Kirk Hammett famous quotes

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

#Evil #Sound #Horror

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

#Guitar #Umbilical Cord

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

#Mean #Use #Solo

A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.
-- Kirk Hammett

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

#Misunderstood #Sides #Kind

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

#Complicated #Metallica #Fragile Things

Ampeg made incredible guitar heads in the early Nineties and then stopped. And I don't know why. The one we used had a nice clean, warm sound, and it blended well with the other amps that were in the studio.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Nice #Guitar #Sound

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

#Thinking #Nerd #Fans

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

#Thinking

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.'
-- Kirk Hammett

#Brother #Stars #Purple

I didn't want to fall into the trap of competing with all these other great guitar players. I just want to sidestep the whole thing and get out of the race.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Fall #Player #Race

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Rocks #Guitar #Bored

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Rain #Perfect #Watches

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Fire #Phoenix #Ashes

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

#Guitar #Easy #Difficult

I love 'True Blood.' I love 'The Walking Dead.' Those are fantastic series.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Blood #Walking Dead #Fantastic

I went through a whole blues period in the Nineties, and that had some influence on 'Load' and 'ReLoad.'
-- Kirk Hammett

#Influence #Periods

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

#Years #Horror

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Thinking #People #Fans

I love horror movies in space. I love it when the genre switches over and what was sci-fi becomes horror.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Space #Horror #Sci Fi

I was really, really wild in my early twenties and a bit self-destructive.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Self #Twenties #Self Destructive

When you're first starting out, there's always the temptation to hide behind distortion because it lets you get away with murder. But, when it comes to rhythm work, you've gotta back off that gain control a bit, especially if you're playing with another guitarist.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Temptation #Gains #Firsts

For the 'Load' album, I was experimenting so much with tone that I had to keep journals on what equipment I was using. For 'Hero of the Day,' I know I used a 1958 Les Paul Standard with a Matchless Chieftain, some Boogie amps and a Vox amp - again, they're all blended.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Hero #Tone #Albums

Musically, there's a movement called the flatted fifth that's really evil-sounding. It was outlawed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. That movement is what gives you a real evil sound that conjures up dark, fantastic images. It's like an audio horror movie. It personifies what a horror movie is about.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Real #Dark #Giving

We wanted to offer something new to our audience. I hate it when bands stop taking chances.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Hate #Band #Chance

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Song #Silly #Fall

Jeff Beck is one of my heroes and has been since I first picked up a guitar.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Hero #Guitar #Firsts

Much of my playing is rhythmic and choppy; I use a lot of double stops. The wah just accents all those stops and chops and brings out the rhythmic aspect that much more.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Use #Accents #Aspect

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Powerful #Mean #Player

Basically I just had to say, Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music. So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Song #Thinking #Play

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

#Night #Sandman

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

#Player #Guitar #Technique

I love this pedal to death. The only way you could keep me from playing one is by chopping off my legs!
-- Kirk Hammett

#Legs #Way #Chopping

I'm death obsessed. You know, I have death all over my house. I have a stuffed two headed sheep!
-- Kirk Hammett

#Sheep #Two #House

Horror movies started to wane around the onset of World War II, and after World War II, when all the troops came home, people weren't really interested in seeing horror movies, because they had the real horror right on their front doorsteps.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Real #War #Home

Getting sequestered and not really knowing what to do with your time and then discovering, 'Oh, I can watch a bunch of horror movies' has probably played out in a lot of people's discovery of horror.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Knowing #Discovery #People

It's definitely true that Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my all-time favorite guitarists.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Rays #All Time #All Time Favorite

One of my favorite horror films of the Nineties was 'Event Horizon.'
-- Kirk Hammett

#Events #Horizon #Film

The movie 'Black Cat,' from 1934, is one of my favorite movies.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Cat #Black #My Favorite

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.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Devil #Growing #Stuff

It really shocked me just to hear of the fans' response to 'St. Anger' not having guitar solos.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Guitar #Fans #Solo

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

#Guitar #Play #Battle

A lot of the main characters in horror movies are outsiders as well, so that outsider syndrome reverberates within horror fans and geeky collectors. It's kind of a rallying call that brings fans and collectors together who are a little socially retarded, maybe.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Character #Together #Littles

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

#Rhythm #Guitarist

My musical tastes change every week.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Musical #Taste #Week

If I had unlimited funds, wall space and storage, I would collect a lot more things, like 'Planet of the Apes,' 'Star Wars,' science fiction stuff, autographs, and prop guns and weapons. I have to draw the line somewhere.
-- Kirk Hammett

#Stars #Wall #War