* En anglais uniquement
Like many influential bands,
Helmet were born out of an unusual set of influences. Oregon-born guitarist and founder
Page Hamilton had actually moved to New York City to study jazz, but found inspiration in the late '80s through post-punk acts
Sonic Youth,
Killing Joke, and
Big Black, and envisioned a group that combined then-unusual tunings (particularly dropped D) with uneven and jazz-like time signatures and harmonies. The result was
Helmet, the East Coast's answer to Seattle's then-underground sensation
Soundgarden.
Hamilton recruited bassist
Henry Bogdan from Oregon, along with Australian guitarist
Peter Mengede and Florida drummer
John Stanier for the group's first incarnation.
Helmet's independent label debut EP,
Strap It On, showcased the group's raw power -- both instrumentally and in
Hamilton's growling vocals -- through tracks like the mocking "Sinatra" and rocking "Bad Mood."
Signed to the Interscope label soon thereafter, the same lineup released its breakthrough 1992 CD,
Meantime. MTV aired three videos by
Helmet, then the only band close to the Seattle grunge sound on the East Coast, in "Give It," "In the Meantime," and the distorted, stop-and-start showcase "Unsung."
Hamilton,
Bogdan, and
Stanier collaborated with Irish rap group
House of Pain on "Just Another Victim" for the 1993 film Judgment Night, after
Mengede left the band. The popular soundtrack (with its unorthodox mix of rappers and alternative bands like
Ice-T and
Slayer,
Sir Mix-a-Lot and
Mudhoney) created even more of a demand for
Helmet's next CD. Replacing
Mengede with guitarist
Rob Echeverria on 1994's
Betty,
Hamilton crafted an album even more versatile -- and at times even heavier -- than
Meantime. The song "Milquetoast" appeared on the soundtrack to the hit film The Crow;
Stanier's unrelenting drumming drove tracks like "I Know," and
Hamilton's jazz background showed on the cover of
Dizzy Gillespie's "Beautiful Love." Yet
Betty proved to be a critical success but a commercial failure, its versatility relegating it to the cutout bins.
Echeverria left
Helmet in the mid-'90s to join
Biohazard, and the band bought time to refocus by releasing the
Born Annoying collection of B-sides in 1995.
Hamilton played all the guitar parts for 1997's
Aftertaste -- but his vocals sounded like his heart just wasn't in a group in which he couldn't keep a rhythm guitarist, and the album proved a disappointment. After touring with
Orange 9mm's
Chris Traynor on guitar and much deliberation,
Helmet disbanded in 1999. But the
Helmet influence was heard throughout rock, whether by
Hamilton's involvement with industrial groups (
Nine Inch Nails) or indirectly through metal acts (
System of a Down), and even the atonal distortion of rap-rock hybrids such as
Korn and
Limp Bizkit.
Helmet returned in 2004 when
Hamilton recruited
Traynor and a new rhythm section consisting of drummer
John Tempesta (
Rob Zombie,
Testament) and bassist
Frank Bello (
Anthrax); signed to Interscope, the group released
Size Matters in October of that year. The lineup would change with following albums as well. Drummer Mike Jost and bassist
Jeremy Chatelain joined
Hamilton and
Traynor for 2006’s
Monochrome, released on Warcon/Fontana, and guitarist Dan Beeman and drummer
Kyle Stevenson rotated in for 2010’s
Seeing Eye Dog.
After a six-year silence,
Helmet reemerged in late 2016 with their eighth album,
Dead to the World (earMusic). Produced by
Hamilton, it was the first release to feature new bassist Dave Case. ~ Bill Meredith