Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Reveals How Many Gibson Les Pauls He Owns, Names 2 Favorite Models
As expected, the guitarist’s No. 1 Les Paul is the iconic Greeny.
During an appearance on Let There Be Talk, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett discussed his fondness of Gibson’s Les Paul guitars and his personal collection.
The musician also singled out his favorite Les Pauls, expectedly crowning the iconic Greeny as his No. 1. When the interviewer said, “I heard there was a time when you were trying to own most Les Pauls,” Kirk replied (transcribed by UG):
“You know, there was a time when I was looking to buy, but then I discovered there’s this one guy who has almost all of them.
“So you can’t even begin to go out and look for them because they’re already in a collection, and that collection is huge. This collection has over a hundred Les Paul Standards, over a hundred.
“There’s this one guy, he’s one of the best guitar techs out there; he worked for me for a little while, he worked for Angus [Young], he worked for Keith Richards – his last gig was with Pete Townshend.
“This guy named Alan Rogan, he was actually the guy who turned me on to ’58s and ’59s back in the ’90s. He went to go see this collection, and he ended up getting mad.
“He started just, like, giving the collector a real piece of his mind, saying, ‘What are you trying to do? Buy them all for yourself? What about everyone else who actually wants to use these guitars to make music, to make albums?’
“Because this person is just a collector. He wasn’t a working musician, he wasn’t a recording musician, so I guess Alan just really kind of hit this guy’s conscious to the core.
“So that guy is now slowly letting out all these really great Les Pauls, maybe four-five at a time. I actually got one out, from this collection about a month ago, it’s a ’60, slim neck.
“And it’s crazy because I had to call the guy I got it from and I said, ‘What gauge guitar strings are on this Les Paul?’. He said, ‘Tens, the one you would usually play,’ and I said, ‘Are you sure?’
“And he starts laughing; he goes, ‘It’s really easy to play, isn’t it?’. I could swear he put eights in it, because this guitar is the easiest guitar I’ve ever played, and it feels right too.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s just low action, skinny low-ass frets, cheating frets, it’s not that. It’s just put together so well that it just glides.
“The ’60s retained the red color because they used a different varnish or whatever – I don’t know the technical reason why they still retain their red. This one is great, it’s really cutting, the tone is just really great and rocking.
“I’ve been collecting these guitars since the ’90s, Les Pauls I have about 12 now myself. So the one I have that’s my favorite right behind Greeny is the amazing ’59.
“It came out in Kansas City – the flame is sick, the actual flame lines are fat, and the sound is just heavy, and so people name these guitars, and so that one I named Thor’s Hammer.
“It’s a heavy-sounding Les Paul, totally great for chunk, and Greeny’s great for chunk too. Greeny just rules everything – chunkiness, clean-ness, leads, clean jazz stuff, great jazz chords just ring with Greeny, it just delivers. I should show you Thor’s Hammer one of these days, you’ll love it.”
