Helmet

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Helmet

Rock band

For the Record …

Combined Genres

Record Contract Controversy

New Guitarist Brought New Beginnings

Selected discography

Sources

Aggressive yet precise, Helmet doesn’t fit the “typical” post-punk band mold. Blending extensive musical training with intellect and brute force, the band quickly took off on an upward curve toward success in the early 1990s. “Helmets are put on when you want to prevent a good pounding. Helmet is put on when you want to get one,” said Craig Tomashoff of People.

Singer and guitarist Page Hamilton brought Helmet together in early 1989 in New York, after leaving avant-garde luminaries Band of Susans. Originally from Med-ford, Oregon, Hamilton wasn’t always interested in music. While growing up, he worked at a local logging mill by day, and during the evenings he lit smudge pots under trees in the Harry and David fruit orchard to keep the buds from freezing. “I was just a really nice little small-town geek who wanted to play baseball and football,” Hamilton told Rolling Stone. But in his senior year of high school, the music of Led Zeppelin IV— combined with what he now calls excessive marijuana smoking—completely changed Hamilton’s direction. He started learning to play guitar.

For the Record …

Members include Henry Bogdan , bass guitar; Rob Echeverria (joined group, 1993), guitar; Page Hamilton , vocals and guitar; Peter Mengede (born in Australia; immigrated to the United States; left group, 1993), guitar;John Stanier , drums.

Band formed in 1989 in New York City. Signed with Amphetamine Reptile Records and released “Born Annoying”/“Rumble,” 1989, and their debut album, Strap It On, 1990; signed a million-dollar-plus record contract with Interscope and released their first gold album, Meantime, 1992; released Betty, 1994.

Addresses: Record company —Interscope, 6430 Sunset Blvd., Suite 321, Hollywood, CA 90028.

After graduating from the University of Oregon with a major in jazz and classical guitar, Hamilton moved to New York to get his master’s degree in jazz guitar at the Manhattan School of Music. He had never heard of New York’s popular rock clubs like the Mudd Club or CBGB, but he did frequent the Village Vanguard, where his hero, jazz artist John Coltrane, had played. Hamilton soon hooked up with minimalist composer Glenn Branca’s famous guitar orchestra and then went on to play with wall-of-sound, Branca-influenced Band of Susans. He played on the album Love Agenda and toured with the band before forming Helmet.

Combined Genres

“Band of Susans and the whole distortion thing got me back into rock,” Hamilton explained in Rolling Stone.“I wanted to write songs and be part of the group, but they didn’t want it. I brought in some four-track demos of my stuff, and they said they liked the songs, but they weren’t right for the band, so I decided to leave.” Hamilton found a “whole new fun world” in the post-punk scene, but he also clung to his earlier musical influences. He decided to combine the two genres to form the basis of his new band.

“If you’re a dedicated musician, you’re interested in learning everything you can about music, so for me it’s never been a matter of some sort of ’purity of punk’ that you shouldn’t play well,” Hamilton told Guitar Player.“I’ve never believed in that… and I never will. It’s really limiting. That’s why the idea of one ’scene’ or another doesn’t really interest me—it’s about music.”

Reyne Cuccuro, a friend of Hamilton’s who worked at the music-trade magazine Rockpool, liked the demos that Band of Susans had rejected. She offered to pay for Hamilton’s classified ads in the Village Voice to search for bandmembers, and she introduced him to her then-husband, Peter Mengede, who became Helmet’s original guitarist. Mengede had moved to New York from Australia and joined Hamilton in the search for the remaining members. Through their classified ads, they found drummer John Stanier and bassist Henry Bogdan.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Bogdan had played with Portland’s punk pioneers Poison Idea. When he saw Hamilton and Mengede’s ad, he was already disillusioned with rock, preferring to concentrate on his career as a scenic artist and studio assistant to the minimalist painter Frank Stella. Still, he decided to reply to the ad because of his interest in Branca, the Cramps, and the early No Wave post-punk scene influence that Helmet offered.

