[
{
"name": "Real 1 Player (r2) - Inline",
"component": "38482494",
"insertPoint": "2/3",
"requiredCountToDisplay": "9"
}
]
For Helmet singer-guitarist Page Hamilton, an artist has a responsibility to create something unique. It’s an ethos he’s embraced ever since he began studying guitar as a teenager.
“It was and is an essential part of any songwriter and composer’s obligation as far as I’m concerned to create your own vocabulary and your own world,” he says via Zoom from his Glendale, CA home. Helmet performs on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights. “That was very important. I was a bit extreme when I was in my early 20s. If anything sounded remotely sing-able or catchy, I would throw it out the window. If it could be construed as a blues riff, I wasn’t doing it.”
Hamilton, who was born in Portland, OR, moved to New York in the mid-’80s to study at the Manhattan School of Music. He thought $600 would be enough to sustain himself. The money quickly ran out, and he recalibrated, migrating into a welfare hotel.
“I got a job working at the front desk working security from midnight to 8 a.m. but I got so far behind on my rent,” he says. “So I got a job as a driver delivering magazines. It paid off my back rent, and I moved into an apartment and finished grad school and joined Band of Susans. I auditioned for Glenn Branca and joined his orchestra. Then, I started writing songs and [singer-guitarist] Robert [Poss] from Band of Susans said the songs were really cool but not right for the band, so I started my own band. I took out an ad in The Village Voice and found [drummer John] Stanier and [bassist] Henry Bogdan.”
Helmet's unique sound developed shortly after the group's formation.
“I was walking home one night, and I got the note for ‘Repetition’ in my head and the note I heard was a whole step below my E string, so I just tuned it down to D,” explains Hamilton. “The riff came out, and the Helmet thing revealed itself to me. I stopped writing AC/DC and Husker Du riffs and started writing Helmet riffs. I knew it was good. I knew that nobody was doing it. I couldn’t wait to play it for people and for the band. Obviously, you have to have a great drummer, and Stanier was a great drummer.”
One of Hamilton's side gigs involved driving a van and picking up bands at New York clubs such as Wetlands and CBGBs and taking them to their shows.
“I would hear them say, 'We’re gonna make it. Live is going to be so incredible!’” he says. “I thought, ‘What a bunch of bullshit.’ I thought that you should just do music you dig and see what happens. When the bidding war [for Helmet] broke out, I was surprised as anyone. I had confidence. I thought we were good. We were the best band in New York, and that takes nothing away from my heroes like Sonic Youth. You have to have confidence, but if you do your homework and apply yourself and work hard, you develop that confidence. If you are just trying to be a rock star, you are probably going to suck.”
Early on, the group scored some major victories. It opened for Nirvana the first time the grunge group came through town, and it got a monthly gig at the underground rock club CBGBs. The band’s 1990 debut Strap It On generated major label interest, and the band signed to Interscope Records in the wake of a bidding war between labels.
After a terrific run, Helmet would break up in 1998, and Hamilton subsequently moved to the West Coast.
“I needed to leave New York because I was going to kill myself with drugs and booze and not sleeping,” he says. “I had enough money to go out and do my thing. I didn’t want to be one of those old guys skulking around the East Village for 40 years. I knew I had to do something different. I moved to L.A. It made the most sense. I knew I could do film work and have other opportunities that I wouldn’t have in Medford, OR.”
Danny Kortchmar, the great guitar and producer, told him, “You created something and it’s your thing” after Hamilton said he was going to stop playing guitar and just work on keyboards and samples.
“[Kortchmar] said, ‘Bullshit. You’re a guitarist and created a vocabulary that’s cool and that people want to hear. Jimi Hendrix wanted to be heard.' I thought that was pretty good advice from a good musician.”
The band returned with Size Matters, an album of hard rock songs that feature the kind of complex time signatures for which the band is known, in 2004 and hasn’t looked back.
While the group has steadily released new material in the wake of Size Matters, the forthcoming Left got off to a rough start. The group decided to record a new album, but Hamilton didn’t have any songs in the hopper.
“I had zero songs,” he says. “People asked if I was writing songs during the pandemic, but I was drinking beer and playing jazz guitar and giving lessons. I finished an orchestra piece on Feb. 6, and once we got the word about the album, I started sketching. I still have post-it notes all over the place. I would write little notes like ‘Bloody Well Right from Supertramp' and 'Joy, Part 1, Isaac Hayes.’ I’ll write song ideas down while driving, and it gave me a starting point and launch pad.”
Hamilton says a handful of new songs, including the hard-driving single "Holiday," which features an intricate guitar solo, will make it into the upcoming Grog Shop show and that performing live still feels "incredible."
“I did an interview the other day, and I was talking bout all the great opportunities and play with Ben Neill and Joe Henry and David Bowie and all these amazing things," he says. "I've worked with everyone from Mastodon to Jim Thirlwell and Jim Coleman from Cop Shoot Cop, but nothing replaced Helmet or came close to that level of buzz for me. I’ll hang it up eventually. But I still feel good. I love the new album. I’m working on the songs now, and they’re quite difficult. [Preparing to tour is challenging because] we have so much to learn, and we have limited rehearsal time. [Bassist] Dave [Case] lives in New York, and we’re not the Foo Fighters. We don’t have our own studio to go jam at.”
