Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Left Of Centre With PAGE HAMILTON From HELMET

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Left Of Centre With PAGE HAMILTON From HELMET · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hey, this is Page Hamilton from Helmet and we have a new album called
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  Left. It just came out November tenth. All right rock on Beautiful Piece.
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  Thanks for joining us tonight, Runna yeah man. And as you say,
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  how Much released your lightest album Left back on November the tenth. Bryce.
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  You've been out a couple of weeks now, how has it been received?
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  Everybody tells me all the positive stuff, So as far as I know
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  positively, I don't read reviews and I don't pay attention and I don't they
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  send me emails. You got this ad and that ad, and it's number
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  one metal album in Australia on Spotify and it's number four rock album and it
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  means it all means next to nothing to me because I don't let you know,
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  say it's my job's done as far as the album is concerned. Once
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  it's released once actually, once it's mastered and the artwork's done and I passed
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  it off to the label, then I just have to learn in the songs
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  for live. So that's my job, you know. I can't worry about
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  the other stuff. Did you find that your fans generally sort of go into
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  your new music with a sense of expectation or they sort of more trust it.
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  Whatever you put out is going to be enough. I don't know now.
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  I think early on in the you know, in Helmet Mock two,
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  everybody who had expectations because the band had been gone for a while and it
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  wasn't the same rhythm section, and so of course people had expectations. But
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  the first album was Size Matters That in two thousand and three or four whenever
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  that was that came out, you know, after the hiatus, after the
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  band broke up in ninety eight, and I remember Decibel it's a metal magazine.
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  Maybe now it's online. I forget still around. I believe really good
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  writers. They reviewed the album, and then three years later or two years
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  later, they re reviewed it. They were like, we were wrong about
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  this song and the song. It's a really great album, just doesn't sound
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  like Beyer meantime or whatever. And you're always gonna kind of come up against
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  that if you do an album that everybody holds it high esteem, you know,
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  in a couple of albums, and people want that, you know,
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  for the rest of their lives. I guess, but I couldn't. I
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  couldn't, you know, write the same song over and over again. It's
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  just not mine. It's not in my DNA. You know. I had
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  a conversation when I sang and played on a Lincoln Parks song and Mike Shanoda,
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  the the rapper and kind of producer in the band, he said,
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  yeah, man, we made our first album, sold you a bunch of
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  millions of records, and so we made our second album exactly the same.
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  And I said, yeah, my approach is different. I like to kind
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  of try to do the opposite, you know. So yeah, there's always
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  I think some people are cool with it and some, you know, some
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  people are not cool with it. So the press release says that the eleven
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  songs on the new album are Laina and Mina in their execution and previous oral
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  throwdowns like I know you didn't ride that mite, but do you a great
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  they do? Cut to the chase. Yeah, there's there's no there's no
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  fat anywhere the I was just talking about this last interview that during the pandemic,
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  a friend of mine suggests that I give guitar lessons because I was just
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  sitting on my ass drinking beer and a lot of my students didn't want to
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  adhere to my my jazz guitar regimen. So after like one or two lessons,
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  they're like, you know, I want to write. I'm you know,
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  I'm writing songs for my band and riffs and to start working on other
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  people's music, like ninety percent of them, like all over the place,
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  from Melbourne to to Lose, France to you know, Chicago and Brooklyn and
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  Seattle and Boise and Portland and god where else. So I have students.
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  I can't even think, oh, Philly, bunch of guys in Philly,
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  and so I spent so much time arranging and working on other people's music.
