102 Quotes by Kirk Hammett

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.