Coming soon: Cleveland Scene Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting Cleveland stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
“It was and is an essential part of any songwriter and composer’s obligation as far as I’m concerned to create your own vocabulary and your own world,” he says via Zoom from his Glendale, CA home. Helmet performs on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights. “That was very important. I was a bit extreme when I was in my early 20s. If anything sounded remotely sing-able or catchy, I would throw it out the window. If it could be construed as a blues riff, I wasn’t doing it.”
Hamilton, who was born in Portland, OR, moved to New York in the mid-’80s to study at the Manhattan School of Music. He thought $600 would be enough to sustain himself. The money quickly ran out, and he recalibrated, migrating into a welfare hotel.
“I got a job working at the front desk working security from midnight to 8 a.m. but I got so far behind on my rent,” he says. “So I got a job as a driver delivering magazines. It paid off my back rent, and I moved into an apartment and finished grad school and joined Band of Susans. I auditioned for Glenn Branca and joined his orchestra. Then, I started writing songs and [singer-guitarist] Robert [Poss] from Band of Susans said the songs were really cool but not right for the band, so I started my own band. I took out an ad in The Village Voice and found [drummer John] Stanier and [bassist] Henry Bogdan.”
Helmet's unique sound developed shortly after the group's formation.
“I was walking home one night, and I got the note for ‘Repetition’ in my head and the note I heard was a whole step below my E string, so I just tuned it down to D,” explains Hamilton. “The riff came out, and the Helmet thing revealed itself to me. I stopped writing AC/DC and Husker Du riffs and started writing Helmet riffs. I knew it was good. I knew that nobody was doing it. I couldn’t wait to play it for people and for the band. Obviously, you have to have a great drummer, and Stanier was a great drummer.”
One of Hamilton's side gigs involved driving a van and picking up bands at New York clubs such as Wetlands and CBGBs and taking them to their shows.
“I would hear them say, 'We’re gonna make it. Live is going to be so incredible!’” he says. “I thought, ‘What a bunch of bullshit.’ I thought that you should just do music you dig and see what happens. When the bidding war [for Helmet] broke out, I was surprised as anyone. I had confidence. I thought we were good. We were the best band in New York, and that takes nothing away from my heroes like Sonic Youth. You have to have confidence, but if you do your homework and apply yourself and work hard, you develop that confidence. If you are just trying to be a rock star, you are probably going to suck.”
Early on, the group scored some major victories. It opened for Nirvana the first time the grunge group came through town, and it got a monthly gig at the underground rock club CBGBs. The band’s 1990 debut Strap It On generated major label interest, and the band signed to Interscope Records in the wake of a bidding war between labels.
After a terrific run, Helmet would break up in 1998, and Hamilton subsequently moved to the West Coast.
“I needed to leave New York because I was going to kill myself with drugs and booze and not sleeping,” he says. “I had enough money to go out and do my thing. I didn’t want to be one of those old guys skulking around the East Village for 40 years. I knew I had to do something different. I moved to L.A. It made the most sense. I knew I could do film work and have other opportunities that I wouldn’t have in Medford, OR.”
Danny Kortchmar, the great guitar and producer, told him, “You created something and it’s your thing” after Hamilton said he was going to stop playing guitar and just work on keyboards and samples.
“[Kortchmar] said, ‘Bullshit. You’re a guitarist and created a vocabulary that’s cool and that people want to hear. Jimi Hendrix wanted to be heard.' I thought that was pretty good advice from a good musician.”
The band returned with Size Matters, an album of hard rock songs that feature the kind of complex time signatures for which the band is known, in 2004 and hasn’t looked back.
While the group has steadily released new material in the wake of Size Matters, the forthcoming Left got off to a rough start. The group decided to record a new album, but Hamilton didn’t have any songs in the hopper.
“I had zero songs,” he says. “People asked if I was writing songs during the pandemic, but I was drinking beer and playing jazz guitar and giving lessons. I finished an orchestra piece on Feb. 6, and once we got the word about the album, I started sketching. I still have post-it notes all over the place. I would write little notes like ‘Bloody Well Right from Supertramp' and 'Joy, Part 1, Isaac Hayes.’ I’ll write song ideas down while driving, and it gave me a starting point and launch pad.”
Hamilton says a handful of new songs, including the hard-driving single "Holiday," which features an intricate guitar solo, will make it into the upcoming Grog Shop show and that performing live still feels "incredible."
“I did an interview the other day, and I was talking bout all the great opportunities and play with Ben Neill and Joe Henry and David Bowie and all these amazing things," he says. "I've worked with everyone from Mastodon to Jim Thirlwell and Jim Coleman from Cop Shoot Cop, but nothing replaced Helmet or came close to that level of buzz for me. I’ll hang it up eventually. But I still feel good. I love the new album. I’m working on the songs now, and they’re quite difficult. [Preparing to tour is challenging because] we have so much to learn, and we have limited rehearsal time. [Bassist] Dave [Case] lives in New York, and we’re not the Foo Fighters. We don’t have our own studio to go jam at.”
Coming soon: Cleveland Scene Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting Cleveland stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
