Helmet

Two years ago, Page Hamilton singer, guitarist and founder of the proto-metal outfit Helmet, was driving around Los Angeles with the radio on. The jock on duty had just debuted the hotly anticipated new track from some nü-metal millionaires. Immediately after the airing, the DJ opened the phones for comments from the listenership. There was some expected best-thing-ever fawning, but what caught Hamilton’s attention was the first dissenting listener. The caller said the track was garbage and should be forgotten as soon as possible. The DJ attempted to bait the caller by daring him to tell the radio audience what he was listening to. The caller replied that he was playing Helmet in his car and explained how he hadn’t heard any rock music that good anymore. Not surprisingly, the DJ did not fight the caller on it.

“I thought I was going to hit a telephone pole,” says Hamilton about hearing the exchange. “Seriously, it was just a shock to be acknowledged in that context. It made me feel confident about my past, as well as my future.”

That future is right now. On September 14, Interscope will release Size Matters, the first collection of new Helmet music in seven years. The album’s title refers to, according to Page, “An obsession in (American) culture with higher, louder, bigger and faster. There are no rewards (or regard) for integrity and progressive thought anymore.” Hamilton has reactivated the Helmet name with a lineup including guitarist Chris Traynor (Orange 9mm, Bush, Helmet), drummer John Tempesta (Rob Zombie, Testament), and bassist Frank Bello (Anthrax). Recorded earlier this year and produced by Hamilton with assistance from producer Jay Baumgardner and former Nine Inch Nails associate Charlie Clouser, Size Matters isn’t necessarily a return to form. Rather, it’s an expansion of the vocabulary that Hamilton has built his reputation upon (minimalist crushing riffs, taut rhythmic propulsion, clusterbomb solos and seething lyrical invective) coexisting with a greater melodic sense.

“In the past few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to sit in the company of people like Bono, David Bowie and [film composer] Elliot Goldenthal and I soaked up a lot of ideas from those people,” says Hamilton, illuminating the path that got him to make Size Matters. “It gave me the confidence in my own writing. You listen to those early Helmet records and you’ll hear that ‘anti-songwriter’ vibe I had going around back then. I was using my voice as a rhythmic instrument, with less regard for the meaning of the words. Now I appreciate clarity.”

Over the course of nine years and four coruscating albums, Helmet was the vehicle for Hamilton’s reductionist rock aesthetic, a vision that bridged the gaps between underground-rock geeks, cosmopolitan art-snobs and populist headbangers looking for a new fix. Their 1991 Amphetamine Reptile debut Strap It On helped define a brusque element of America’s underground-rock scene, while its follow-up for Interscope, 1992’s Meantime sold over a million copies and helped lay waste to America’s vacuous hair-farming metal scene. The band released two more albums, Betty (1994) and Aftertaste (1996), prior to breaking up in 1998. Interscope/Universal Chronicles issued Unsung: The Best of Helmet 1991-1997, earlier this year, a collection whose parts still sound as fierce as they did on their respective release dates.

Hamilton had remained busy since Helmet’s dissolution six years ago. He went to New Orleans to write songs with programmer Charlie Clouser down at Trent Reznor’s studio. He did many sessions for film scores (S.W.A.T, The Good Thief, In Dreams, Titus) and worked on a rock-guitar opera (“Transposed Heads”). In addition, Hamilton recorded with a diverse array of artists including California electronica merchants Uberzone, mutant trumpeter Ben Neill, as well as a four-month stint touring with David Bowie behind his “Hours” album.

In 2002, Hamilton formed Gandhi, with a bunch of friends from NYC. The outfit played a few shows, but frequently ended up at the bar after rehearsals. While all this was happening, America was in the throes of nü-metal mania, a genre that owes much of its existence to the musical language Hamilton had developed in Helmet. In the liner notes to Unsung, Tom Hazelmyer, founder of Amphetamine Reptile, the label that foisted the band onto the world, nailed it when he said, “I think those bands need to fess up where they stole the sound from. You don’t blame the guy who let E=mc2 out of the bag.”

