Metal band Helmet has been on a music scene for along time and now some of the successful bands admit they learned playing instruments listening to their famous 1992 record Meantime. We thought the band’s guitarist and founder Page Hamilton has got something to say about Helmet latest album Monochrome, two new young members of the band and the soundtrack to the new horror movie Saw 3, so we couldn’t miss an opportunity to talk to him by phone. As Page turned out to be a very nice and talkative person, he also told us about his guitar exercises, drinking and smoking diet and his sexy voice!
Arranging the interview with
Page Hamilton, we mixed up the time and accidentally called him when he was right in the middle of another interview…
Ultimate Guitar: Seems like you’ve got a tight interview schedule!
Page Hamilton: I know, yeah… it kind of worn me out today.
I should be the last one then?
I have a couple more actually. I think it’s because of the popularity of this movie…
So, I think we’d better start now then! How do you feel about your new album Monochrome? Is everything going as you expected?
My biggest concern is always the music - if I’m happy with the album myself. The last two albums I’ve been extremely satisfied with. On this album the reviews have all been really great too. It’s always flattering when people like what you do. As far as it’s selling, it certainly is not burning up the charts, but that’s the responsibility of the record label. There are so many bands that put the records out and there’s so many competition. So, as long as people buy it and afford me an opportunity of making a second record to work on, it’s all good.
 |
| "I'm living like a bachelor looser. I've never been a reach man." |
One of the reasons you called your album “Monochrome” is the monotony of life. Living a life of a rock star with endless gigs, interviews and rehearsals, can you call your life monotone?
I don’t think it matters what you do in life so much. It’s just a part of the human condition, part of the existence of Earth which is ugly enough - it is converting boredom. Unless you’re just trying to survive every day. People are always battling for something. My existence for some people would seem strange. I don’t have a television. I own a TV, but it’s not hooked up. If you come to my house, you’ll see guitars, my little home recording studio, a keyboard, some John Coltrane posters and some sports things. Like I have autographed baseballs and a football helmet. I’m living like a bachelor looser. That might be monochrome for some people. I don’t think of myself as a rock star - I don’t drive in a Hammer and I don’t have a bunch of strippers in my pool right now. In fact I don’t even have a pool. I’m not like Fieldy from Korn. I’ve never been a reach man. Most money that I made was in early 90s. That house and car and all that furniture belongs to my ex-wife. She probably lives better than I do. But I still get to play guitar and music every day and that’s a trade of that. That’s what I chose rather than all the financial things. There’s no substitute for happiness. For me music is it - I feel honored and blessed that I get to do this.
You recorded guitars on the album yourself. Why not let your guitarist Chris Traynor do that? Is that like you don’t trust him?
The easiest way for me to get what I want is for just me to play the guitars. I went through this for years with previous line-ups of the band where I had different guitar players. I write the words and the music and no one’s got to play it the way I do. For me it’s easier to do the guitars myself. Not that I don’t trust Chris, I just don’t need anybody else to play the guitars. Chris understands that he doesn’t have to play guitar on a record just so people know he plays guitar.
Do you have any endorsements? What guitars are you playing?
In 2006 PSP released a Page open model that essentially kind of costumed with my Marzio pickups and Wilkinson tremolo and my specification - I moved tone. It is in a beautiful silver metallic color that a friend of mine Eric Sanco did for one of my guitars several years ago. I’ve been playing PSP guitars since 1991…
 |
| "My biggest concern is always the music - if I'm happy with the album myself." |
Wow…
Yeah
So, do you own any old guitars? Some of those that they don’t make anymore?
I have a 1936 Gibson L00 which is an acoustic guitar 'cause I became obsessed with Robert Johnson about 10 or 12 years ago. I have a 1952 Gibson ES-175 for my jazz school, I have 1965 Fender Candy Apple Red 12-string that used to be John Entwistel’s from The Who. I bought it about 15 years ago, it’s a beautiful guitar. I have a 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior that belonged to my ex-girlfriend and she probably doesn’t even know I still have it (laughs). I use that all the time. Now she probably would call me and ask for it…I have little known cool guitars GNL - two SC2s and an SC3 from like 1981, which are really old, but they are amazing instruments. I use one of that on an album I produce. The guitar player was freaking out, he didn’t know the guitars were so cool. I also have a MusicMan that I got in Germany - it had been in a music store forever.
You’re playing guitars since you were 17. Do you still practice every day?
