Loyal, longstanding partnerships with ESP, DiMarzio, and Fryette have forged a foundational triumvirate of tone helping the underground alt-metal titan construct Meantime and Betty, tour in David Bowieās band, and contribute to film scores for Heat and Catwoman.
āI could not exist without guitar,ā admits Helmet founding lead guitarist and singer Page Hamilton. āI know this to be true because Iām a miserable asshole if I donāt play guitar. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is play guitar. Itās an incredible instrument and I just love it.ā
But what does one do with that creative codependency? Page Hamiltonās impactful contributions to rock music were cemented when Helmet wrote and recorded a pair of back-to-back blisters with 1992ās Meantime and 1994ās Betty. Those pillars of ā90s alternative metal and guitar granite forever chiseled out his place in hard-rock history.
Since 1989, Hamilton and Helmet have dished out a total of nine studio albums (plus a live set) that balance punishing, fastened-down ferocity with mercurial moments of melody that make their sledgehammer fall harder.
Beyond that legacy, Page was a part of David Bowieās band for the 1999 Hours tour, playing Saturday Night Live and being included on two live albums from the Starman. Further diversifying his guitar vocabulary, heās contributed to several film scores for Heat, Titus, In Dreams, Catwoman, and Chicago Cab. Heās explored the instrumentās outer realms with German avant-garde guitarist Caspar Brƶtzmann on a live improv album (1996ās Zulutime), and expanded his vocabulary by diving into jazz guitar, noting in our Rundown heāll release an album next year. Hamilton has even put out a guitar instruction DVD, Sonic Shapes: Expanding Rock Guitar Vocabularyfor Hal Leonard. All of this (and more) accomplished because guitar is his lifeblood.
And we found out during our Rig Rundownāfilmed May 7, 2024 at Nashvilleās Exit/Ināthat most of this material was spawned from three key ingredients, all still in his rig: ESP Horizon guitars, Fryette amps, and DiMarzio humbuckers. These partnerships with each company are not gratuitous or grifting. Heās been aligned with ESP since 1989. He started working with DiMarzio in the early ā90s, and he and Steven Fryette have sharpened his sound since 1996. These three friendships have fostered an integral strand in Pageās tonal DNA, and Hamilton covers each at length with us. Plus, he breaks down the simplifying move from a complicated Bradshaw rack-switching system to something more modern and efficient, with five Boss boxes and a duo of H9s.
Brought to you by DāAddarioPunk Rock Pink
A friend suggested Hamilton visit ESP Guitarsā small NYC shop in 1989. He wanted to find an instrument that looked good and sounded better. After trying a few out, he landed on a magenta Horizon Custom that still shapes Helmetās sound. After thousands of shows, several surgeries, and having the original Horizon Custom go missing for weeks when touring in Mexico, Hamilton now keeps the old friend at home, but he still honors his 35-year connection by bringing out the above relicād ESP LTD PH-600 MG Page Hamilton Signature. The lone humbucker is a custom jobber from DiMarzioās longtime chief design engineer Steve Blucher, who originally voiced the pickup with Hamilton in the early ā90s. (DiMarzioās current offering of this pickup is the Air Zone model.) Helmet typically tunes to drop C or drop D depending on the era of material. All his guitars take DāAddario EXL140 Nickel Wound Light Top/Heavy Bottom strings (.010ā.052) and he attacks them with Clayton 1.52 mm rounded triangle guitar picks made from acetal.
Like its inspiration, the pink Horizon Custom has a pointy reverse headstock and Floyd Rose tremolo.
Silver Is First
Most Helmet fans will associate Page Hamilton with his pink Horizon. Its radical hue and the trem spring in place of a neck pickup certainly make it a head-turner, but his first signature collaboration with the Japanese brand was this brushed silver ESP LTD PH-600. The look on this PH-600 is taken from an aluminum-leaf finish originally done in the ā90s by NYC artist Erik Sanko (of the Lounge Lizards and Skeleton Key) on one of Hamiltonās old guitars. When ESP and Hamilton were workshopping the collaboration, Page thought heād use a neck pickup for film work and other projects, but quickly found out that the extra knobs and controls only got in the way during Helmet shows. (The production model featured a DiMarzio FastTrack in the bass slot.) This run of signature models included a Wilkinson VS-100N vibrato.