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  I think when it came, you know, and I've been producing Helmet albums
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  since nineteen eighty nine, when it came time to sit down to write this,
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  it just kind of flowed out, you know, and came out,
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  and I was like, no, you know, so it was it wasn't
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  easy to distinguish between bullshit and you know, great you know, great parts
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  and arrangements. So yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty to the point I
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  think I think it's pretty clear where I'm coming from. Oh right, that
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  this next for us is going to fly in the face. Is something you
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  said a bit earlier about not reading review. It's like, it's not often
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  that I get to speak to someone after I reviewed their album. Mate,
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  So which you monder if I read you what I write in the review about
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  the song, and then you tell me if you think I'm on the right
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  track or not. Okay, so the review starts off, I've said Helmut
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  of the musical Chameleions of hard rock and metal founding member, lead guitarists and
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  vocalist Page Hamilton, is the only part of Helmet's music that have remained consistent
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  since nineteen eighty nine. But it is because of his willingness to experiment that
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  Helmet has proven impossible to lump into any one genre without an album released Instead
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  of the World. In twenty sixteen, Hamilton has taken his times crafting album
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  under nine Left, once more creating an album but the unmistakable DNA that his
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  Helmet coursing through its veins, but also promising more subtle nuances with an acoustic
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  track and string corset featuring of mostly eleven songs. Opening with the track Holiday,
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  Helmet's soon settled into the groove, with Hamilton running through a list of
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  what soundsload things you don't want to encounter on holidays. He sounds angry from
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  the outset despite the pleasant nature of the music. He is already a guitar
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  heavy album with the Gravel Interview, his tones giving off an almost industrial edge,
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  which he is kicking in the bollocks a couple of minutes in when the
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  guitar solo shrieked without warning and upsets. That is quite Albut Mass is of
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  unconventional sonic disparities and he's trends singing like you continue just one tracking, Uh,
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  sonic disparity, you froze for a set. But yeah, that sounds
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  good. Uh. I've never I think I'm of the school of thought that
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  I just kind of let the songs do this, do the do the talking,
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  you know, the the harmonic kind of vocabulary has has developed from day
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  one walked home that night and got the rift to repetition in my head.
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  The first song is Strap It On. It kind of opened up. They
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  opened the floodgates as far as riff writing and you know, listening to music
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  that I was hearing in my head rather than rather than making it sort of
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  noodling on the guitar. A lot of the metal bands and people I've worked
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  with. I won't mention any name. It's sort of like everybody in the
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  band has a guitar and they're noodling around and they string a couple of riffs
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  together and there's your song. And that can work for a while, but
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  not for thirty five years. I think you still have You have to have
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  listened to a lot every kind of music, from Beethoven to Bob Marley to
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  the Beatles to you know, to John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and you know,
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  uh Slayer. You know, you have to listen to everything and and
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  absorb what's musically going on, and then you're gonna, you know, hopefully
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  digest it and and regurgitate things. You know that that represent you, your
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  musical personality, and that's I think always been important to me. It's I
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  never wanted to sound like anybody else, and I couldn't. You know.
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  In fact, I don't think I could sound like bon Jovi, you know,
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  and uh, nor would I want to. But you know, I
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  never really played in a cover band, and you know, and I so
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  that it's it's always kind of been my thing. And yeah, I mean
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  there's some chords on this album that I've never used before, song Bombastic,
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  in particular in the bridge. I really really enjoy it. It's a pentatonic
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  kind of melody, really catchy melody. And that these fucking four really weird
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  chords. I will I will bore people with you know, the colors,
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  the extensions and alterations of the chords. I haven't. I haven't written them
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  out. I couldn't quickly. But yeah, it's it's I think a lot
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  of bands like get Stale and uh, you know, repeat themselves. And
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  it's okay to have a sound in a vocabulary, but but you don't want
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  to say the same thing over and over again, right, I mean,
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  there's I mean, there are only so many things you can kind of write
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  about. And you know, there are twelve notes in the you know Western
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  chromatic scale and and you know, but it's still a song. Is still
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  you know melody, rhythm, harmony, form or the structure and text,
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  the words. That's what comprises a mozart area. And you know, Angel
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  of Death, that's all those five elements make up a song. So what
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  are you going to do with that? And I preach to my students practice
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  the vocabulary, you know, expand your vocabulary practice, rhythm practice, harmony
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  practice, melody scales or patios, chord voicings. And that's what I do
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  every fucking day of my life. You know. That's why jazz is such
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  a fucking amazing genre of music, because it's it's about improvising, you know,
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  it's not about a bag of tricks and people. You hear people would
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  see a band the other night, a front your friend of mine plays in
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  and guitarist is playing the Samuel bag of tricks for thirty five years, you
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  know, and it's a bores me, okay, So I say gun Fluff
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  is next, opening with a wicked drum fill from Kyle Stevenson before Hamilton slides
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  up to the microphone, who works his magic his guitar work with rhythm guitarist
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  Dan Beaman. He's already flawless, the two locking together. It's tight of
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  the narrow die. This is more of a dreamy sort of a tune,
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  very studd for radio as a typically meaty hawk which is sporadically offset by tempo
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  changes, and only his helmet can do the tractor rousemanmentarily following the chugging guitar
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  work, ending in a wall of feedback that introduces New York City tough Guy.
