Moving to New York City in the late 80s to pursue a degree in jazz guitar, Page Hamilton (b. 18 May 1960, Portland, Oregon, USA; guitar/vocals) ‘discovered distortion’ and new influences such as Big Black, Killing Joke and Sonic Youth during his time with Band Of Susans. The experience led him to form Helmet with fellow Oregon native Henry Bogdan (b. 4 February 1961, Riverside, California, USA; bass), guitarist Peter Mengede (b. 1962, Brisbane, Australia) and classically schooled drummer John Stanier (b. 2 August 1968, Baltimore, Maryland, USA), a veteran of the Florida hardcore scene. The band’s close-cropped, clean-cut anti-image was in deliberate contrast to their brutally heavy music. Hamilton’s lyrics drew from his life in New York and roots in Oregon, and were delivered with an angry roar in economical song structures, overlaid with an intense barrage of staccato riffing. Helmet played with rigid discipline, avoiding the high-speed delivery of many thrash and hardcore bands and generating enormous power as a result. Indeed, the band’s work would prove to have a lasting influence on a whole raft of alternative metal and nu metal acts who followed in their wake, from Nine Inch Nails to System Of A Down, Korn and Limp Bizkit.
While selling modestly, 1990’s independent albums Strap It On (the follow-up to the previous year’s ‘Born Annoying’ single) created considerable interest in Helmet, and their major label debut, Meantime (1992), showed much progression as the band established smoother rhythmic flows without compromising their sound. They toured widely, with Faith No More in the USA and Ministry in Europe, before undertaking headline dates of their own. Helmet subsequently parted company with Mengede (who went on to form Handsome), replacing him in mid-1993 with ex-postal worker Rob Echeverria (b. 15 December 1967, New York, USA; ex-Rest In Pieces). Before the release of a third album, the band recorded ‘Just Another Victim’ with House Of Pain for the Judgement Night soundtrack. Betty (1994) featured co-production from Todd Ray, plus one track concocted with Butch Vig, ‘Milquetoast’, which also featured on a soundtrack, this time The Crow.
The following year, Helmet’s former label, Amphetamine Reptile, took the opportunity to repackage their back-catalogue, while the band began work on sessions for their fourth studio album. Echeverria had departed by this point, leaving Hamilton as the sole guitarist on 1997’s Aftertaste. The album proved to be Helmet’s finest release since Meantime, highly commercial, confident and full of hair-raising chord progressions. Chris Traynor (b. 22 June 1973, Long Island, New York, USA; guitar, ex-Orange 9mm) joined the line-up for touring purposes, but two years later the band decided to call it a day.
Hamilton went on to tour with David Bowie and play in the short-lived Gandhi. He re-formed Helmet in 2004 with Traynor and John Tempesta (b. 26 September 1964, New York City, New York, USA; drums, ex-White Zombie), with the trio completing the same year’s Size Matters. Anthrax bass player Frank Bello (b. 9 July 1965, the Bronx, New York City, New York, USA) was brought in to help the band tour, but was replaced by Jeremy Chatelain after returning to Anthrax. Tempesta then left to join the Cult, leaving a line-up featuring Hamilton, Traynor and new drummer Mike Jost (b. 17 January 1979, St. Louis, Missouri, USA) to complete a second ‘comeback’ album, Monochrome. By the start of 2007, Hamilton was working with a completely new line-up featuring Jon Fuller (bass) and Kyle Stevenson (drums).
