No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Helmet - Vaccination

Episode Date: January 16, 2019

Travis takes a quick look at 90s alt-metal outfit Helmet and their track "Vaccination" off the 1994 album Betty. With their unique blend of metal and alternative rock, these guys went on to have a huge impact many of the nu-metal and post hardcore acts that followed them. And as showcased in "Vaccination", with their syncopated guitar riffs and unconventional time signatures one could even argue that Helmet flirts with math-rock, or perhaps math-metal? Either way you look at it, Helmet's originality made them stand out the crowd of grunge and alternative that dominated rock radio. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-27-radiohead-amnesiac#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hey, Beavis. You know what these guys call themselves? Helmet.

Yeah, helmet. Yeah, helmet. Yes. And you're listening to the sidetrack episode. for this week. This is No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked and hidden gems

that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. Quentin is not here today. He is on vacation doing God knows what. But he will be back soon. So it's just me.

And today, as Beavis and Budhead told you in that intro, clip, we're talking about a band called Helmet. And if it's Beavis and Butthead, likely it's a 90s band. And that is certainly the case here. These guys were a, they were often described as alternate metal, experimental metal. I would say they fit nicely in between sort of metal and punk.

But yeah, so these guys, these guys were, were relatively under the radar, but they made it on the MTV a couple of times. I mean, they had Beavis and Butthead talking about them, so that means they, I mean, in my book, that means they made it, right? So anyway, why are we

talking about Helmet today? So last week we teased that we will be doing our next full-length episode on the Mercury program, which is a instrumental rock, math rock, group. And I would say,

there are elements of Helmets guitar playing and the time signatures and whatnot that would put them in that math rock camp as well. So anyway, this is just going to be a really quick episode. And the song that I have picked for us today is called Vaccination. And it is off their 1994 album, Betty, which is their third studio album. And you may recognize some of the songs from there, notably Wilma's Rainbow, and Biscuits for Smut, which both had videos on MTV's regular rotation, and the song Milk Toast, which was another single off this record, appeared on the Crow soundtrack. So if you're a fan of the movie, The Crow, you may recognize Helmet as well. So anyway, I'm just going to let it play, and then we'll come back and talk about it real

quick. So here we go. This is called vaccination. So there it is vaccination by helmet. You definitely heard some of that punk and metal at the end there when they just kind of rocked out. But anyway, I think you could, as I said earlier, what the time signature changes and whatnot, it's definitely got that math rock vibe to it. but it's it's it's almost you know math metal almost you know so anyway um i'm gonna let the i'm gonna let the man himself mr page hamilton uh described this track there was a rolling stone uh article that came out back in 2015 where he went track by track on this record and sort of explained each song and sort of talked about it so here's what he had to say about vaccination

i wrote this on a fourth track at my apartment on 16th street it was kind of a home jam type song. There's a lot of tension, and then the tension just releases nicely into what I call the chorus, that kind of grind part. It's a blues, but a helmet-style blues. And he goes on to say, this is also one of our hardest songs to play live. The rhythmic displacement is what throws you off. When we started these Betty shows, it took some time to get it down.

And I can't play the riff and sing the verse. the same time. I can either do the riff with the band or I can sing the words. So I don't play the guitar part on this song when they do it live. So there you go. That just goes to show like what they're doing with these time signature changes and whatnot. It's difficult to do, especially if you're trying to sing at the same time. So anyway, maybe that's why the Mercury program doesn't sing. And we'll get into those guys next week. So anyway, that will was Helmet, and that song was called Vaccination. And it was off the 1994 record Betty.

And if you like that, chances are you'll dig. Pretty much everything else that these guys do. I will say that Paige has almost two different singing styles that he kind of switches between. That song had his more alternate rock voice. It's like, you know, like I said, these guys are somewhere in between metal and punk and, you know, grunge alt rock. This is his more punk, alt rock voice, and sometimes he'll do his more sort of metal voice. But anyway, just putting that out there. So anyway, that'll do it for this week.

Again, this was our sidetrack episode. Check us out on no-filler podcast.com. If you want to hear more of what we do, typically we do. full-length episodes where we really dive into an album and talk about three or four songs, and then every other week we do a sidetrack episode, which is what you just listen to, which is more of a really quick look into one song in particular. So anyway, my name is Travis. We'll talk to you guys next week.

We're going to dive into Mercury program, and that's going to be a really great episode. Until then, see you all next week. Yeah. If you, like, saw these guys on the street, you wouldn't even know that they're cool. Yeah, they look like normal guys. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets,

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