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  Yeah, that's the topic that I've addressed before, and it's an issue
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  in the United States, you know, gun violence, more kids between the
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  ages. I forget the exact age range, but I want to say six
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  years old to nineteen years old. For some they include young teenagers and that
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  die from gun guns than any other cause in the United States right now,
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  and uh, we're doing nothing about it, you know. So that's what
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  this song is about. The structure is I don't know how I came up
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  with it. I had that riff and that you know, that pattern and
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  the vocal melody that follows it, then that you know harmony, and I
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  just got these ideas, and so every chorus is a little different, you
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  know. It's I love playing a song. It's a it's a burner live
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  because it requires so much breath just about we do it at the end of
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  a chunk, because I just about pass out when I say because there's one
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  of the co producers was like, maybe should put a little instrumental section in
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  here because there's a lot of words, and I'm nope, it's got to
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  be fucking rapid fire. That's that's the way it goes, you know.
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  So and fluff F l u F was a band in San Diego, California
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  with a punk rock icon pal of ours named Otis Bartholomew who went by the
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  name Oh. He passed away last year and so that's a little tip of
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  the cap to him. And we were very politically politically aligned and it was
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  a beautiful, beautiful human being. He was there for day one when Helmet
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  played San Diego, and it always supported us, and Fluff opened up for
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  us. It was a cool picture of us at a festival a million years
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  ago when I had hair, And on the side of my sixteenth space rack
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  on the stage is a fluff sticker. So yeah, that's that. And
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  I like the idea of fluff being left, you know, substanceless, you
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  know, like and so the gun fluff is I'm referring to the lip service
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  that these fucking politicians serve. Like those thoughts, I had thoughts of prayers
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  in there. At one point I thought, that's too obvious, you know,
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  they they that's that's what they, all these Republicans say every time there's
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  you know, a mass shooting. You know, there's been since I've been
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  in Europe. I've read about four. I've been over here since December sixth,
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  and I don't follow the news super closely in the United States, but
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  I try to. There's been four shootings. It's insane. Yeah, oh
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  so on New York City Tough Guy. As the title suggests, this song
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  starts tough as fuck, massive guitar rip, setting the chine for a slower,
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  more deliberate number that stillses the restive niceties would expect. It strikes me
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  as a cool live song, especially when Hamilton launches into a tasty solo over
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  the top of a temper drum pattern that reaches his climax well casually dropping back
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  into the earlier tone and feel of the song. Yeah, it's about my
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  ex wife. She was She was a New York City tough guy, so
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  she thought, and uh, yeah, love love her and wish you're the
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  best, having spoken with her in twenty something years. But it just I
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  had that idea in my head for a million years because she just had this
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  hard exterior that was a bit of actress, a bit of a you know.
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  Uh, she was always trying to have control in the relationship. And
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  yeah, so yeah, it's a fun song to play man, it's really
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  fun. The space that chord, it's cool. Yeah, well it makes
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  the way I'm starting this next sent it's even better than now I know what
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  it's about. I put and then it's over. I shrig did make up
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  a massive guitar riff Greeks. There is repeating at different junctures to maximize effect.
