Helmet’s Page Hamilton On The New “Live & Rare” Release, Future Band Plans, Solo Projects & More
Metal pioneers Helmet may have done just anything a heavy rock band can commercially, but until November 2021, Helmet had never released a live album. Live & Rare is now out within the heavyweight black vinyl, CD digipak and digital formats, as released via earMUSIC. Per Helmet frontman Page Hamilton in a prepared statement about the release: “After persuading our label folks in Hamburg to bake these old tapes, we finally managed to mix 2 live shows for release. Side 1 was recorded at CBGBs, which was our neighborhood club, a 10-minute walk from home… It captures the early frenetic energy of the band as well as my lack of scintillating stage banter.”
Continued Hamilton in that very same prepared statement: “Side 2 is part of the set from the Big Day Out festival in Melbourne, Australia. Our first trip down under is a bit of a blur after almost 30 years but the memories I have are fond. A brief escape from the frigid NYC January dreariness was welcome relief. Unbundling at Bondi beach, surrounded by beautiful topless women sunbathing next to the clear, clean, warm water of the Tasman Sea was soundly beating the 6-flight walk-up, grocery-schlep to my East Village apartment while wrapped up like ‘Nanook of the North.’ The shows, hmmmm. My performance was no doubt effected by all the fun in the sun and copious amounts of alcohol [red label Coopers mate]. Someone did manage to run a 2″ 24-track tape machine during our set at the Melbourne Big Day Out; thanks are due to those folks. We’ve had these tapes collecting dust in the band locker — New Jersey pre-2001, North Hollywood since — for all these years so we enlisted our talented pal Toshi Kasai to mix some of the set and Golden Mastering to polish things up.”
Helmet aside, Page Hamilton has never been idle for too long. He has composed and/or performed music for numerous film projects, including Heat, Titus, In Dreams, Catwoman, and Chicago Cab. He has worked as a record producer, notably producing the album Distort Yourself by former Bush singer Gavin Rossdale’s band Institute beyond albums for Bullets & Octane, Classic Case, and Totimoshi. He was a member of David Bowie’s band on the singer’s Hours Tour. He has been part of albums by Linkin Park, Wire, Joe Henry, Therapy? and German avant-garde guitarist Caspar Brötzmann. And on the jazz spectrum — yes, you read that correctly: “jazz” — he has performed with his own groups The Page Hamilton Quintet and The Jazz Wannabes, in addition to collaborations with mentor John Stowell.
On December 3, 2021, I had the pleasure of speaking with Page Hamilton via Zoom, as embedded below. Beyond Live & Rare, we talked about future projects for Hamilton and Helmet, rock influences, and hobbies when not doing music. More on Hamilton can be found here, here and here.
About the Author
Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."
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