Debunking the lies spread about Natternet

This was not a page I ever intended to post because after all, why respond to lies and hate and negativity? I've always taken the Buckethead approach to lies spread about him (by people like Tom Zutaut, Guns N Roses A&R guy), which is: say nothing, then you find out who your real supporters are.

That being said, when the same lies and hate get recycled about you every few months and (mostly reasonable) people message you asking about it out of curiosity, it becomes tiresome responding and repeating the same thing. So, here is my debunking? defense? retort? Whatever you wanna call it.
And these are all things that have been brought to my attention through DM's and emails, I haven't been on Reddit in about 5 years and I don't crawl the Facebook groups (though I do endorse the 'Bucketheads Coop' Facebook group as its run by good people who I'm sure moderate and maintain the group).

Anyway, It's kinda long and you totally shouldn't read it because if you're smart you already know the truth.


The Praxis Live Stream

In August 2022, Praxis offered a one-off live stream of their concert at Sony Hall in New York for $25. I streamed the event on my Youtube channel as it happened. I didn't tell anyone beforehand that I was gonna stream it, strongly believing that those who were gonna buy the event would have already bought it by the time the band walked on stage, thus not affecting any sales of the stream. I still believe that.
All was okay for a few days until the regular trolls and haters surfaced. Paraphrasing but:-

“The stream was a benefit for Bill Laswell who was ill at the time. Natternet took money out of his pocket”.

Not true.
At no point in the months leading up to the stream did anyone from Bill Laswell, Buckethead & Bryan Mantias camp ever say the stream was a benefit for Bill, nor did Sony Hall, the streaming ticket agent or event organizers ever mention it being a benefit. The idea that the band would do this stream as a benefit for Bill and not tell anyone or promote it in any way makes zero sense.
If the stream was a benefit and everyone was made aware of it, then I simply wouldn't have streamed it. This stream was not a benefit. The stream was an 'add-on' that Sony Hall provides if you choose to have it, as listed in their 'private events' section.

“Natternet made money off that stream!”

Not true.
Within a few hours the video had a manual copyright match due to the band playing KISS's 'God of Thunder'. So any money went straight to KISS. And after 4 days MOD (Bill's management) copyright striked anyone who had the stream up (yes, a handful of others streamed the event too). And the reason for this strike was almost certainly because by that time the haters and trolls flooded the Praxis Facebook group with lies that I was making money off the stream as well as other slander & lies to paint me as a villain.

It was very disappointing that people from the Praxis FB page (who admitted to not having spoken to any member of the band about it) striked the video but more so, engaged with the haters and made comments about me without ever reaching out to seek the truth or simply emailing and saying “please take the video down”. Having the video up made no difference to me at all.
And for all the promoting I done on behalf of that band, especially leading up to that concert, as well as all the years previous, I think at the very least I earned an email over the effort to file a copyright strike? Oh well.
And for the record, I emailed MOD a few days after the strike apologizing if there was any misunderstanding and stated why I streamed it with the right intent. No reply. Oh well #2.

“Natternet asked for donations during the stream”.

Not true...but also, true.
Again, because I don't go to the reddit hate group or forums I only hear these things second hand. But some were saying I “asked for donations” and “took money” and different stories intertwined so here's what I think they were trying to imply.

The “took money” part seems to come from the 'Give thanks' button that's on every monetized youtube channel and live stream. It's there, it's part of Youtube. I do recall receiving at least one 'thanks' during the stream, can't remember how much it was because the stream and data has been striked, but I think it was $10-$30 to “cover the stream” it certainly wasn't more (and youtube takes 30% of that).

I've never asked anybody to send me money, give 'thanks' or ask people personally to become members of the channel. If people chose to give 'thanks' then that's their decision, I'm not in charge of what other people do. If that applies to the previous “Natternet made money off this stream” thing then okay, but then technically, if the stream cost was the same as the donation cost, I didn't make anything. But that's splitting hairs and all that.

As for the “asking for donations” thing. More lies that seem to have somehow evolved into it being me asking for donations for myself. Hilarious.

