His first notable effort was playing guitar in
The Extorts in early 1980. There are a few live recordings and a demo tape as evidence of their existence. After The Extorts broke up, Hampton and Henry Garfield (later to become
Henry Rollins) formed a new group called
S.O.A. (State of Alert) and they released a
7" on
Dischord records. When S.O.A. split up, Henry Garfield changed his surname to
Rollins and moved to Los Angeles as singer of
Black Flag. Hampton then joined fellow D.C. punks
Alec MacKaye (brother of
Ian MacKaye),
Eddie Janney, Chris Bald and Ivor Hanson and formed
The Faith who released two recordings on the
Dischord label - a split LP with VOID and the Subject to Change 12". This group broke up in 1983. Hampton soon joined
Ian Mackaye, Ivor Hanson and Chris Bald in another D.C. group called
Embrace. Along with
Rites of Spring, Embrace is credited as a seminal
emo group, however Ian Mackaye found the term "emocore" disgusting and did not accept the label. A posthumously released album appeared on
Dischord in 1987, after they had split up. Hampton then joined a short lived project called
One Last Wish, composed of three ex members of
Rites of Spring. This band lasted only a matter of months, but they had recorded one
demo which was released some years later on
Dischord. Concurrent with One Last Wish, Hampton was involved in another project with Simon Jacobson called The Snakes. This group was primarily a recording project, and rarely played live. The Snakes released two albums on Dischord. In 1990 Hampton teamed up with Ivor Hanson and Bert Queiroz to form Manifesto who were influenced by the British music of the time. They released one album and one 7" to critical acclaim in the UK, but records sales did not follow and soon Hampton's itchy feet made him leave. He has spent the years after producing soundtrack music for many TV programmes, video games and films. Hampton was in
Paco along with fellow members
Dominique Durand,
Andy Chase and
Gary Maurer. This group released an album in May 2004 called
This Is Where We Live on Unfiltered Records. In 2018, Hampton founded a power-pop band, Fake Names, with Brian Baker,
Johnny Temple, and
Dennis Lyxzén.
Brendan Canty later joined the lineup. ==References==