Kirk Hammett Quotes

A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.

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

Everyone has a side to them that's kind of unexplained and feels misunderstood.

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

I think it's morally wrong to keep someone away from what keeps him happy.

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

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

Metallica is a very complicated, fragile thing. On the outside, it's all metal, but on the inside it's very delicate.

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.

I'm very fortunate to be doing the thing I do best, which is play guitar. There aren't many other things I could do.

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.

The main riff for 'SandMan' was just something I wrote one night.

When I got my first Marshall amp, it was so empowering. No one ever forgets their first Marshall amp if you're a guitar player pursuing a big powerful sound. I mean, no one ever forgets their first Marshall amp.

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.

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

I think the whole concept behind lyrics is you better mean what you say, or you should like, become a storyteller. I mean, there's a lot of bands who are just storytellers, and then there are bands who actually have something valid to say. And the bands who have valid points are few and far between.

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

Guitar playing is both extremely easy for me and extremely difficult for me at the same time.

I've been into horror movies ever since I was five years old.

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.'

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.

I would have to say I'm bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I've done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn't interested in showing off any more.

I'm not into that whole Satanic thing. It's just something to fall back on if you don't have much imagination. Singing you fiftieth song about having lunch with Satan--I'm not into it. It's silly.

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

My musical tastes change every week.