TEAM RNS PRESENTS

TITLE: Size Matters

LABEL: Interscope Records

RIPPER: Team RNS

245kbps avg - Hard Rock
0hr 39min total- 73.0mb

RELEASE DATE: 2004-09-14
RIP DATE: 2004-07-13

02 Crashing Foreign Cars          2:31
03 See You Dead                   3:47

07 Everybody Loves You            3:26

09 Speak And Spell                3:31
10 Throwing Punches               3:44

Page Hamilton (vocals, guitar)
Chris Traynor (guitar)
John Tempesta (drums)
Frank Bello (bass)

Two years ago, PAGE HAMILTON singer,
guitarist and founder of the
proto-metal outfit HELMET, was driving
around Los Angeles with the radio on. The
jock on duty had just debuted the hotly
anticipated new track from some n-metal
millionaires. Immediately after the
airing, the DJ opened the phones for
comments from the listenership. There
was some expected best-thing-ever
fawning, but what caught HAMILTON's
attention was the first dissenting
listener. The caller said the track was
garbage and should be forgotten as soon
as possible. The DJ attempted to bait
the caller by daring him to tell the
radio audience what he was listening to.
The caller replied that he was playing
HELMET in his car and explained how he
hadn't heard any rock music that good
anymore. Not surprisingly, the DJ did
not fight the caller on it.

"I thought I was going to hit a telephone
pole," says Hamilton about hearing the
exchange. "Seriously, it was just a
shock to be acknowledged in that
context. It made me feel confident about
my past, as well as my future."

That future is right now. On September
14, Interscope will release SIZE
MATTERS, the first collection of new
HELMET music in seven years. The album's
title refers to, according to PAGE, "An
obsession in {American} culture with
higher, louder, bigger and faster. There
are no rewards {or regard} for integrity
and progressive thought anymore."
HAMILTON has reactivated the HELMET
name with a lineup including guitarist
CHRIS TRAYNOR (Orange 9mm, Bush,
Helmet), drummer JOHN TEMPESTA (Rob
Zombie, Testament), and bassist FRANK
BELLO (Anthrax). Recorded earlier this
year and produced by HAMILTON with
assistance from producer Jay Baumgardner
and former Nine Inch Nails associate
Charlie Clouser, SIZE MATTERS isn't
necessarily a return to form. Rather,
it's an expansion of the vocabulary
that HAMILTON has built his reputation
upon (minimalist crushing riffs, taut
rhythmic propulsion, clusterbomb solos
and seething lyrical invective)
coexisting with a greater melodic

"In the past few years, I've been
fortunate enough to be able to sit in
the company of people like Bono, David
Bowie and [film composer] Elliot
Goldenthal and I soaked up a lot of
ideas from those people," says HAMILTON,
illuminating the path that got him to
make SIZE MATTERS. "It gave me the
confidence in my own writing. You listen
to those early HELMET records and you'll
hear that 'anti-songwriter' vibe I had
going around back then. I was using my
voice as a rhythmic instrument, with
less regard for the meaning of the
words. Now I appreciate clarity."

Over the course of nine years and four
coruscating albums, HELMET was the
vehicle for HAMILTON's reductionist rock
aesthetic, a vision that bridged the gaps
between underground-rock geeks,
cosmopolitan art-snobs and populist
headbangers looking for a new fix.
Their 1991 Amphetamine Reptile debut
Strap It On helped define a brusque
element of America's underground-rock
scene, while its follow-up for
Interscope, 1992's Meantime sold over a
million copies and helped lay waste to
America's vacuous hair-farming metal
scene. The band released two more
albums, Betty (1994) and Aftertaste
(1996), prior to breaking up in 1998.
Interscope/Universal Chronicles issued
Unsung: The Best Of Helmet 1991-1997,
earlier this year, a collection whose
parts still sound as fierce as they did
on their respective release dates.

HAMILTON had remained busy since HELMET's
dissolution six years ago. He went to
New Orleans to write songs with
programmer Charlie Clouser down at
Trent Reznor's studio. He did many
sessions for film scores (S.W.A.T, The
Good Thief, In Dreams, Titus) and worked
on a rock-guitar opera ("Transposed
Heads"). In addition, HAMILTON recorded
with a diverse array of artists
including California electronica merchants
Uberzone, mutant trumpeter Ben Neill, as
well as a four-month stint touring with
David Bowie behind his "hours" album.

In 2002, HAMILTON formed Gandhi, with a
bunch of friends from NYC. The outfit
played a few shows, but frequently ended
up at the bar after rehearsals. While
all this was happening, America was in
the throes of n-metal mania, a genre that
owes much of its existence to the
musical language HAMILTON had developed
in HELMET. In the liner notes to
Unsung, Tom Hazelmyer, founder of
Amphetamine Reptile, the label that
foisted the band onto the world, nailed
it when he said, "I think those bands
need to fess up where they stole the
sound from. You don't blame the guy who
let E=mc2 out of the bag."