āI drive ESP crazy because they build me these beautiful guitars and then I have them rip everything out. I just canāt deal with a neck pickup in Helmet,ā Hamilton laughs.
Let's Dance
When Hamilton was a part of David Bowieās touring band for the Hours tour in 1999, this ESP Vintage Plus S-style joined the party with its custom DiMarzio HSS configuration. If you dig up Bowieās Saturday Night Live performance of āRebel Rebelā from October 1999, youāll see Hamilton riffing on this same Vintage Plus ESP. Additionally, while only playing eight shows with the Thin White Duke, Page and this guitar were featured on a pair of live releasesāSomething in the Air (Live Paris 99)in 2020 and At the Kit Kat Klub (Live New York 99)in 2021.
Hamilton describes his brief time around Ziggy Stardust as ājust hanging out with your super-cool uncle who happens to be a genius.ā Hamilton shared a few more quotes that Bowie bestowed on him about Pageās approach to guitar: āHe was really complimentary about my guitar playing, noting āthat it sounds like itās very abstract what you do, but itās very thought out. And you remind me a bit of Phil Manzanera [of Roxy Music].ā That was an amazing experience.ā
Viper
Hereās a late-ā80s ESP Horizon Custom that Hamilton got around the same time he scored the original magenta Horizon that was his main dragster for decades. This one is wrapped in a snakeskin finish and still gets used on a nightly basis.
My Way
This sunburst Horizon is in a custom drop-D tuning (D-A-D-G-D-E) that gets used for āSinatraā off Strap It On.
Fryette Firepower
Hamilton has worked with Steven Fryette for nearly 30 years when a VHT power amp (then owned and operated by Fryette) helped salvage the recording of Aftertaste. Since then, Hamilton has slowly morphed his live rig to only having Fryette gear, eventually landing on a KT88-loaded Pittbull Ultra-Lead 3-channel head over 10 years ago. Page uses complex chords in Helmet and doesnāt want the note nuances and melodies lost in the mix of a mushier amp. This head runs into a Fryette 4x12 cab outfitted with Eminence P50E speakers.
Page Hamilton's Pedalboard
Hamilton used to travel with a full Bradshaw rig with rack gear, but heās reduced things to a digestible manner with a pair of Eventide H9 units and a handful of Boss boxesāa PS-5 Super Shifter, a MT-2W Metal Zone Pedal Waza Craft, a TS-2 Turbo Distortion, a NS-2 Noise Suppressor, and a FB-2 Feedbacker/Booster. A couple of Peterson Stomp Classic tuners keep the Horizons in check, and a Boss ES-5 Effects Switching System organizes all his sounds and settings.
Shop Page Hamilton's Rig
ESP LTD Horizon 87 Solidbody Electric Guitar
DiMarzio Air Norton
D'Addario EXL140 XL Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings - .010-.052 Light Top/Heavy Bottom
Eventide H9
Boss MT-2W Metal Zone Waza Craft
Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion
Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor
Boss ES-5 Effects Switching System
Pedaltrain Nano+
Nile Rodgers brings the rhythm at Bonnaroo 2018.
How the rhythm-playing hitmaker behind Chicāand our columnistālearned to love pop music, and why maybe you should, too.
When Nile Rodgers speaks, we should listen. His seminal work with his own band, Chic, as well as Sister Sledge, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel, Madonna, David Bowie, and Daft Punk, has made him a legend. He also filmed an entertaining Rig Rundown with PG just last year.
I recently listened to his 2017 South by Southwest address, where he told a story about a formative moment in his life. Nile was complaining to his guitar teacher, Ted Dunbar, about having to sing the Archiesā āSugar, Sugarāat an upcoming cover band gig. Dunbar replied, āLet me tell you something. Any song that sells and gets to the Top 40 ... is a great composition.ā Rodgers was skeptical. Then Dunbar added, āEspecially āSugar, Sugar.ā That has been No. 1 for four or five weeks.ā Next, Dunbar said something that changed Rodgerās life. āāSugar, Sugarā was successful,ā he said, ābecause it speaks to the souls of a million strangers.ā Rodgers noted: āTwo weeks later, I wrote a song called āEverybody Dance.āā Released in 1977, it was a Top 40 single on Chic's first album.
