Heads-up for veteran band, Helmet

Novelist Toni Morrison once said, “All good art is political. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’ “

If we’re keeping score, count Page Hamilton as being in the Morrison camp. While Hamilton’s band Helmet is best known for having emerged out of New York City’s post-hardcore scene in 1989 via the band’s debut “Strap It On” the following year, the quartet’s latest, 2023’s “Left,” finds Hamilton making his views clear about the current climate. Targets include second amendment zealots (“Gun Fluf”) and the deceitfulness so many politicians engage in (“Dislocated”). And while the Oregon native doesn’t consider himself overly political, he’s not above using his art to speak truth to power.

“At this point of my life, having lived 65 years on this earth and have voted since I was 18, I’ve never been really super politically outspoken as far as my music goes or standing on a soapbox of whatever,” Hamilton explained in a recent interview. “I’ve always felt every person should have an equal opportunity and right to exist and practice whatever religion they want. Or, live whatever sexual orientation it is. It’s really frustrating to me — (to) not just judge someone for being different than them, but want to politicize it and take someone’s rights away. I just think that’s unconscionable.”

The kind of fearmongering hatred floating in the air strikes even closer to home for the frontman, who has a gay brother and a trans godchild trying to make a go of it in a red state.

“That was kind of what was behind many of these [newer songs] like ‘Bombastic,’” Hamilton pointed out. “I have a trans godchild in Oklahoma, of all places, and they have quite a difficult time. We’re talking about a 14-year-old brilliant kid and they did the artwork for posters and t-shirts we did. I actually sent the lyrics to them to see and they were very excited. I feel like I wasn’t necessarily cramming any opinions down everybody’s throats — they’re just observations. That’s what songwriting is. I’m just making observations and how frustrating it is that a contingent of people feel they have the right to tell someone else that they can’t exist as they are. It’s mind blowing and wrong. Just stop. It has no bearing on their own lives — none whatsoever.”

While there are those that felt Hamilton was going out of his way to take a political stance, he insists it was not intentional. Instead, it was more about letting poetic muses ranging from Sylvia Plath to William Butler Yeats to Ezra Pound inspire him while continuing to draw inspiration from a range of musical influences that include George Benson, Grant Green and John Coltrane (of which a reading of his “Resolution” closes out “Left”).

“I had a conversation with my manager and he was just speculating,” Hamilton said. “He felt like the album was too political. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t make a conscious decision. I just wrote the songs and they were coming out. It was really fun to write.”

Currently hitting the road with GWAR, Dwarves and Blood Vulture, Helmet will play songs from across its substantial canon, but not the same ones from night to night.

“Many of my friends in other bands do the same set every night and that’s great and fine — good for them,” Hamilton said. “But it would drive me nuts. We do a different set every night.”

Hamilton’s immediate pre-Helmet roots found him moving to New York City to study jazz guitar at the Manhattan School of Music before falling in with avant-garde composer Glenn Branca and noise rock outfit Band of Susans. That said, the Portland native’s roots include early musical memories of staving off car sickness by listening to America’s “Horse With No Name” in the back of his dad’s station wagon when he was about seven. Older relatives turned him onto everything from Kiss and Jim Croce to the Beatles and the Monkees. And then, a 14-year-old Hamilton discovered Led Zeppelin after trading a duplicate copy of Rod Stewart’s “A Night On the Town” at a local Payless drugstore, which eventually led to his parents buying him a $40 acoustic guitar for Christmas.

“I went in and got this copy of what I now know is ‘Led Zeppelin IV.’ There was this picture of a man with a bunch of sticks on his back and I thought it was really interesting and cool,” Hamilton recalled. “I traded my second copy of “A Night On the Town” for that, got home and put it on my crappy little record player and I was gone. The way ‘Black Dog’ starts with the scraping on the strings — and that voice coming out from heaven — I flipped. I was about 14 or 15-years-old, started thinking about the guitar and became obsessed with Led Zeppelin. I saved up money from my job and eventually ended up getting every Led Zeppelin album. I would listen to two Led Zeppelin albums every day from beginning to end. That’s when I knew I had to get a guitar.”

Fast forward to today and Helmet will sandwich live dates around Hamilton’s work on a solo album in addition to producing L.A./Beijing group Cujo. And while it would be easy for him to lean into his band’s post-hardcore successes, Hamilton finds it far more interesting to dabble in writing scores and work with artists ranging from Nine Inch Nails and Joe Henry to Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins and Bono of U2. It’s what keeps the whole creative process interesting for Hamilton.

“For me, I always try to make it about music, not the business or the response to my music,” he said. “I always make it about music. I feel like my heroes, whether it’s Billie Holliday, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald or Mozart, it was about the music. It’s not to say we don’t want an audience. We do. (But) I think anyone that’s strictly about catering to an audience, it cheapens what you do.”

Helmet

Sun., Oct. 26, 4:30pm

Midtown Ballroom

51 NW Greenwood Ave., Bend

midtownballroom.com/calendar

$46.25