Metallica's Kirk Hammett reveals the horror film that made him sleep with the lights on "for the next four months"

(Image credit: Gibson / YouTube)

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is known for his passion for horror. He’s a collector of vintage horror memorabilia, a cult horror movie buff, and has even written his own spooky stories.

Hammett was recently interviewed on Gibson Guitar’s Metal And Monsters series, discussing monsters, metal and horror memorabilia. During this interview his also revealed some of his favourite horror films that had an early affect on him as a child.

“I remember seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre when it was a new film,” Hammett said. “There was a buzz on the street and everyone was talking about it. I remember going to see it and truly being frightened because there hadn’t been a film like that up to that point that was so graphic and violent in its brutality. There wasn’t anything like that. I remember me and my friends leaving the theatre shaking our heads going, ‘Wow’, and looking at each other wondering, ‘Did we just see that?!’ It was a real experience.”

He also spoke in the same interview about the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, explaining how it affected him as a Catholic kid growing up. “I thought the perpetrators of that film were coming after me next,” he said. “It was an honest fear when we were kids. For the next four months I slept with the lights on every single night.”

He also discussed the first Black Sabbath album, and said that hearing that was the first time that horror and music came together for him.

“I remember I was 16 years old and I was with a bunch of friends and we went out camping,” Hammett says, “and it was at night, around the campfire, and someone put on the first Sabbath album. And I’d never heard it before, and I actually got scared! I couldn’t believe it. It was actually like a horror movie.”

You can watch the full interview below.

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