With Metallica having now crested their 40th year, one certainly couldn’t fault guitarist Kirk Hammett for getting a bit bored with playing the fan favorites. In a new interview with Total Guitar, Hammett admitted that he gets bored of playing the same solos night after night, including that of their legendary track “Master Of Puppets“.
Speaking on that, Hammett offered:
“What I’m going to say people are probably gonna hate, but it drives me nuts having to play that fucking guitar solo in Master of Puppets every time. People love that guitar solo and they come to see that. That’s fine. For that part of our career, all those solos are locked in. I don’t view them as solos anymore; they’re parts. I’m freaking bored of it, but it’s exciting for people to hear.”
He then added:
“You know, I’m not bored of the solo; I just get bored of playing the same thing all the time. I’m inviting all sorts of criticism and opinions but I don’t fucking care. It’s like the solo on Fade To Black. I play the first eight bars and then I go on a tangent for like 20, 24 bars and then come back in the last four bars and play parts that everyone knows. That’s one of my most favorite parts of playing that song live because I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna play.”
“Master Of Puppets” is the band’s most played song to date, with some 1722 live performances of it having been documented amid the band’s career. It also of course experienced a big resurgence amid the pandemic, thanks to being prominently featured in the fourth season of the Netflix hit series ‘Stranger Things‘.
Hammett has revealed that in light of that monotony, he intentionally veered away from the norm on the band’s forthcoming eleventh studio album, “72 Seasons“. He told the above-mentioned publication of that:
“With this album I went in intentionally to improvise 20, 30 solos, give them all to Lars [Ulrich, drummer] and Greg [Fidelman, producer], and go, ‘You guys edit them!’ I know I’m gonna play something completely different live. That’s my thing these days and if people don’t like it, that’s just tough. But I can offer something a lot different than what people hear on the album, and I can offer something different every time you see Metallica.”
His eagerness to improvise has exacted a price in the past however, as he admitted:
“Usually, I surprise myself; sometimes I die a fucking death. It’s horrible to die on stage in front of 50,000 people, but it only lasts an instant and then it’s gone. Then I can go on to other pastures and make up for what I didn’t do.”
The full interview with be published in issue #370 of Total Guitar on April 06th. “72 Seasons” will follow on April 14th. Earlier today (March 30th), the legendary thrash metallers released a music video for that record’s title track, you can check it out here.
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