Bryan Mantia

Bryan Kei Mantia (born February 4, 1963), known professionally as Brain, is an American rock drummer. He has played with bands such as Primus, Guns N' Roses, Praxis, and Godflesh, and with other performers such as Tom Waits, Serj Tankian, Bill Laswell, Bootsy Collins, Les Claypool, and Buckethead. He has also done session work for numerous artists and bands. History Mantia was born February 4, 1963, in the South Bay city of Cupertino, California, to an Italian American father and a Japanese American mother. As a teenager, Mantia became interested in such artists as James Brown, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix, acts that featured groove-heavy sounds. 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. Mantia attended the Percussion Institute of Technology in Hollywood, California, during the mid-1980s to further hone his craft. During this time, he was a member of local funk-rock band named the Limbomaniacs (which would later become part of Ben Wa). In 1989, Mantia joined Primus briefly, before breaking his foot, forcing him to pull out of the band. 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.