Kirk Hammett quotes

Kirk Hammett is an American guitarist best known as the lead guitarist for the heavy metal band Metallica. His influential solos and innovative techniques have played a major role in shaping the band's iconic sound. He continues to inspire generations of musicians around the world. Here are 48 of his quotes:

Cliff was a very smart guy, a reader, very eloquent. I just don't understand why he went, and not one of us.

Kirk Hammett

And I thought to myself: I actually have a conection to this place, it's part of my musical legacy. [Hammett talking about Scorpions].

Kirk Hammett

The same sensations that you get in heavy metal are in horror movies. Heavy metal sounds evil and horror movies are evil, ha ha!

Kirk Hammett

After months of playing air guitar to 'Free Bird', what really got me into guitar was watching a documentary about Jimi Hendrix and picking up the Woodstock soundtrack. Listening to his version of 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'Purple Haze.' My brother played acoustic guitar and, idolising him, I thought, 'I'm going to get a guitar.'

Kirk Hammett

Metallica is like the phoenix rising from the ashes. We set everything on fire, and this is what has risen from it - 'St. Anger' being the fire and 'Death Magnetic' being the phoenix.

Kirk Hammett

[about Nothing Else Matters] James always wanted to be perceived as this guy who is very confident and strong. And for him to write lyrics like that - showing a sensitive side - took a lot of balls.

Kirk Hammett

I think heavy metal is therapeutic - it's music that blows the tension away. I think that's why people who have had really bad childhoods are attracted to heavy metal. It allows people to release aggression and tension in a nonviolent way. Also, heavy metal seems to attract all sorts of scruffy, lost animals, strays no one wants.

Kirk Hammett

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.

Kirk Hammett

A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.

Kirk Hammett

If a guitar is too easy for me to play, it makes me too laid back. I like to battle with my guitar.

Kirk Hammett

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.

Kirk Hammett

I think it goes without saying that a lot of big horror fans are just nerds and geeks.

Kirk Hammett

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.

Kirk Hammett

Although I'm a lead guitarist, I'd say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm.

Kirk Hammett

I went through a whole blues period in the Nineties, and that had some influence on 'Load' and 'ReLoad.'

Kirk Hammett

Guitar players in the nineties seem to be reacting against the technique oriented eighties.

Kirk Hammett

Jeff Beck is one of my heroes and has been since I first picked up a guitar.

Kirk Hammett

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.

Kirk Hammett

My musical tastes change every week.

Kirk Hammett

My guitars are my umbilical cord. They're directly wired into my head.

Kirk Hammett

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.

Kirk Hammett

Just because you know umpteen billion scales, it doesn't mean you have to use them all in a solo.

Kirk Hammett