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  This is another more measured track, and by that I mean not praying
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  to eclectic and unexpected outbursts. You can never be too sure, which Chelod
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  seemed to understand. Is this long upsey intensity, casually swirling and snapping urgently
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  at his own heels with short, sharp outbursts of oppression. Yeah. I
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  spent probably two days alone just trying to come up with a five to four
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  drum tom groove on that thing. And then I said fuck it, and
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  I just said I have a drummer, let him do it. But it
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  was kind of the you know, had that rhythm pattern in five and I'm
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  referencing a few political songs from my youth, one being Inner City Blues by
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  Marvin Gay, Rockets, Moonshots, has and have nots find you. I'm
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  trying to leise makeup and being like a triple on tondo, a kind of
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  word like you can make make something up, or a person has their character
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  is their makeup, or someone can wear makeup. And so there are a
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  few political politician references in their particular. Donald Trump obviously bloated feckless orange,
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  and dicklas He's the orange man. I was misquoted and by blabbermouth from an
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  interview I did. And I went to our publicist and said, I never
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  said orange juice face. And the journalists went back and listened to the tape
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  and I said, orange douche face, So thank you. That way funnier
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  than orange juice. So there's that, you know, good guys, bad
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  guys. All life choices, you know, Uh stayed upon your name I
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  got from Mark Twain. Uh you just you know, I kind of it
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  was kind of kind of wanted to have a few references in there. When
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  I'm writing, I surround myself with books and notebooks that I've written in,
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  and then I'm writing in and uh novels and poet a lot of books of
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  poetry, and and Twain is very musical. If you read read his prose,
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  it's very poetic in a way. It's it's pretty amazing actually, uh,
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  I mean, obviously he was a genius, but it's pretty amazing to
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  kind of analyze it from that from musical standpoint. Yeah, so and Neils
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  to say, Marvin Gaye was, you know, the greatest. Another well
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  placed guitar solo brings make up to her clothes before Big Shot makes a big
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  impression, but you get more tasty guitar. Riss I said it, but
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  I shall say it again. Left is not just big on guitars, but
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  massive in a good way. Big Shot is a starttering example of the diversity
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  of Helmet, at once a rock song but also a scintillating insight how a
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  rock song can undergo a metamorphosis within itself without losing focus well threatening to explode
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  in any number of directions. Big Shot instead resistant expectation and expectation, proving
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  once more than Helmet, guided by their creative outputting more than that of expectation.
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  Yeah, that was a working title because I got the when I'm in
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  my car or listening to music, I have post it notes or a little
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  notes or notebooks everywhere by my bed, in the car and the living room
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  and the studio, and I write lines down or I hear a song,
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  I go oo the bridge that's cool, and that Billy Joel song Big Shot,
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  has that amazing chorus. That drum part is just some about that big,
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  wide, open groove. And so I came I had that big open
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  groove. And again the verse there's only one verse in the song. It's
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  in five because I just was feeling it. And then sort of sort of
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  when you go from five to four, it kind of seems tends to accelerate.
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  And then I went into the to the Bridge and it's it is.
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  It's another song about sort of you know, politicians and they're double speak.
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  You know, you think everybody loves you, but I know you're an asshole.
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  That could pertain too many people actually, but narcissists. It's not specifically
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  Trump, but all the all of the GOP in the United States are just
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  they're just attention starved morons and they're you know, like I just read a
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  review of Marjorie Taylor Green's book. She's a representative from the state of Georgia,
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  and she got one star and someone one woman said, toilet paper is
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  cheaper, and that made me really happy. Well, on just skipped through
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  to the last track now mate, So you've got a couple of minutes off
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  between interviews, so it's that album closer Resolution starts with a soothing cow bell
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  section before going your jazz honors and beautifully so it is a completely unexpected but
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  most assuredly welcome finale to Left showcase and yet another sonic weapon in Helmeut's arsenal.
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  It steadily builds a sendency and urgency just before taking that final step.
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  So that's still close, almost teasing of what could have been. It is
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  a teaser of the direction. So is it the teaser of the direction of
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  the next album from Helmet or is it nothing more than the closing salbo from
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  a band who take pride in adhering to only their own rules. Time will
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  tell, but it's all then Left will easily pass the time and most definitely
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  fill the boy. Yeah, I'm not sure, but it was. It's
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  another thing. It had been in my head for years that I'd wanted to
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  do a tip of the cap to one of my all time heroes, John
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  Coltrane, and that he was like it was so short, and I go,
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  well, I'm not do like an extended improv on an album, you
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  know, it's not it's not a jazz album. I helped music is informed
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  by jazz or shape by jazz, and or music and heavy metal and punk
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  and noise and all these things. So that song, I thought that that's
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  go on line that he plays the melody and the second movement from A Love
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  Supreme is perfect for the electric guitar. And I had to coerce Kyle into
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  doing the drum part. He said, I can't play jazz. I'm like,
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  just swing, just follow me and we'll do this. So I comped,
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  I laid down the chord changes and then improvised over it, and then
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  came in with the head. Yeah. Just yeah. It's really beautiful,
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  beautiful tune. One of my one of my favorites of all time. Very
• 22:07
  good, all right, brother, Well we'll write me something now so you
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  can get yourself something to drink before the next interview. But thanks very much
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  for your time, mates, good getting your insights on the album, brother,
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  and enjoy the rest of you tour. I appreciate it. Chris,
• 22:17
  nice to meet you man. You might take a bye bye