Two Louies (2002)
Last updated on January 3, 2010
First published by Two Louies Magazine, December 2002
The average person may not recall Page Hamilton by name, but I assure you this forty-two year old guitar maestro has built quite a career and reputation for himself. His wealth of experience ranges from playing in Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra during the early eighties, to more recent excursions in scoring music for film. His career has afforded collaborations and performances with the likes of David Bowie, members of Nine Inch Nails, and Limp Bizkit. But Page Hamilton will always be most closely associated with masterminding the brilliant sonic extremes of Helmet.
Helmet was a compound mass of aggressive, riff-oriented sound that also had personality, sustained in a capacity for experimentation, and the expression of moods and intellect. During the early nineties Helmet was noted for their heavily layered guitar assault and strong rhythmic impulses, while remaining free of all the excess and ego that hard rock was usually guilty of. The end result of their nine-year career was four albums (including one gold record) of music that was weighty but skilled, and smart but not too calculated. And oh yeah, fucking loud. Helmet rightfully owned their title as the chief suppliers of ‘thinking man’s metal’.
Musical integrity is something Page picked up early. His initial spark of musical inspiration came in the form of Led Zeppelin’s first album, which he remembers discovering at a payless drugstore in southern Oregon, where he grew up. After picking up the guitar however, he soon found himself drawn more strongly by the sentiments of jazz music, which would become a lifelong object of enthusiasm for him. “In the jazz world what I discovered at a young age was that those guys didn’t really sell millions of records. Coltrane and Miles Davis, they did okay, but they weren’t stars in the sense that a lot of rock bands were, and I think it set me off on the right foot to maintain a level of music and not be worried about the other rock stardom stuff.” With that in mind, Page went on to study classical guitar at the University of Oregon, and eventually pursued a master’s degree in jazz guitar from the Manhattan School of Music in New York. By 1989 Helmet was formed, and as they say, the rest is history.
Well that was all then, but what is now? I spoke with Page shortly after the formation of his new band Gandhi, his only group venture since Helmet disbanded in 1998. After pursuing possibilities for some solo work, Page grew impatient at the lack of opportunities to play live. “It got to the point where I had spoken with a couple of record companies about making a record and gotten a record deal done. Then Sept 11th happened and everything, and then a lot of stuff fell apart. It slowed me down… all that stuff sort of forced me to say, ‘Hey, you know I can’t wait any longer, I’ve gotta play now!’” And play they did. Page had found a band in guitarists Anthony Truglio and John Andrews, bassist Christian Bongers (of Loudspeaker, Botanica) and drummer and longtime friend Matt Flynn (Botanica). During October, Gandhi completed a round of shows in the east playing their new material alongside some old Helmet faves to small but receptive crowds. They headed into the studio early November, laying down tracks for a release anticipated sometime early next year.
It would appear that in a musical context, Gandhi represents an expansion on the songwriting skills Page had established with Helmet. While the new material bears some elements of Helmet’s weight, it goes further to incorporate a certain song-writing maturity that reaches beyond anything Helmet had produced. “Its probably more song-oriented and more melodic, not as riff-oriented as Helmet was. [With] Helmet I sort of prided myself on being anti-songwriter, cause I thought songwriters were all pompous jerks… but I realized, you know, you can write a song and it doesn’t have to be just walls of sound… big giant dumb riffs.”
What strikes me about Page is that the very process of creating music stimulates him. Possibilities motivate him. He wants to better understand and appropriate music, in a manner that will defy convention and speak most directly to spontaneity and feeling. Needless to say, he is quick to condemn the generic, lackluster feel of today’s popular music. “To me there’s a lot of music right now that’s not really musically that great, and bands that sell lots and lots of records that don’t have much to say.” This may be common knowledge to most of us, but Page primarily holds the industry responsible for the disappointing banality in popular music. Because of the industry’s reluctance to perpetuate anything new, the wider audience finds itself confronted by a very limited range of listening options governed by seemingly low standards. “The problem unfortunately with the music industry is that everything becomes so geared towards selling a product. The quality of music is not as important…I mean, there’s a lot of bad music out there, there’s no question about it… the music has taken a back seat.”
If Page’s talent and integrity as a musician are anything to go by, Gandhi should be excellent stuff. Like everyone else, I can’t wait.