HELMET's PAGE HAMILTON Says He Is Finally 'Done' Drinking: 'It's Been A Real Godsend'

In a new interview with Tom Wilson of Australia's Sense Music Media, HELMET frontman Page Hamilton spoke about the band's upcoming nine-date tour of Australia, which is scheduled to kick off on April 16 in Newcastle. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's gonna be my first sober tour… I'm done [drinking]. I'm 'done done'. I'm not giving it a rest. I'm done. I overdid it. The pandemic really threw me for a loop, and I got in some really bad habits. And my girlfriend told me two and a half years ago now, she's, like, 'I don't know if I can be with someone who drinks seven days a week.' And I was, like, 'Ah, I got under control.' Ha. So I just had to go. I had called one of my best friends [Matt Flynn], the drummer from MAROON 5, he's the GANDHI drummer, and he's an amazing drummer, amazing human being. And he immediately said, 'Okay, let's go. We're gonna go to a meeting.' And we went."

Page continued: "It's been a real godsend. I have an amazing sponsor. He's 35, 36 years sober. A Vietnam vet. And Marilyn Manson is afraid of him, apparently. He [Manson] goes to one of our meetings. I haven't seen him. I'm friendly with Manson; Brian is his name. But my sponsor, he looks like his face was chiseled out of Rushmore, like stone. And he smokes cigars and he rides a Harley… But he's fucking amazing. I call him every day. And I see him three days a week — two days online and one day in person."

He added: "But, yeah, it's been amazing [being sober]. I'm really, really happy. It's only been — I'll hit my 90 days in Australia.

"I go to meetings every day. When I'm with my girlfriend — I was in Hermosa Beach — I found a meeting down there."

Elaborating on how bad his drinking habit got, Hamilton said: "I'm an obsessive-compulsive, and so when it comes to drinking and bad substances, I go all in. My business manager's, like, 'You don't do anything half-assed,' including my alcohol abuse. So I do this — I have to; it's my nature. And it's why I'm decent at music, because I'm really good at tuning everything out and going and just zeroing in and focusing on stuff. But it's bad for addiction.

"After meeting my buddy [Matt], a great drummer, he was just saying, 'Yeah, my wife was, like, 'Eight to 10 beers a day, isn't that kind of excessive?'' And I was, like, Jesus, man. A slow day for me was 15 beers," Page explained. "And I was doing 15 to 20 beers a day. And I'd go to my girlfriend's house for movie night, and I'd get there at six, and I'd have to take eight beers with me so I could show her that I wasn't drinking too much. I'd take eight with me, and I'd already had five or whatever, because you get to the point where you don't even really get drunk until you're, like, on beer 12, 'cause your tolerance just gets so high. It was a mess. It was really, really ugly. And I thought I was being so productive, 'cause I'd sit in here — this is my work room — and play guitar. But I was getting up for beer every 15 minutes. And you just don't get work done. And now I'm getting this clarity that's really cool. Waking up without a hangover is the greatest thing. I woke up at, like, 6:00 a.m. today. I got out of bed at 6:15. And I was going to bed at four or five, blotto. It was just terrible. It's really good. It's been really good. I had a really productive, good day."

Born at the dawn of the rage-filled 1990s, HELMET fiercely hold space for multiple generations of alternative fans seeking the vital energy of hostile riffs and inventive metronomic groove.

Formed in New York by Hamilton, HELMET rewired heavy music, guiding peers like DEFTONES, KORN through to PANTERA and later MASTODON to heel to the power of the brutal riff.

HELMET's 1992 landmark "Meantime" album went gold and cemented them as trailblazers of the heavy music scene. From the genre-bending "Betty" (1994) which included the alt version "Milktoast" on cult 1990s film "The Crow", and "Aftertaste" (1997) to their return with "Size Matters" (2004) and a string of uncompromising releases, including "Dead To The World" (2016) and "Left" (2023),they remain a critical force.

Image credit: Wacken TV