I practice a lot. This week was bad because we were mixing and I was finishing string arrangements. For the last 14 days I was working 7 days a week. I think you have to continue to work on your skills. If I feel a little stale and insecure about my playing or unhappy with my playing, then the only thing I can do is start to practice. I’ve been working really diligently making Monochrome. I still do a lot of jazz exercises - like I study 60 bits per minutes through Cherokee - a jazz standard and I got till like 102 bits per minute. I played it for 28 days and then I moved on to another changes. I learned Charlie Parker melodies. I’ve been also studying composition and orchestration again - tried to write 8 measures for an orchestra. Doing strings on an album helps - I had to deal with violins and stuff. I’ve been working a lot lately. Since I split with my girlfriend I’m pretty lame. I play guitar and watch sports. It’s music, music and more music and sports. Beer, music and sports. A very exiting rock star life!
You’ve got a weird picture on your album cover. What does it mean?
That’s pilot in a jet and it’s just about to eject. He has a pull over his face to keep broken glass from shattering his skin and eyes. It is a photograph from a survival manual from the 50s. I though it was a beautiful photo and it has a lot of different meanings for me. Preparing to eject yourself from whatever it is - there’s real danger. There’s a guy on the back cover with a flare. All those images came from the same book.
Tell us about the video for the song “Monochrome” - what is it like and who directed it?
I was just producing a band and I asked the bass player to bring their digital video camera to the foyer of the studio. I sat on the road case and sang a song, picked up a guitar and put my hands right in front of the camera. I sent it to the label and they got it with a puppet from the movies Saw 1, 2 and 3. They did these various kinds of scenes with people murdered by the puppet, which I guess, is what happens in the movies. I haven’t seen it yet. I love making music, record and stuff, but videos are a whole different world, so I left that to them. I just said “Don’t do anything embarrassing.” They wanted me to be in the video chained to the floor with candles and the gasoline around me and I just said no. I’m not interested in doing a career in acting (laughing).
 |
| "The easiest way for me to get what I want is for just me to play the guitars." |
So, who chose that particular song for the movie Saw 3?
I believe the producers of the movie and/or my record label did. I told them - “Once I made the record I was happy with the whole record. I don’t care what songs you release as singles. Pick whatever you want.” On the last record Size Matters I’ve battled with the record label over the singles - I went back and forth, getting my arguments for why I wanna “See You Dead” or “Speak and Spell” as a single. And at the end of the day it didn’t matter - it just wasn’t worth it. So this time around I just said “You guys pick whatever makes you happy, whatever you thing you can turn people on with. That’s fine with me.” It’s not like “Here’s the embarrassing crappy single that I wrote just trying to sell the record.” I’m really proud of the song “Monochrome” - it’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.
Where did you get the idea of putting your song as a soundtrack to Saw 3? Did you like the movie plot or it’s more a promotion for your album?
The label approached me and said “Do you have any objections to making the song sound in the Saw movie?” I said “Everything I know about the movies is that they are horror, but I think they can’t be horror the way I understand it." I haven’t seen any of the movies. The guy that wrote music for Saw 1 Charlie Clouser - I was working on my vocals at his studio when he started working on Saw 1. So I got to see some of the scenes and kind of know what the movie is about. It’s goring, creepy or whatever, but there are no graphic scenes of rapping a child, molestation - things that I would find objectionable, that I wouldn’t want to be associated with. It can be a horror movie with blooding guts - that’s fine, no problem with that. I know I have to get around and see the movie at some point. They keep telling me to, but didn’t have a chance. We might play the premier party in Las Vegas, so I guess I will get to see it then. It might be fun - I like going to Vegas 'cause I like caring beer around on a side walk.
You’ve just toured with Warped Tour. How was it - boring or fun?
Both! Some days were amazing - like San Francisco, all of the west cost shows were fantastic. Some of the shows got really hot - like in Cincinnati, OH, the place was brutal. There were about 5 shows that were really hot, dirty and dusty - we were breathing dust and grabbled it. Those shows were tough, but we has a bus, so we had air conditioning to escape to, I played a lot of guitar at the end of the bus, drank a lot of beer and met some new people, so that was pretty fun. Playing the shows was great - I love playing my shows, so that was the main reason for me to be out there.
You’ve been around for quite a long time. When it comes to rock music, do you think the music quality is improving in any way or it all is just getting worse?