Having grown weary of traveling between
Los Angeles and NYC to play with
Gandhi, HAMILTON put the brakes on the
unit, and concentrated on writing songs.
Around Christmas of 2002, Reach 454
singer Rene Mata introduced HAMILTON to
drummer JOHN TEMPESTA. TEMPESTA's
career began with him woodshedding in
Bay Area metal band Testament, before
being picked up to man the engine room
in White Zombie, as well as leader Rob
Zombie's solo career. When Zombie said
he was taking a break from recording to
concentrate on film, TEMPESTA relished
the idea of jamming with HAMILTON on some
of the guitarist's new songs. HAMILTON
was still in contact with CHRIS
TRAYNOR, who played guitar on HELMET's
Aftertaste tour, and asked him if he
wanted to join. TRAYNOR, who for years
had been suggesting HAMILTON reconvene
HELMET, jumped on board, without
question. HAMILTON was happy with the
noise the three of them made in the
studio, and started writing more songs. A
demo of "Throwing Punches," made it into
the hands of former NIN bassist, Danny
Lohner, who was the music supervisor for
the film Underworld. The track was
credited to HAMILTON, and appeared on
the film's soundtrack last year.

Earlier this year, Interscope label
chairman Jimmy Iovine called HAMILTON.
He wanted to speak with him about two
things. He first asked if PAGE would
like to produce acts for his label.
(HAMILTON's first job, the solo album
from Bush singer Gavin Rossdale, is slated
for release later this year). And then,
Iovine told PAGE he would like for him
to return to Interscope and make
HELMET records. "After all these years,
I was offered the opportunity to have
the band name I started with," says
HAMILTON. "That's kind of hard to pass

SIZE MATTERS is a powerful return to the
kind of fury that raged under the HELMET
banner. Recorded as a trio with TRAYNOR
on bass, the disc features all the
punishing riff economy HAMILTON has
built his reputation on, but instead of
delivering "Meantime In 2K4," HAMILTON
has added more melodic parts for TRAYNOR
and TEMPESTA to drive. HELMET 2K4 has
all the vision and the energy level
needed to stand out in these dangerous
times. The disc's 11 cuts offer a
plethora of sonic invention and
punishing riffage. There's the vicious
big-dumb-sex of "Smart"; the
bone-snapping pit bull disguised as a
C-(maj7) chord that's anchoring "See You
Dead"; the menacing chromatic scales on
"Throwing Punches"; and the closing
"Last Breath," which delivers a
decidedly "old-school" HELMET vibe. SIZE
MATTERS is a rare thing: a record made
by veterans who haven't mellowed with
age, but have no reason to erect a
monument to their past.

"I look back at those old albums with
wonderment" says HAMILTON, "like how we
ever played 'Vaccination' without a
click track, or why the snare drum
sounds on 'Betty' are so high-tuned. The
more you make records, the further you
want to go from your previous work.
SIZE MATTERS is merely an extension of

Former Anthrax bassist FRANK BELLO signed
on to fill the bass slot so TRAYNOR
could return to his guitar duties when
HELMET tours in support of SIZE MATTERS
later this fall. HAMILTON is joyous about
how the new disc turned out, and swears
by the work TRAYNOR and TEMPESTA put
into it. He is also well aware that
some people will bristle about the
absence of Henry Bogdan and drummer John
Stanier. (Bogdan lives in Hawaii and has
left heavy music behind, while Stanier
does time in two bands, Battles and

"They were great musicians," says
HAMILTON. "I knew back in 1997 that we
needed a year off. We were getting on
each other's nerves, but I wasn't ready
to quit. People can hear those old
records and there's a certain kind of
nostalgia attached to them. But really,
it's all about the vocabulary of the
music," he continues. "I think if you
found someone who had never heard HELMET
and played them a track from Aftertaste
and the new album, back to back, they
would think it was the same band."

Like every person who bemoans the state
of today's rock culture, HAMILTON didn't
sit at home and bitch about it on an
Internet bulletin board: he went out
and redressed the balance.

"I still like rock music," he says. "I
love to plug in and have the volume
surround me. But there's not a lot of
rock out there that's inspiring.
There's still hope: I got turned on to
the Dillinger Escape Plan, because as
soon as you hear them, you can tell they
give a fuck. They play with passion and
not some vague notion of being
rockstars. Part of the job of being a
musician is to have respect for the past
and help bring things along now, and do
something special. Whatever's trendy
or whatever the kids are buying, I

And if you're that guy who called the
radio station all those years ago, or
if you found no reason to go to a record
store for the past eight years, come in
from the cold, and try the new HELMET
on. For Size. And the head rush.