LOST CLASSICS: Helmet

PAGE HAMILTON REVISITS THE MAKING OF THE NYC ALT-ROCKERS’ NOW-BELOVED 1994 CURVEBALL OF AN ALBUM, BETTY

- Joe Bosso

IN 1992, PAGE Hamilton appeared to have won the music lottery. The jazz-trained guitarist’s alt-metal/posthardcore band, Helmet, darlings of the New York City downtown music scene, had signed a whopper of a deal with Interscope Records (worth a reported $1.2 million, staggering numbers at the time) and released their major-label debut, Meantime, which went gold in a matter of months. Helmet’s music was easy to digest: the guitar riffs and rhythms were brutal and direct, the grooves were pummeling and unrelenting, and Hamilton’s vocals were perfect if you were into the “Ozzy Osbourne as drill sergeant” thing.

It all worked like a charm. MTV played the video of the attack-mode single “Unsung” in regular rotation, and the band’s touring dance card was checked off for the next year. Any other rocker would have pressed “repeat” for the follow-up record, but Hamilton had other ideas. The band’s 1994 album, Betty, packed a few sure-fire bangers, most notably “Milquetoast” and “Wilma’s Rainbow,” but the rampaging pace was dialed down throughout most of the record, and there were even forays into jazz and avant-garde funk. For buzz-cut headbangers lusting for the hard stuff, Betty felt soft.

“The funny thing is, everybody who slagged the record now thinks it’s great,” Hamilton says. “That’s happened so many times with me, especially with critics. They write a review and kill an album, and 10 years later they re-review it and say, ‘I was wrong.’ Here’s what I believe: If you’re trying to repeat what you did last time because it was successful, that’s kind of weak. That’s why I’m such a fan of [the Replacements’] Paul Westerberg and [the Kinks’] Ray Davies. They made it okay to shoot yourself in the foot, as long as what you’re doing excites you. I’m not doing this to please an audience. I only try to please myself.”