In a BBC This Cultural Life interview, Rodgers said that Dunbar ādescribed an artist to me. I wasnāt an artist until he defined that. I wanted to speak to the souls of a million strangers, but I thought what I wanted to do was speak to some real cool people hanging out in jazz clubs.ā
āEverybody Danceā and āSugar, Sugarāboth have hypnotizingly simple lyrics you inevitably replay in your head. Humans like chants, cheers, slogans, and catchy choruses. Rodgers' success came, at least in part, from opening himself up to simplicity that appeals to the masses instead of the complexity that appeals to jazzers. Thatās the irony. Jazz, which ostensibly is all about freedom, is often restrictive. Like the old joke goes, jazzers play millions of chords for four people. Pop, rock, and country artists play four chords for millions of people.
Rodgers said, āThat's what my teacher taught me, that anti-snobbery. Be open. Love all the music you are around, or at least try and appreciate what that artist is trying to say. Try and have, what we call in the music business, big ears.ā
My friends and I have all, at times, been music snobs. I went through a blues binge in my youth where I was prejudiced against shredders. This was not uncommon at the time. After Nirvana hit with Nevermind in 1991, suddenly musicians were openly mocked for playing complex, difficult parts. It was almost like if you cared enough to really learn to play guitar, you were uncool. That was a big relief for me, as I could play neither complex nor difficult parts at the time.
āTaylor Swift is the Beatles of my daughterās generation.ā
Later, when I moved to Nashville, I was all about clean Telecasters and thought ill of music with lots of dirt or effects. Younger me would have plenty of condescending quips about my current love of overdriven humbuckers and delay. Most of my snobbery was driven by my deep insecurities, but part of it was tribalism. The heart wants what it wants; when you find your musical tribe, most of the young zealots trade all others for their one true religion. It might be the only way to get good at something.
On the other hand, my friends and I listen to a variety of music, but the common factor is it usually involves good guitar playing. We love what we love because it speaks to our souls. But most guitar players are drawn to those who are doing what we wish we could do. My uncle Fred used to say, āThereās nothing wrong with being a snob. It just means that you have good taste.ā
Between club dates, sessions, and the occasional TV gig, I play with tons of people. I have no say in the set list, so āSugar, Sugarā moments are unavoidable. I used to feel deep shame playing those types of songs, like it reflects poorly on my personal taste or abilities. In short, I was prejudiced until I saw all of the true pros who could find something beautiful, challenging in the seemingly mundane. Itās like the old actorās adage: There are no small parts, just small players.
According to Forbes, Taylor Swift was āThe Biggest Artist in the World in 2023.ā That being the case, her songs inevitably come up on cover gigs. When this happens, some musicians might groan, like it makes them cool to hate on pop culture. But thatās probably because they don't really know her work. Taylor Swift is my 8-year-old daughterās Alexa go-to, so I know Taylorās catalog really well. Turns out, itās amazing, full of truly catchy, engaging, touching songs. Taylor Swift is the Beatles of my daughterās generation. Snobs will think that statement is heresy, but snobs often donāt know what they are talking about, and they never have as much fun as the people who are dancing violently to āShake It Off,ā or singing with eyes closed to āAll Too Well.āMeet Siccardi Number 28: a 5-ply, double-cut solidbody tribute to Paul Bigsbyās āHezzy Hallā guitar.
Reader: Mark Huss
Hometown: Coatesville, PA
Guitar: Siccardi Number 28
May we all have friends like Ed Siccardiāalong with a rare stash of tonewoods and inspiration to pay tribute to a legendary luthier.
I have too many guitars (like at least some of you Iām sure), but my current No. 1 is a custom guitar made for me by my friend Ed Siccardi. Ed is an interesting and talented fellow, a retired mechanical engineer who has amazing wood and metal shops in his basement. He also has an impressive collection of tonewoods, including rarities like African mahogany and some beautiful book-matched sets. He likes to build acoustic guitars (and has built 26 of them so far), but decided he wanted to make me an electric. The fruit of this collaboration was his Number 27, a Paul Bigsby tribute with a single-cut bodyālooking very much like what Bigsby made for Merle Travis. Note that Bigsby created this single-cut body and āFender-styleā headstock way before Gibson or Fender had adopted these shapes. This was a really nice guitar, but had some minor playing issues, so he made me another: Number 28.