Having grown weary of traveling between Los Angeles and NYC to play with Gandhi, Hamilton put the brakes on the unit, and concentrated on writing songs. Around Christmas of 2002, Reach 454 singer Rene Mata introduced Hamilton to drummer Jonn Tempesta. Tempesta’s career began with him woodshedding in Bay Area metal band Testament, before being picked up to man the engine room in White Zombie, as well as leader Rob Zombie’s solo career. When Zombie said he was taking a break from recording to concentrate on film, Tempesta relished the idea of jamming with Hamilton on some of the guitarist’s new songs. Hamilton was still in contact with Chris Traynor, who played guitar on Helmet’s Aftertaste tour, and asked him if he wanted to join. Traynor, who for years had been suggesting Hamilton reconvene Helmet, jumped on board, without question. Hamilton was happy with the noise the three of them made in the studio, and started writing more songs. A demo of “Throwing Punches” made it into the hands of former NIN bassist, Danny Lohner, who was the music supervisor for the film Underworld. The track was credited to Hamilton, and appeared on the film’s soundtrack last year.

Earlier this year, Interscope label chairman Jimmy Iovine called Hamilton. He wanted to speak with him about two things. He first asked if Page would like to produce acts for his label. (Hamilton’s first job, the solo album from Bush singer Gavin Rossdale, is slated for release later this year). And then, Iovine told Page he would like for him to return to Interscope and make Helmet records. “After all these years, I was offered the opportunity to have the band name I started with,” says Hamilton. “That’s kind of hard to pass up!”

Size Matters is a powerful return to the kind of fury that raged under the Helmet banner. Recorded as a trio with Traynor on bass, the disc features all the punishing riff economy Hamilton has built his reputation on, but instead of delivering “Meantime In 2K4,” Hamilton has added more melodic parts for Traynor and Tempesta to drive. Helmet 2K4 has all the vision and the energy level needed to stand out in these dangerous times. The disc’s 11 cuts offer a plethora of sonic invention and punishing riffage. There’s the vicious big-dumb-sex of “Smart”; the bone-snapping pit bull disguised as a C-(maj7) chord that’s anchoring “See You Dead”; the menacing chromatic scales on “Throwing Punches”; and the closing “Last Breath,” which delivers a decidedly “old-school” Helmet vibe. Size Matters is a rare thing: a record made by veterans who haven’t mellowed with age, but have no reason to erect a monument to their past.

“I look back at those old albums with wonderment” says Hamilton, “like how we ever played ‘Vaccination’ without a click track, or why the snare drum sounds on ‘Betty’ are so high-tuned. The more you make records, the further you want to go from your previous work. Size Matters is merely an extension of it all.”

Former Anthrax bassist Frank Bello signed on to fill the bass slot so Traynor could return to his guitar duties when Helmet tours in support of Size Matters later this fall. Hamilton is joyous about how the new disc turned out, and swears by the work Traynor and Tempesta put into it. He is also well aware that some people will bristle about the absence of Henry Bogdan and drummer John Stanier. (Bogdan lives in Hawaii and has left heavy music behind, while Stanier does time in two bands, Battles and Tomahawk.)

“They were great musicians,” says Hamilton. “I knew back in 1997 that we needed a year off. We were getting on each other’s nerves, but I wasn’t ready to quit. People can hear those old records and there’s a certain kind of nostalgia attached to them. But really, it’s all about the vocabulary of the music,” he continues. “I think if you found someone who had never heard Helmet and played them a track from Aftertaste and the new album, back to back, they would think it was the same band.”

Like every person who bemoans the state of today’s rock culture, Hamilton didn’t sit at home and bitch about it on an Internet bulletin board: he went out and redressed the balance.

“I still like rock music,” he says. “I love to plug in and have the volume surround me. But there’s not a lot of rock out there that’s inspiring. There’s still hope: I got turned on to the Dillinger Escape Plan, because as soon as you hear them, you can tell they give a fuck. They play with passion and not some vague notion of being rock stars. Part of the job of being a musician is to have respect for the past and help bring things along now, and do something special. Whatever’s trendy or whatever the kids are buying, I won’t be doing.”

And if you’re that guy who called the radio station all those years ago, or if you found no reason to go to a record store for the past eight years, come in from the cold, and try the new Helmet on. For Size. And the head rush.