Metallica’s Kirk Hammett has revealed he is working on his first solo album, which will be “a fusion of all sorts of styles”.
The metal guitarist was speaking to Rolling Stone to promote the release of his new coffee table cook The Collection: Kirk Hammett, in which he explores his extensive guitar collection and reflects on his life in music.
One revelation from the interview was that he is in the process of “getting ideas together” for his debut solo record. “I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles,” he said.
“All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing,” he added. “There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around.”
“So I’m like, okay, who’s gonna be doing the vocals? I don’t know. I hope I’m not – I already have too much to do on stage…I have an instrumental piece that to me sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hammett said he has already written 767 new riffs for the next Metallica album, although he added that he does not foresee the band working on it “for at least another year”.
The band’s ‘M72 World Tour’ kicked off in April 2023 and is set to recommence in April in Syracuse, New York. The final scheduled date is in Auckland, New Zealand on November 19.
Hammett also discussed the potential sound of the new record. “Who knows? We might just say, ‘Okay, let’s go back to the Nineties again’. It’s not a bad idea! We haven’t said that to each other yet. And it’s interesting because when ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’ came out, there was a lot of backlash. But nowadays I run into fans and they love that era.”
In other news, Metallica have announced details of an “immersive” new VR film concert, which they have worked on with Apple Vision Pro, and they are also on the stacked line-up for the final ever Black Sabbath show in Villa Park in Birmingham in July.
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