California, during the mid-1980s to further hone his craft.[2] During this time, he was a member of local funk-rock band named the Limbomaniacs (which would later become part of Ben Wa).[2] In 1989, Mantia joined Primus briefly, before breaking his foot, forcing him to pull out of the band.[2]

In the early '90s, he joined Praxis, a musical project led by Bill Laswell and initially featuring Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins and Buckethead. The drummer was a mainstay of Praxis for the 1990s, featuring on most of their albums. Mantia recorded with Buckethead on many of Buckethead's solo albums, including Monsters and Robots, Colma, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, and Bucketheadland 2, among others.

Sometime in 1995, Mantia was approached by his cousin Kristin Yee, who was managing industrial metal band Godflesh, to join the band as their drummer. He accepted the offer and performed on their 1996 album Songs of Love and Hate as well as Love and Hate in Dub. However, Mantia was unable to commit his time in Europe and left the band the same year.[3] Some time later, Mantia rejoined Primus, touring with and recording for four years with the group, appearing on Brown Album, Rhinoplasty and Antipop.[2]

In March 2000, Mantia joined the revamped lineup of Guns N' Roses after being recommended to singer Axl Rose by Buckethead (who himself had joined the band a few months earlier).[4][5]

In 2003, Mantia appeared on several songs on BT's 2003 release Emotional Technology as well BT's score for the 2003 film Monster.[6][7]

Mantia toured several legs of the Chinese Democracy Tour with Guns N' Roses from 2000 until 2006, when he left the band to take care of his newborn child.[8] Frank Ferrer, originally brought in as just a replacement drummer for the tour, eventually replaced Mantia as full time drummer for the band. Chinese Democracy was released in 2008, and featured drums from Mantia on every track except the title track. Mantia was also credited with writing the songs "Shackler's Revenge" and "Sorry". Parts of Mantia's drumming on the album were note-for-note re-recordings of Josh Freese's parts, who left the band before Mantia joined.[9][10] Mantia was also responsible for arrangements on "Shackler's Revenge", "Better", "Street of Dreams", "There Was a Time", "Sorry", "Madagascar", and "Prostitute", initial production on "Shackler's Revenge" and "Sorry", engineering on "Sorry", drum machine and drum programming on "I.R.S." and Logic Pro engineering for the entire album.

After leaving the band, Mantia made a guest appearance (alongside fellow former GNR member Robin Finck) at Guns N' Roses' House of Blues West Hollywood show on March 12, 2012. Mantia played congas on "You're Crazy" and "Rocket Queen". He continued to occasionally work for the band on yet to be released remix material.[8]

Since leaving Guns N' Roses, Mantia has primarily been focused on music behind the scenes as a composer and producer.

Mantia had a brief stint drumming with The Crystal Method in 2013 and 2014 (alongside Guns N' Roses guitarist Richard Fortus).[11] These performances included appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Last Call with Carson Daly [12][13]

In 2017, Mantia toured with Buckethead and Dan Monti as part of Buckethead's live show.[14]

Mantia drumming for Buckethead in 2017

Mantia has partnered with musician Melissa Reese on several projects, a composing team dubbed "Brain and Melissa".[15] In 2010, along with Buckethead, they released the multi-CD sets Kind Regards and Best Regards. Brain and Melissa composed part of the soundtrack to the video game Infamous 2, for which they were nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Original Composition" by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awards.[16] Other video games the duo worked on include, PlayStation Home, ModNation Racers, Twisted Metal, Fantasia: Music Evolved and Infamous: Second Son (received the nomination Original Dramatic Score, Franchise at the 2014 NAVGTR Awards, shared with Marc Canham and Nathan Johnson).[17] They also scored the films Detention and Power/Rangers. They have worked with music video director Joseph Kahn on several television commercials, including NASCAR, SEAT, and Qoros. In addition, they scored a commercial for Johnnie Walker Blue which featured a computer-generated Bruce Lee.[18] They also worked on several remixes of songs off of Chinese Democracy for a planned remix album.

The two created a stock music album called "Eclectic Cinema" alongside former Guns N' Roses guitarist Paul Tobias, and Guns N' Roses and Buckethead collaborator Pete Scaturro.[19] Mantia has also worked with Tobias on several other stock music tracks.

The duo performed at the halftime show of a Houston Rockets basketball game on November 10, 2017, performing remixes of "Sorry" and "If the World" from Chinese Democracy, and a cover of KISS's "Do You Love Me?" from Destroyer.[20]

Information sourced from "Bryan Mantia's Drum setup".[21]

• Brain's Lessons: Shredding Repis On the Gnar Gnar Rad – 2002 instructional video
• Brain's Worst Drum Instructional DVD Ever – 2008 instructional video

Limbomaniacs

• Stinky Grooves – 1990

Praxis

• Transmutation – 1992
• Sacrifist – 1994
• Metatron – 1994
• Live in Poland – 1997
• Transmutation Live – 1997
• Warszawa – 1999
• Tennessee 2004 – 2007
• Profanation – 2008

Bullmark

• Interstate 76 soundtrack – 1996

Giant Robot

• Giant Robot – 1996

Godflesh

• Songs of Love and Hate – 1996

Tom Waits

• Bone Machine – 1992
• Mule Variations – 1999
• Real Gone – 2004
• Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards – 2006

Primus

• Brown Album – 1997
• Rhinoplasty – 1998
• Antipop – 1999

Buckethead;

• I Need 5 Minutes Alone (as Pieces) – 1997
• Colma – 1998
• Monsters and Robots – 1999
• The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell – 2004
• Kevin's Noodle House – 2007
• A Real Diamond in the Rough (tracks 2, 4, & 7) – 2009
• Best Regards (with Melissa Reese) – 2010
• Brain as Hamenoodle – 2010
• Kind Regards (with Melissa Reese) – 2010

El Stew

• No Hesitation – 1999

No Forcefield

• Lee's Oriental Massage 415-626-1837 – 2000
• God Is an Excuse – 2001

Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains

• The Big Eyeball in the Sky – 2004

Serj Tankian

• Elect the Dead – 2007
• Imperfect Harmonies (track 10) – 2010

Guns N' Roses

• Chinese Democracy – 2008
• "Absurd" – 2021
• "Hard Skool"[22] – 2021
• "Perhaps" – 2023

Science Faxtion

• Living on Another Frequency – 2008

Travis Dickerson

• The Dragons of Eden (with Buckethead) – 2008
• Iconography (with Buckethead) – 2009

Video Games

• Cyberpunk 2077 (with Melissa Reese) – 2020

• Brain and Melissa official website
• Audio Interview with Brain from the podcast "I'd Hit That"