Helmet

Thrasher Magazine, Oct, 2004 by Michael Coyle

SEVEN YEARS AND A BRAND NEW rhythm section later, Page Hamilton has decided to trot out the old horse and release another Helmet album. Regroupings like this are always dangerous endeavors. People expect a certain sound, perhaps more so from a hand as distinct as Helmet, and new line-ups don't often live up to expectations. Which is why it's pleasantly surprising to hear the new Size Matters rip and rumble and be that good old fashioned pull-your-hair-out melodic hardcore after all this time.

This is a Helmet record because, like other Helmet records, it's written by and driven by guitarist/singer Hamilton. But there's a new drummer (John Tempesta) and a new bass player (Chris Traynor), because, well, Hamilton says he isn't exactly sure why.

"You would have to ask him what his problem is with me," Hamilton says of Helmet's original drummer, John Stanier. "I've gone to see his band Tomahawk like 12 times and it's awesome. I miss seeing him play. He's amazing. Last time I went, there were a lot of mutual friends talking and hanging out and he wouldn't give me the time of day."

Asked it' there was a specific time and place when Helmet fell apart, Hamilton says no, but adds, "We were never good at communicating. There were times throughout the band's history where bottles and fists flew, people were shoved, but it was always stupid shit. We did have a lot of fun, but we could never talk." And so it fizzled slowly until there was no more Helmet.

Hamilton kept plenty busy, touring with David Bowie, working on many film scores. He was also coming out of a divorce around the time of Helmet's demise, and felt he needed to get away from his longtime home in New York. "I still keep my place there, and it is still my favorite city in the world. And I miss it. But it had become kind of destructive for me to stay there," he says. "It was just too easy to pop out of you apartment every night between midnight and 2am and just hit a bar until 5am. I felt like I wasn't getting anything done."

So he moved to Los Angeles, a place he says has a "shitty and cheesy" nightlife. Right or wrong, the new locale suits him fine. "I don't go out much. I'm getting so much work done. I study orchestration for films, I'm singing, like actually working at singing."

That's all well and good, but we had to ask the same question that must've popped into anyone who ever loved the whiplash grind and barking vocals of a classic Helmet track, didn't Hamilton miss all that? "I never stopped writing music like that. It's what I do. I knew I needed to get a band together, because I missed playing," he answers. "As fun as it was playing with Bowie--and that was a blast--it just wasn't heavy."

He started a project called Gandhi while still in New York to try and scratch that hardcore itch, but says he soon realized "it wasn't the right group of guys for those kind of songs. I kind of need metal guys. Metal guys that have feeling and dig where I'm coming from."

Where he's coming from is that famous Helmet sound, a barrage of angry chords, lifted for the chorus then slammed back into your skull: brutal, hypnotic and catchy. It is an 'attack.' It's not exactly metal influenced, he maintains, but he understands why people call it that. "I don't know where that attack comes from," he says dryly. Hamilton does have a degree in jazz guitar and maintains he owns Slayer's masterpiece Reign In Blood and maybe some Motorhead, but really not much metal at all. He got off on more melodic stuff, like Killing Joke, Wire and Gang of Four, which explains that subtle but important part of the Helmet puzzle. As for the brute strength, he just shrugs it off, "It's just the way I play, and it's not very delicate. Even if I'm playing something quiet for a movie, there's something about it that will be kind of ominous."

"I have a natural aversion to that Knitting Factory, art-school music bullshit," he continues. "I do that shit at home all the time. I have a Moog CP-251 and a low pass filter and I plug in cables and turn knobs and it's kind of cleansing and it's fun, but it's not something that I think is that listenable and I would never put it out. I like pop song structures. Working on movies lets me explore and do other things, but ultimately I needed to be making Helmet-style music."

Now he is. And it's like all that time making mellower music has revived his hardcore soul. A spin of the new record and old fans will feel like it's 1990 again and they've just blown a speaker listening to Strap It On and their morn is pissed because that rhythmic thrashing is shaking the fine china. Size Matters, indeed, and this is huge.