Metallica’s Tunes Are Too Easy for Kirk Hammett

If you’ve ever done something for an extended period of time, then chances are you’ve probably gotten pretty decent at it. You’d hope so, at least. So when Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett said his band’s music wasn’t particularly hard for him to play in a recent episode of The Metallica Report, that tracks.

Having been in the band since 1983, Hammett’s spent a majority of his life providing those soaring moments in Metallica’s biggest songs in the process by ripping sick solos (…just ignore St. Anger). To budding guitarists everywhere, his licks are incredibly difficult to emulate and even harder to master, but to Hammett, they’re just what he plays on days that end in “y”.

What actually is difficult to Hammett as a guitar player falls well outside of the metal world. To him, it’s all about the bebop.

“I gotta tell you. I know that people are going to kill me but Metallica music isn’t that difficult for me to play! It’s difficult for me to play bebop – now that’s difficult shit to play, okay? There are jazz progressions out there where there’s a chord change every beat, that’s difficult bro!

“That’s mind-bending, learning how to solo over that. That’s where my head is at – or looking at great classic solos from great soloists and trying to get deep into the theory side of things and looking at it musically and seeing what their approach was. Metallica music, I’ve been playing it for the last 40 years. Of course, it’s going to be easy for me. It’s because I’m a guitar player.”

Hammett’s relationship with guitar final boss Joe Satriani really plays a lot into his feelings on the matter. When podcast host Steffan Chirazi brought up Hammett’s relationship with Satch, the guitarist said he looks up to his mentor to this day. In fact, upon learning that Satriani and Steve Vai would play a rendition of “Enter Sandman” every night on their recent tour — and that Satriani would praise Kirk’s solo — said he was happy to hear such praise.

“That’s absolutely, totally, completely wonderful. I love so many of his solos. He’s Yoda, he’s my Yoda, okay? Every time Yoda says ‘Luke, Luke, you’re doing it!’, that’s how I kind of feel.”

I don’t remember Master Yoda muttering those words, but hey — that’s gotta be a cool feeling regardless.