Helmet [ tickets ] singer/guitarist Page Hamilton thought he was having a bad day when he jammed his left ring finger while playing football with his nephews. Little did he know what was coming the next day: he and his mountain bike had a less-than-friendly rendezvous with a tree.

"I have an excitable personality," Hamilton said from his California home. "It was such a great day and this great trail. It was the end of the day and I was coming down … the mountain on a bike.

"I was going faster than I should have been going. This tree was about four inches in diameter and not standing straight up. It was on the right side of the trail, sort of jamming off at a 45-degree angle. I didn't even have time to see it. I didn't even know what happened until my friend came and saw the chunks out of the tree. They saw where the bike hit. I went over the handlebars and landed on my left shoulder and busted it up pretty good," Hamilton said with a chuckle.

Hamilton underwent surgery on Aug. 20 and, a few days later, was feeling like "a million bucks."

"I have a lot of screws and I have less bone than I used to have there. Somebody's hamstring is tying the thing together. What can I say? I never do anything half-assed."

The injury pushed back the launch date for Helmet's first tour in seven years from Sept. 17 to Oct. 20, and left the band's new --lineup--guitarist Chris Traynor, drummer John Tempesta and bassist Frank Bello--waiting on the sidlines.

Along with the tour, Helmet postponed the release of its forthcoming album, "Size Matters"--peppered with it’s the band's trademark short bursts of seismic guitar riffs--from Sept. 14 to Oct. 5.

Hamilton is "cautiously optimistic" that he will be able to play guitar on tour. While recovering from surgery, Hamilton talked with liveDaily about resurrecting the Helmet name, recording "Size Matters" and working with Jay Baumgardner and former Nine Inch Nails "associate" Charlie Clouser.

liveDaily: Why did you decide that now was the right time to reform Helmet?

Page Hamilton: I had been playing with Johnny Tempesta for awhile. We had another guy that we were playing with. We had done some recording. I knew with Johnny, it was certainly a great band. So, many record labels had been talking to us. We had been negotiating. One day, out of the blue, Jimmy Iovine (of Interscope Records)--Helmet had been on Interscope for a long time--said, "You should come and see me. Put out Helmet records and we should put them out. This is where you belong." At that point, it was sort of a warm, fuzzy place with comfortable people I knew and trusted and wanted to work with again. As far as a label, it made perfect sense. That was how this album came together.

Describe the recording process for "Size Matters."

By the time we decided to record a Helmet record, some of the songs we had recorded with Jay Baumgardner already. We pretty much started the rest of it from scratch. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work. Times have changed so much. Helmet started on our bartending tips, and made [1991's] "Strap It On" side one with one week['s tips], and side two another week when we saved up more money. Now, there's a lot more at stake. Record companies are watching the money they invest. [This time around] so many people had been passionate about what we were doing--from Jay to Charlie Clouser to Mark Renk, who worked on vocals with me. It was kind of an experiment for me to work with a lot of different people and be open-minded. It was great on a lot of levels. The bottom line is I'm really happy with the record. It shows there's a lot of development, a lot of growth from [1997's] "Aftertaste" to this record. On the other hand, there's a lot more drama, a lot more people involved. I guess I'm still kind of a control freak, because I write, sing and play my own music, but you have to be open-minded if you want to improve and develop, and just get better in every sort of aspect of music. Having other people--really good people--bring it into perspective is something that's really necessary, as far as I'm concerned.

What did Jay Baumgardner and Charlie Clouser bring to the band?

Completely different ears. I'm very much a feel-oriented kind of writer. I'm not very technical. I'm not an engineer and I don't have much technical knowledge. Charlie turned me on to Logic Audio [recording software] and that way of working. Without him, I wouldn't have developed so much material and there wouldn't be as much sonic experimentation. At the end of the day, it's still a Helmet record. It's still minimalist, arrangement-wise. There's not a lot of keyboard things. There's just some weird guitar texture and stuff like that where we messed around with some different pedals. Charlie, he has kind of a "no BS" approach. It's really great. We worked together for years now. I kind of owe all of this to him, as far as getting the computer chops and being like, "This isn't doing anything for me" and being open-minded. He always appreciated Helmet and that vocabulary. He knew the boundaries and what I was good at.

I didn't even know Jay before my friend told me about him. I'm not familiar with the bands he produced--Papa Roach and Drowning Pool, and someone else that [was] pretty successful. I met him and he's a guy who owns a studio, just a rock singer, and he has a real great aesthetic. He said, "I'm like a 14-year-old metal fan, and I want to hear this and this." In "Unwound," there's a long instrumental bridge. When I hear it now, I'm so glad he suggested I write words to the bridge. ... He kind of got me out of that "muso-fascination" with things that musicians tend to get caught up in. I learned a lot from him, too. And he did an amazing job mixing the record.

What do you think about the buzz surrounding Helmet and "Size Matters"?

Is there a buzz? I'm isolated and off in California. ... It's great. That's cool. I did an interview earlier and somebody asked me if I [knew I] was onto something back when I was first writing. I said, "Yeah. I always thought I was good." We're not the Beatles or Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. But Helmet always sounded like Helmet, and we sort of developed our own sound. There's a vocabulary that's kind of universal now that's very simple. My friendDavid Sims, [the bassist] in Jesus Lizard, said, "I wish I'd thought of it." When you first hear it, it's like, "Oh duh." But that's cool.

People will have different reactions to a new album and an album with different personnel. But it still sounds like Helmet. The bottom line is, it's in the writing, and that's the sort of thing that's specific about Helmet. My limitations end up coloring the whole thing--my limitations as a singer and writer--and that's sort of what Helmet is. I'm doing the most with my ability. I know some people will miss [former Helmet members] John Stanier and Henry [Bogdan], who's an amazing musician. But they're doing their own thing. God bless them. They're talented guys. They didn't want to be doing this. These guys that I'm working with couldn't be anymore enthusiastic. When you're doing music, you have to enjoy yourself. You have to help make it more enjoyable, not less enjoyable. At the end of that first run, we were not happy campers. We didn't communicate at all and we were sick of each other. There was no point in continuing.