PAGE HAMILTON Reflects On 30 Years Of Betty And Its Legacy: “A Lot Of People Think It’s Our Best Album”

Three decades after its original release, Betty — the third studio album by Helmet — is finally getting a full victory lap. The band is currently embarking on the South American leg of a 30th-anniversary tour, with the setlist centered around the Betty album along with a range of fan favorites from across their catalog.

Speaking with Argentina’s Rocktambulos, frontman Page Hamilton reflected on the album’s legacy, noting how its impact has often revealed itself through stories from fans and industry peers.

“Well, it’s not for me to say,” Hamilton began (via Blabbermouth). “People have told me — like I was talking to an engineer in Germany, and he said, ‘Yeah, when we wanna kind of tune the system or get in the right vibe for mixing, we listen to Betty.’ Other people said, like one guy in Australia said, ‘Oh, I was at the university in Australia and they used the Betty album cover as an example of subversive art.’ And so I like that. That makes me happy.”

Hamilton emphasized that his sense of the album’s lasting value comes not from self-congratulation but from the responses it continues to generate.

“I know that a lot of [people view Betty as a classic] — only because people have told me,” he said. “I’m not sitting around going, like, ‘Wow,’ patting myself on the back. But I like that people like the album because we got shit for it when it came out from some people. Some people were, like, ‘This isn’t Meantime.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, we did Meantime. We don’t wanna do Meantime again.’ So, it’s gratifying, I guess, that 30-plus years later that people refer to Betty, a lot of people think it’s our best album. That cracks me up.”

For Hamilton, the tour is an opportunity to revisit the album in a way that feels vital, not nostalgic, an approach that is rooted in his background and love for improvisational music.

“If you don’t have the — I don’t know, not bravery, that’s not the right word, but the guts to try to challenge your fans, then you’re kind of… I would lose respect for someone that didn’t wanna challenge people,” he said. “I love jazz music, and jazz is improvisation. The song ‘Beautiful Love’, I’ve played it a thousand times, and I play it completely differently now than I did in 1994. In fact, I’ll play it completely differently today than I did yesterday. That’s the beauty of jazz.”

That improvisational spirit extends directly to Helmet‘s live performance of Betty, especially for Hamilton as a guitarist.

“The one thing with Betty, playing it live, as you asked about, is that I get to play guitar solos, so I get to improvise every night,” he explained. “And so it’s different. It’s gonna be different. Like the solo I play on ‘Sam Hell’ it’s gonna be different in Argentina than it will be in São Paulo or Santiago on the other shows we’re doing down south. So, that’s kind of fun—fun for me.”

Of course, the energy of the live show isn’t solely in his hands. Hamilton credits his bandmates — Kyle Stevenson on drums, Dave Case on bass, and Dan Beeman on rhythm guitar — with bringing a deep, almost intuitive understanding to the material.

“They’re such a powerful rhythm section. Kyle, Dave, and Dan together are very in sync. And they get the music on that level. They understand that you have to kind of tap into something.”

Still, creative tension plays a role in the band’s dynamic. “I mean, I have the occasional conflict as well with Kyle, ’cause a lot of drummers feel that you have to lay back to make music feel good, and there is some truth to that in some forms of music, but in the Helmet music, you have to kind of stay on top of the beat,” Hamilton added. “And it has to feel like it’s speeding up, even though it’s not. That’s very much a jazz thing — it feels like it’s speeding up, but it’s not. So, yeah, I’m sure they have different things that they’re challenged by every night to keep it fresh as well.”