Metallica’s Hammett: I’m at Point in My Life Where I Really Need to Hear More Complex Chords

“I crave musical complexity.”

Metallica’s Kirk Hammett discussed his current state of mind when it comes to guitar stuff, telling Clash Music:

“It’s great to play our catalogue, and we’ve played our catalogue a lot, but it’s also great to play different chord progressions, arrangements, guitar solos, whatever.

“I’m at the point in my life now where I really need to hear more complex chords, just in my off-time listening, so I find myself listening to a lot of jazz-based stuff and a lot of classical stuff.

“I crave musical complexity – but that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate an open power chord, because I just love that too, and I will always, always love that.

“Finding other ways to relate certain feelings inside of us has always been the creative challenge and the creative goal.”

Asked if he ever felt confined by the boundaries of metal, Kirk replied:

“Yeah. I think for a long time we felt very comfortable within those rules – we definitely helped set some of those rules, for sure.

“But I think after a while, just because of our own creative urges and our own musical curiosity, we decided to push those boundaries some time around the ’90s with ‘Load‘ and ‘Reload.’

“We decided, ‘Let’s really see what the band is capable of sounding like.’ And then, once we did those albums, it seemed like we were able to do just about anything we wanted to.

“And from those albums to a real extreme, which was ‘S&M,’ and to another extreme, which was ‘St. Anger’…

“It’s hard to draw a thread from ‘Load’ to ‘St. Anger,’ but there is one. I mean, there are lots of threads, but that’s just one common thread that connects those two albums.”

Speaking of “Load” and “Reload,” James Hetfield explained he’s not exactly fond of that era, saying:

“As far as doing something that doesn’t feel right, I’m sure there’s been a few times that it’s happened – the ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’ era, for me, was one of those; the way that was looking, I wasn’t 100% on with it, but I would say that that was a compromise.

“I said, ‘I’m going with Lars’ and Kirk’s vision on this. You guys are extremely passionate about this, so I’ll jump on board, because if the four of us are into it, it’s going to be better.’

“So I did my best with it, and it didn’t pan out as good as I was hoping, but, again, there’s no regrets, because at the time it felt like the right thing to do.”