The truth: the entire stream I used to promote Bill's Gofundme page. I used it as the pinned comment on the stream. The pinned comment on the comments section. And I used it as the only reply to people during the live chat of the stream.
Bill was obviously in ill health and anytime someone would say “what's wrong with the bass player” they'd get the gofundme link reply. So in that sense, yes, I asked for donations...for Bill. And of all the silly drama surrounding the Praxis stream, this is the one that has annoyed me the most. Here's why:-

For the 4 or so days that I had that stream up, Bills gofundme got roughly $3k worth of donations, most of which seemed to come directly from people who watched me stream it as they would later comment that they had donated. Over the course of the stream being up, it was seen by I think roughly 45,000 people and steadily climbing, incredible promotion for someone's Gofundme and a band that nobody knows outside of Buckethead's fan circle. But because of people's vendettas, hate and lies and pursuit of getting the video taken down, those donations and potentially thousands more people stopped. Ironic really I guess, they say I cost Bill money when it was actually them who cost him. I made Bill money by streaming it.
(thankfully after another plea months later the gofundme picked back up).

I think that's all the Praxis lies.


“Natternet has people's videos and channels taken down”

Not true.
This one is comical, but then most of this stuff is. I have never copyright striked anybody's Buckethead video and I have never had anybody's channel taken down. Facts.

Why would a channel that's primarily there to promote Buckethead want another channel or video taken down? The more Buckethead channels there are, the better that is for Buckethead and the better that is for my channel. Wider reach.
There has been dozens of channels that have taken videos I've made and reposted them. Some posting as they are, some taking the animations I've done, some taking facts and information that only I have ever published word for word and putting it in their videos verbatim and even some dedicated to slandering me. Never taken a single one down, never pursued it. Don't care. I've only ever focused on my channel. Other people can do what they want.

As for specifics. The main lie in regards to this comes from David Tre**le (I won't post his full name, but it's easily found). Again, only getting this 2nd hand because I don't go to reddit. But people sent me screen grabs of him saying that I took his channel down and that he's been dealing with this issue from me for 7 years. Lies.

I've heard from plenty of people who have met David at shows, they say he's an okay guy but has “personal issues”. Those issues are not for me to go into but he himself has spoken about them to anyone and everyone who'll listen. When those issues come up, he deletes his channel. He's been doing this for years and the real Buckethead fans are well aware of it. He's already deleted it once this month (May 2024) before Buckethead's tour started and has restarted it again this week (w/c May 20th) and this will no doubt continue. He even apparently deleted his original reddit profile that he posted the lies from...or did I have that magically taken down too?!

As sympathetic as I am to his issues, to use them to go out of his way to lie about me and say I'm the reason for these takedowns is pretty rotten and bizarre.
As for why? Who knows. I've never done anything to the guy, not even sure I've ever spoken to him. Even when he posted an absolutely disgusting video about Buckethead in 2021 (which I screen grabbed as soon as it went up) that should have got him banished from the Buckethead community forever, I never reported it.
I've never had a single video of his taken down and never had his channel taken down. And if he is an “Okay guy” then he'll admit that he lied and move on.

Oh and I think someone said something like 'well it must be true because Natternet posted some of David's videos after his channel was deleted for the umpteenth time'. Well, yeah. Knowing his history I've always saved his videos because I know he'll delete them like clockwork. Or would you rather historic footage of Buckethead is lost and I just keep it on my hard drive for myself?

“Natternet steals fans concert footage/content”

Not true.
If you go to a concert where you have to buy a ticket and then film that footage, that does not somehow magically grant you ownership of that footage, it's no different than going to a movie theater, filming the movie and then saying its yours and claiming you own the footage.

All concert footage is owned by the performer on stage, not by the fan recording it. This is the law and Youtube even states this in their support section:
“just because you recorded something yourself does not always mean you own all rights to upload it to youtube. If the recording includes someone else's copyrighted content, like copyrighted music, you'll still need permission from the appropriate rights owners”.

So, when a fan uploads a concert that they were never granted legal permission to film, that concert is owned by the performer and it's their right to do with it as they please.
For Buckethead, he has never openly had any issue with his shows being filmed.
As such, fans can copy, repost and share shows as they please unless Buckethead or his team say otherwise.

So fans saying they “own” the footage or that if you wanna use it you need their “permission” and if you do repost it then you've “stolen it” is all based on their false sense of entitlement, not on truth.
I will happily give credit to whoever filmed the footage if I'm made aware of who's it is, though that usually ends up with them being angry that my video got more views than theirs (because I have a wider reach) even though the goal should be to get as many people to see it as possible and spread the word.

Furthermore, I don't recall ever directly just taking a fans recorded footage and reposting it as is. I've almost always clipped it, remastered the audio, trimmed the fat, added color, upscaled, added commentary on top etc.
Using concert footage is not stealing unless the artist themselves has an issue with it. Simple as that.

