Words matter. These are the best Kirk Hammett Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Because of things like iTunes and streaming and social networking, it’s destroyed music. It’s destroyed the motivation to go out there and really make the best record possible. It’s a shame.
Although I’m a lead guitarist, I’d say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm.
For the ‘Load’ album, I was experimenting so much with tone that I had to keep journals on what equipment I was using. For ‘Hero of the Day,’ I know I used a 1958 Les Paul Standard with a Matchless Chieftain, some Boogie amps and a Vox amp – again, they’re all blended.
We wanted to offer something new to our audience. I hate it when bands stop taking chances.
Getting sequestered and not really knowing what to do with your time and then discovering, ‘Oh, I can watch a bunch of horror movies’ has probably played out in a lot of people’s discovery of horror.
I love horror movies in space. I love it when the genre switches over and what was sci-fi becomes horror.
I love ‘True Blood.’ I love ‘The Walking Dead.’ Those are fantastic series.
I love this pedal to death. The only way you could keep me from playing one is by chopping off my legs!
The word ‘retirement’ doesn’t really sit well with me. There comes a time when you reach a position in society or culture where people will not let you retire. You can say, ‘Alright, I’m going to hang up my guitar,’ but people will still not let you retire.
A lot of the main characters in horror movies are outsiders as well, so that outsider syndrome reverberates within horror fans and geeky collectors. It’s kind of a rallying call that brings fans and collectors together who are a little socially retarded, maybe.
For me, one of the most perfect times to watch a horror movie is when it’s cold and raining outside and there’s pretty much no outdoor activity to be done. It kind of sets the mood.
There’s something about a wah pedal that really gets my gut going! People will probably say, ‘He’s just hiding behind the wah.’ But that isn’t the case. It’s just that those frequencies really bring out a lot of aggression in my approach.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that young players – I mean 10- and 12-year-olds – really like my guitar style. There’s something in my guitar style that they totally can latch onto and learn quickly, and then go from there to your Yngwie Malmsteens or your Steve Vais or whatever.
The concept of clearing one’s mind before performing a task so that it is consumed by nothing but that task, yet is open at the same time to anything that might happen – that concept can be applied to playing guitar, and it’s enormously helpful for improvising.
Jeff Beck is one of my heroes and has been since I first picked up a guitar.
When I got my first Marshall amp, it was so empowering. No one ever forgets their first Marshall amp if you’re a guitar player pursuing a big powerful sound. I mean, no one ever forgets their first Marshall amp.
For ‘Death Magnetic,’ I used what I always use, which is my standard touring rack, which is filled with some Boogie stuff and a Marshall that I’ve had forever.
The movie ‘Black Cat,’ from 1934, is one of my favorite movies.
A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.
I’m death obsessed. You know, I have death all over my house. I have a stuffed two headed sheep!
A good horror movie should have peaks and valleys, a good horror movie should move you emotionally; a good horror movie should be exciting to watch and energizing in a weird kind of way.
It’s definitely true that Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my all-time favorite guitarists.
I fix things all the time. Every time I do a solo, I re-check it and correct things that don’t hit the mark.
I think it’s morally wrong to keep someone away from what keeps him happy.
Much of my playing is rhythmic and choppy; I use a lot of double stops. The wah just accents all those stops and chops and brings out the rhythmic aspect that much more.
Metallica is a very complicated, fragile thing. On the outside, it’s all metal, but on the inside it’s very delicate.
Guitar players in the nineties seem to be reacting against the technique oriented eighties.
Guitar playing is both extremely easy for me and extremely difficult for me at the same time.
I’ve always been attracted to the darker things in life. I was never one to go for light, airy stuff, even as a child. My whole aesthetic has always been one of the darker side. That rings true also in my tastes in music. It’s just always something I’ve gravitated to naturally.
My guitars are my umbilical cord. They’re directly wired into my head.
I’ve always loved horror, I’ve always loved collecting, I’ve always loved weird and macabre things, and I’ve always loved conventions. So what could be better than having your own Fear FestEviL where all those great and crazy things can be enjoyed by like-minded people under one pretty cool roof? Nothing!
I’ve learned that there’s a signature Metallica sound, and if we stray too far from that, our fans get impatient, or they just don’t understand, or they miss the point. And I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just something we have to contend with.
When people are confronted with something they’ve never seen before, they really don’t know how to react.
When you’re first starting out, there’s always the temptation to hide behind distortion because it lets you get away with murder. But, when it comes to rhythm work, you’ve gotta back off that gain control a bit, especially if you’re playing with another guitarist.
The only problem I’ve had with my Vox wah is its tendency to move around on the floor. So now it sits on a rubber mat that says in big letters, ‘Kirk’s Wah-Wah Rug.’
For a while I was collecting Satan and devil stuff – you know, anything that had to do with old Beelzebub or Lucifer. But I had to put the brakes on it, because there’s a lot of stuff out there, and the collection was just growing too quickly.
I’ve been into horror movies ever since I was five years old.
I don’t think success has changed us as people at all. We are the same lunatics that we were when this band first got going. We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans.
I didn’t want to fall into the trap of competing with all these other great guitar players. I just want to sidestep the whole thing and get out of the race.
I feel really fortunate that, in playing guitar and surfing, I’ve found two things that mean so much to me, and which really complement each other. There’s definitely a spiritual thing to both of them; they totally connect you to a higher realm.