There’s not dramatic improvement, there’s the re-arrangement of ideas. There are a lot of things that have been established or been re-vegetated - weather it’s a Led Zeppeling sounding-like band or Clash or Ramones. But there are some really component musicians. I was surprised on a Warped Tour so many bands can play and sing. I don’t know if the writing has gotten any better though. I still think that to come up with your own sound is pretty significant and that’s what I miss from a lot of younger bands. I’m producing bands now and I’m always encouraging them to try to make it about the music and do their own thing rather than wear influences on their sleeve.
 |
| "I used to think smoking sounds sexy, but now I think I just sound sexy naturally!" |
What about the bands you’re producing?
I just finished a record with a band called Classic Case from North Carolina. They are a lot poppier than Helmet, but are really good players and good writers. I also did a record by a band called Toddie Mochie that is a heavy band with a bit of a Spanish culture influence 'cause the singer is Mexican-American and his wife, the bass player, is Cuban-American. They are really good. There are some of the bands that I saw on the tour and liked. One of the bands is called Against Me! and another band is called The Blood - they were fun to watch. I like this pop band called Motion City Soundtrack - the singer’s got a really great voice. I can dig stuff like that too. Valient Thorr - they’ve got a classic rock thing going, but the vocals are really different from a classic rock.
Being a rockband frontman… ok, now I know you’re not a rock star, but still a “rockband frontman”… you should have some bad habits like smoking or drinking a lot…
I quit smoking about a year and a half ago, then smoked for the first half of the Warped Tour. Then I stopped again. The battle is going on for 15 years - off and on. Half of the time I’ve been smoking, half of the time I’ve been not. Right now I’m not and I’m feeling much better. Drinking goes in phases - I drink a lot for a month and then I won’t drink at all for a month. This week I’ve only had about four beers - I had to stop, I was feeling really crappy last week 'cause I’ve been drinking every day at the studio with the young bands. They kept buying those 18 packs of shitty beer and before you know you had 4 or 5 beers and it’s midnight. I had stomach aches and stuff, I wasn’t eating well, so now I’m kind of healthy. We’ll see how long it lasts!
…and the questing was - do you think that affects your voice a lot?
It does. It takes a couple of weeks if I’ve been away from it for a while - I’ll be competent, it’ll be ok, decent. Once I was two weeks on a Warped Tour, my voice really kicked into a high gear and I really was singing well. But by the end of it you’re pretty beat and you’re about 40 shows in and there’s about 10 shows left, you loose a little something on a top end. I can still sing with power and have energy and my basic voice was there, but there were certain things that I was doing for those middle 30 shows that I couldn’t do the first ten or the last ten. It was such an intense tour - there were 50 shows in 60 days. Smoking absolutes affects your breathing and you wind. You need your wind to support your notes. I used to think smoking sounds sexy, but now I think I just sound sexy naturally! (laughs)
 |
| "There are no graphic scenes of rapping a child, molestation in Saw III - things that I wouldn't want to be associated with." |
Definitely!
I think I just have that graveled voice. I’m jealous of the singers like Tom York and people that have that beautiful pure tone. One guy was asking me why so many Helmet songs appeared in scary horror kind of movies and I said “I guess I have a scary voice!” It’s not very pretty anyway! But it comes natural, I don’t need to smoke to make it better.
If you punched "Most Played" on your iPod, what would come up?
Oh boy… This last month I’ve been consumed with the band I’m working on. Last two months I’ve been listening to Charlie Parker because he’s a great jazz saxophonist. I’ve made up my mind to focus on his music, to learn as many of his songs as I could because it’s such a great harmonic ear training. I’m trying to get that saxophone fluidity into my playing and a lot of it showed up on Monochrome. If you listen to the solos on “Brand New” and “Bury Me” - there’s a lot of saxophone kind of stuff that I’ve been trying to do for years on a guitar. Coltrane and Charlie Parker has really started to come up now. Today I downloaded on iTunes a Queen album “A Night At The Opera” 'cause I listened to Queen last week - my healthy week- when I was exercising. I listen to that kind of stuff all the time and then once or twice a year I have to listen to power age every day for two weeks - that stuff still inspires me and kicks my ass.
So, you’re more into older stuff, no new bands…
Yeah… I know it’s sad, but I don’t really keep up on bands. If somebody tells me there’s a band to check out, I always do. I love the Dillinger Escape Plan though!
A month ago you were talking about playing some shows with Helmet. Are you still planning to do that?
I hope so! We cancelled shows in New York 'cause there wasn’t enough time to promote them and get them together. We’re working on Europe shows right now - in November and December.
Where in Europe do you want to go?
We would go to London, Hamburg, Berlin… I’d love to go to Vienna, I haven’t been there for a long time, Madrid, never played in Portugal, I wanna go to Southern Germany as well… lot of places!
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2006