“Natternet makes money selling Buckethead merch”

Technically true, just about.
I'm sure people could debate all day about selling bootleg merch, people have been doing it for decades. Personally I'm fine with bootleg merch, nobody is forcing anybody to buy it, it's up to them. But If you don't like bootleg merch, I get it.

I sell mostly shirts and posters, and in regards to Buckethead, he himself has barely sold any shirts or posters in 2 decades. And most honest Buckethead fans will agree that
1) when he has sold shirts they haven't exactly been aesthetically pleasing (see the 2024 tour shirt for case in point) and
2) the last batch of shirts he sold before the 2024 tour took 1.5 years to arrive, were $110 each (yes, really) and left most fans disappointed.
The shirts and posters I sell are high quality and arrive within 1-2 weeks.

On the money side, the haters apparently like to make out as though I'm selling booming Taylor Swift shirts that are flying off the shelves in the thousands and cost zero money to make or deliver.
In reality, Buckethead has a niche audience and I sell maybe 1-3 shirts a month at best. Take the cost of printing, shipping, tax/vat at 20% and yearly e-commerce fees away and I might make $2-$4 a shirt. A trainee at Mcdonalds makes $10 an hour. If you're angry that I make the same money in a month as a Mcdonalds trainee does in an hour, then you need to touch grass.
Selling Buckethead merch is basically a free fan service.
 

“Natternet makes money by posting Buckethead's albums”

Kinda true. But not often.
Go to my channel and see the average views of those albums. It's around 4,000-6,000 views (as I just mentioned, Buckethead is a niche, he's not doing Taylor Swift numbers). On average Youtube pays around $0.80-$3 per 1000 views, but really it all depends on the specific ads, who watches, clicks etc but $3 is definitely on the high end.

So when you add those up, take away Youtubes cut and then factor in that each album I post costs (until recently) $9 (+tax) now $7 (+tax), there's little to no profit made. If I wanted to make money from them then I'd wait for a few months until he gives them away for $2, which I never have. Or make ASMR videos.

And for people who say I shouldn't upload Buckethead's albums, I say you are missing the big picture. Buckethead barely posts anything himself, hardly anything on Youtube or Spotify, just Bandcamp. Without my (and other) channels promoting artists that don't promote themselves, they will fade away, they just will. If you don't believe me, go to 'google trends' type Buckethead and look at the graph since 2011. His popularity is declining each year, yet closed minded fans think that not having his music on Youtube will help?

Rick Beato done a good video on Youtube titled “Why do certain artists still block their music” which is a similar thing and highlights what happens when artists music is kept in a bubble rather than allowing it to be spread.

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't make money now and then, some months I do, some months I don't, some I break even and some are a loss. But anyone who thinks I shouldn't earn anything is just a hater or has a personal vendetta against the channel. Whatever I make, I've earned it and I've put the work in consistently since late 2017 without any extended break. I've made something like 400 original Buckethead videos, over 100 music videos with animations that each took upward of 40 hours leaving me out of pocket with each one to the point I had to stop making them and haven't for some time. Haters will conveniently ignore all that because I made 1 dollar on a t-shirt.

So what does Buckethead think of all this?

I had one minor interaction with Buckethead In May 2022 and as far as I'm aware he does not have any issues. Is there some thing's he'd probably rather I hadn't posted? Probably. But when you make 500 videos about someone there's always gonna be something. I would like to think that unlike some of the other people mentioned above, if Buckethead ever had an issue with anything I've done or posted that he, Dan or anyone at Pikes would reach out to me so it could be dealt with like grown up reasonable adults.
In fact, Buckethead himself has my personal phone number. I'm very easy to reach.

(And before someone runs to reddit or a forum again, that's not a lie. I won't elaborate on it and like everything else above, believe what you want. But it can all be proven if it ever became ridiculous.)

In closing
These are the facts. The haters, trolls and vengeful people of course will try to say “yeah, but...” and put their false spin on it and carry on the nonsense. But as always, I will not engage in it.
It's all pretty silly and it's all very sad that people choose to spend their time pursuing vendettas and hate and lies and creating dozens of fake profiles to do so. You're wasting your time, and my channel occupies way too much space in your head.
It's a channel about a guitarist who wears a Bucket on his head and some British-born guy playing his guitar. It's not that deep. Live your life.
And if you read this far you deserve a medal and a signed 8x10.

Thank you to the legitimate Buckethead fans who continually support the channel and don't fall for the hate and smear campaigns.


If you have any comments then email me at
natternet.com@aol.com