Drummer John Stanier had moved to New York from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After he graduated from high school, Stanier studied orchestral percussion at the University of Miami and then dropped out. He developed a combination of control, power, and endurance through years of playing with the drum and bugle corps in his hometown. He performed with Fort Lauderdale hardcore bands while building his technique in the nationally known corps Florida Wave and Sunco Sound.

Once the band cemented, they considered names such as Tuna Lorenzo and Froth Albument before someone suggested Helmut, which they soon modified to Helmet. They recorded a demo tape that got the attention of Tom Hazelmeyer, the owner of the Minneapolis-based independent label Amphetamine Reptile Records. He decided to sign Helmet to his label. They released their first single, “Born Annoying” and “Rumble,” six months after the band had formed.

Record Contract Controversy

In 1990, Helmet went on to release their debut album, Strap It On, on Amphetamine Reptile and met with a fervent audience reception on their tour of the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe. They released their next single, “Unsung” and “Your Head,” in October of 1991, and the buzz began. Though Strap It On had only sold 10,000 copies, eight different major labels started courting Helmet in 1992. They ended up signing a controversial million-dollar-plus contract with Interscope Records. The contract allowed the band complete creative control and generous royalty rates.

Helmet released Meantime in June of 1992, and “Unsung” took off as their first hit single. After recording the album, Hamilton went to Seville, Spain, to join his old friend and bandmate Glenn Branca for a live performance of Branca’s Symphony No. 8. Then, Helmet traveled to Japan, Australia, and Hawaii to kick off the tour for Meantime. Though their record contract had generated skepticism and controversy, Helmet’s success rocketed. Meantime reached gold status, and in 1993, Guitar World published a cover story naming Page Hamilton a central figure of a new generation of players.

Interscope Records re-released Strap It On in December of 1992, while Helmet prepared the final leg of their tour before heading back into the recording studio. On February 17,1993, just before the tour began, the band asked guitarist Mengede to resign. “The relationship with Peter got increasingly strained,” Hamilton told Rolling Stone.“My take on it is that he became resentful of the fact that I was writing songs that the three of us were capable of playing, and he wasn’t as capable. A good musical thing can’t survive in that kind of vibe.”

“Until February 17, 1993,” Mengede replied in Rolling Stone, “it was four individuals contributing musically and in other ways. You’re in a partnership based on trust…. Page said my dismissal was due to our worsening personal relationship, which he said was largely his fault. I think that’s legitimate.” Mengede didn’t think everything about his dismissal was legitimate, however. He filed a suit against the band in Manhattan Federal Court, alleging, among other things, their failure to supply accounting records and their withholding of royalties.

New Guitarist Brought New Beginnings

In March of 1993, Mengede was replaced by Rob Echeverria, who had played in some early New York hardcore bands including Straight Ahead and Rest in Pieces. After finishing their ’93 tour, Helmet made their break into film soundtracks. They collaborated with House of Pain for the song “Just Another Victim” on the Judgment Night soundtrack, which was released in September of 1993. They then recorded the original version of “Milquetoast” for The Crow soundtrack.

In the summer of 1994, Helmet released their third album, Betty, produced by T. Ray. When Rolling Stone asked Hamilton about Helmet’s musical progression to Betty, he commented, “Strap It On was kind of an accident—we’d stumbled upon this thing we could all do well together. The next album was a little more metal. On this album, we were all aware we liked the groove aspect of things.”

Helmet continued their contribution to film soundtracks with a song for Johnny Mnemonic, featuring Henry Rollins and Ice-T. And they appeared in the Jerky Boys movie as a rock band, with veteran rocker Ozzy Os-bourne playing their manager. The band recorded Black Sabbath’s “Symptom of the Universe” and “Lord of This World” for the movie, but only “Symptom of the Universe” made it in. “Lord of This World” appeared as a giveaway with an English magazine called Volume. In addition, Helmet recorded their version of “Custard Pie” for the Led Zeppelin tribute album.

Helmet has grown and changed considerably since 1989, but Hamilton maintains that the band remains dedicated to their music. “Whatever anyone’s doing, they should do it with incredible passion,” he told Rolling Stone.“It’s the process itself, it’s trying to assert yourself with some discipline and reach something higher. That, tome, is critical.”