Kirk Hammett: 'We're A Little San Fran Band!'

Kirk Hammett opens up on his horror fest spectacular, Metallica‘s new album and reuniting with Exodus in our brand new issue!

We thought that Kirk’s Fear Festevil looked pretty damn swell, so we decided to jet out all the way to San Francisco to get stuck into all the gory fun, and grab a rare, exclusive audience with the man himself. Kirk opened up on a ton of stuff to us, including his somewhat humble view of being in the Biggest Band In Metal…

“The whole Lang Lang thing just surfaced in one week, like, ‘Ok, we’ve been invited to play the Grammys with a classical pianist, here’s the track, do you want to do it?’ We were like, ‘Sure!’ even though we’re just a little thrash band from San Francisco.”

Sorry, a ‘little band from San Francisco?’ Fucking Metallica?!

“Maybe in my mind. I think maybe we want to think of ourselves as a little thrash band from SF. Sure there’s managerial situations and strategies and whatnot that we’ve used to become bigger, but at the end of the day it just comes down to the music. When we’re all gone, the music is gonna live on, and that’s gonna be our legacy, not selling out four stadiums in a row in Sweden or playing with Lang Lang at the Grammys. It’s gonna be someone discovering Disposable Heroes in 2086 and thinking, ‘This is really cool stuff, what year is this? 186, wow!’”

To read more from Kirk, plus immense interviews with Lamb Of God, Mastodon, Architects, Lacuna Coil, Upon A Burning Body and awesome freebies aplenty, grab your copy of our new issue!

Merlin was promoted to Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has written for Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.