“I don’t want to be boring…”

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Author: Paul TraversPublished 25th Aug 2023

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has said that he considers himself to be an ‘improvisational musician’ rather than a ‘heavy metal guy’ or guitar player.

Hammett was speaking in a recent interview with Rick Beato when he cited the likes of John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Miles Davis as examples of the “master improvisationist” he aspires to become.

He said: “I think there’s a real element of integrity and at the same time it’s exciting, it’s a little dangerous, you never know what to expect with improvisation. And I think that’s why it’s so intriguing for me to watch people improvise. You know there used to be bands that’ll go out there and improvise forever like the Allman Brothers or Mahavishnu Orchestra and Led Zeppelin.”

Watch: Kirk Hammett interview on his career with Metallica

Hammett continued: “I always loved the aspect of those bands and I thrive off improvisation myself. I consider myself an improvisational musician first and foremost – not a heavy metal guy, not a guitar player.”

“Because I believe that improvisation is everything,” he explains. “Everything comes from improvisation — technique, songwriting, solving musical problems, it’s all improvisation. And I always feel that there’s certain musical muscles. You work your musical muscles collectively and it forms your technique.”

He added: “I don’t want to be a boring musician. I think my fear is just to be boring because I’ve been bored by other musicians. I don’t want to be that musician.”

Watch: Best of Kirk Hammett solos compilation

Elsewhere in the interview, Hammett defended the much-maligned Metallica albums ‘St. Anger’ and ‘Lulu’.

The guitarist said: “Even though sometimes we’ve taken chances and they failed horribly from a commercial standpoint, I think creatively and artistically, I think they’re huge successes.

“And I speak specifically about ‘Lulu’, the album we did with Lou Reed, and also about ‘St. Anger’. Those are really divisive albums, and you have two camps — people who like it and people who don’t.”

He continued: “Sometimes people wanna get challenged by their favorite band. I love YES. The first three or four YES albums are brilliant.

“But then they took a freaking left turn into somewhere else. And I loved it, ’cause it was challenging. And it forced me to listen even harder.”