Number 28 is another Paul Bigsby tribute, but is a double cutaway a la the Bigsby āHezzy Hallā guitar. This guitar has a 5-ply solid body made of two layers of figured maple, cherry, swamp ash, and another layer of cherry. The wood is too pretty to cover up with a pickguard. The tailpiece is African ebony with abalone inlays and the rock-maple neck has a 2-way truss rod and extends into the body up to the bridge. It has a 14" radius and a zero fret. Therefore, there is no nut per se, just a brass string spacer. I really like zero frets since they seem to help with the lower-position intonation on the 3rd string. The fretboard is African ebony with abalone inlays and StewMac #148 frets. The peghead is overlaid front and back with African ebony and has Graph Tech RATIO tuners. The guitar has a 25" scale length and 1.47" nut spacing. There are two genuine ivory detail inlays: One each on the back of the peghead and at the base of the neck. The ivory was reclaimed from old piano keys.
This is Number 27, 28ās older sibling and a single-cut Bigsby homage. Itās playing issues led to the creation of its predecessor.
I installed the electronics using my old favorite Seymour Duncan pairing of a JB and Jazz humbuckers. The pickup selector is a standard 3-way, and all three 500k rotary controls have push-pull switches. There are two volume controls, and their switches select series or parallel wiring for their respective pickup coils. The switch on the shared tone control connects the bridge pickup directly to the output jack with no controls attached. This configuration allows for a surprisingly wide variety of sounds. As an experiment, I originally put the bridge volume control nearest the bridge for āpinkyā adjustment, but in practice I donāt use it much, so I may just switch it back to a more traditional arrangement to match my other guitars.
āCrank That Sh*t Up!ā Greg Koch on Teaching, Mistakes, Modeling, and Modern Blues
The Milwaukee-based āguitaristās guitaristā doles out decades of midwest wisdom on this episode of Wong Notes.
You might not know Greg Koch, but weāll bet your favorite guitarist does. In 2012, Fender called the Wisconsin blues-guitar phenom one of the top 10 best unsung guitarists, and in 2020, Guitar World listed Koch among the 15 best guitar teachers. Heās been inducted into the Wisconsin Area Music Industry Hall of Fame. Koch is a bonafide midwest guitar god.
He joins Cory Wong on this round of Wong Notes for this meeting of the Middle-America minds, where the duo open with analysis of music culture in Wisconsin and MinnesotaāKoch taught at Saint Paulās now-shuttered McNally Smith College of Music, which Wong attended. Koch and Wong zero in on the blues roots of most modern music and talk through soloing theories: It can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be, but Koch shares that he likes to āpaint himself into a corner,ā then get out of it.
Koch and Wong swap notes on the pressures of studio performance versus the live realm, and how to move on from mistakes made onstage in front of audiences. Plus, Koch has created scores of guitar education materials, including for Hal Leonard. Tune in to find out what makes a good guitar course, how to write a guitar book, Kochās audio tips for crystalline live-stream sessions, and why he still prefers tube amps: āI like to crank that sh*t up!ā
John Petrucci, St. Vincent, James Valentine, Steve Lukather, Tosin Abasi, Cory Wong, Jason Richardson, Fluff, and more are donating instruments for contributors, and contributions are being accepted via this LINK.
The L.A. wildfires have been absolutely devastating, consuming more than 16,200 structures, and tens of thousands of peopleāincluding many members of the LA music communityāhave been displaced, as well as 29 persons killed. Historic gear company Ernie Ball has stepped up with a large-scale fundraiser, for MusicCares and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, to assist those impacted by the fire and responders on the front line. The company kicked off the initiative with a $50,000 donation.
āWe are absolutely crushed by the devastation Los Angeles has endured over the past few weeks,ā CEO Brian Ball said in a statement. āAs a California-based company with origins as a small retailer in LA County, seeing the impact of these fires in our community is heartbreaking.
Message from Tim Henson
Tim Henson is donating one of his own Ibanez TOD10N guitars for the cause.
āThatās why weāre partnering with our family of artists to give back in a unique way. In addition to our donation, Ernie Ball artists are stepping up to donate personal guitars and gearātruly one-of-a-kind pieces that money canāt buy. Hereās how you can help: Donate any amount and we will randomly give these items away. Every dollar goes directly toward helping those affected by these devastating fires. If you canāt donate, sharing this message can still make a huge impact,ā Ball declared.
The fundraiser will continue until February 14.