Metallica's Kirk Hammett: ‘Matriarchal societies are very, very successful'

Telegraph

21-03-2025

In 2004, Kirk Hammett said he's always been the 'nice guy' in Metallica, and the way he came across in that year's rockumentary Some Kind of Monster backed that up. Where Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's film portrayed singer/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich as the band's feuding alpha males, Hammett was seen playing peacemaker, just trying his best to get the two co-founders on the same page.
When the lead guitarist calls me from San Francisco, he lends further credence to that 'nice guy' quote. 'I don't know if you know about this or not, but the state of newspapers in America is screwed right now!' the 62-year-old says once we're introduced. 'So, I'm actually really glad to be talking to The Telegraph.'
We're talking ahead of the release of his new coffee table book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett. Published by guitar manufacturer Gibson, it explores Hammett's famously extensive array of instruments, featuring interviews from the man himself plus new pictures by long-time Metallica photographer Ross Halfin.
It's when I ask about Hammett's favourite guitar – a 1959 Les Paul nicknamed 'Greeny', formerly owned by Fleetwood Mac player Peter Green and Gary Moore of Thin Lizzy – that the side of him the documentary didn't capture starts coming out. Despite his depiction as a mild-mannered moderator, he's instantly loud, passionate and verbose.
'Greeny is a cut above the rest!' he declares. 'My friend said to me, after we'd jammed for two or three hours, 'That guitar is your Excalibur!' It's been offered to other major players, and they passed on it for whatever reason, but when I saw Greeny, I knew in less than a minute that I was never gonna give it back! I had such an instant connection to that guitar, it's such an amazing source of inspiration and it's my best-sounding guitar.'
Being able to own such a storied guitar is just one of the perks of playing in metal's biggest-ever band. Hammett is calling from his home in Hawaii – 'I hate being indoors for any extended amount of time and love to surf' – and has sold more than 125 million albums worldwide. At least 30 million of those are Metallica's self-titled 1991 chart-topper, AKA The Black Album.
The Four Horsemen rode towards heavy music's peak in a fireball of male rage. Their songs are d--k-kicking, testosterone-packed blasts. The Black Album features the snake from the Gadsden flag on its cover and has a track called Don't Tread on Me: a slogan that's become synonymous with libertarianism's chest-beating bluster. And, in Some Kind of Monster, Ulrich and a fresh-out-of-rehab Hetfield slam doors and scream 'F--k!' at each other.
Hammett confessed to The New Yorker in 2022, 'Toxic masculinity has fuelled this band.' When I mention the guitarist's peacekeeper reputation, he says it should instead go to bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in 2003, and does nothing to distance himself from the Metallica machismo. 'I have to say, I do have a temper,' he admits. 'And I can butt heads with people. I butt heads with James and Lars occasionally.'
Over what? 'Oh, everything. It's just part of being in a band and being with someone for 40-plus years.'
Hammett got the offer to join Metallica in 1983 – on April Fool's Day, of all days. Hetfield and Ulrich formed the band in Los Angeles two years prior. Their classic-era bassist was Cliff Burton, who died in a 1986 bus crash aged only 24 and was replaced for 15 years by Jason Newsted. Burton urged his cohorts to relocate to San Francisco and link up with the nascent 'thrash metal' scene, where Hammett, who started the now-veteran Bay Area band Exodus in high school, was already well known. He jumped ship to Metallica after they fired original lead guitar player Dave Mustaine, a result of Mustaine's angry, violent behaviour when drunk.
I say that Mustaine has been portrayed as 'prickly' over the years, and I ask whether Hammett's seemingly more measured personality appealed to his bandmates. 'I was equally as ornery as Lars and James,' he answers. 'When I joined the band, I was right in there talking sh-t and doing crazy stuff, just as much as James and Lars and Cliff were. Sometimes prickly people turn on other people around them.'
Reflecting further on the toxic masculinity that 'fueled' Metallica, Hammett says: 'We were like a gang of youths and just looking for somewhere to belong. I came from a broken home, James came from a broken home, Lars came from a broken home. The most well-adjusted person was Cliff Burton. We were all basket cases! But we created this thing called Metallica that's been our refuge. It's been the one constant in our lives.'
Hetfield's father abandoned the family when the frontman was 13 years old and his mother died when he was 16. Meanwhile, Ulrich was a displaced Dane: the son and grandson of tennis legends Torben and Einer Ulrich, he rebelled against family tradition to make music. As for Hammett, he told Playboy in 2001 that his father 'beat the sh-t out of me and my mum quite a bit'.
He elaborates today, 'My dad was a full-blooded Irishman who liked to drink and liked to scrap. He was always fighting people, even fighting his friends. He would get together with my uncles and it was just one big f---ing toxic soup of masculinity, and that's what I came out of.'
In 2025, toxic masculinity is a hot-button topic. Donald Trump has reclaimed the White House following a series of appearances on such 'manosphere' podcasts as The Joe Rogan Experience and Logan Paul's Impaulsive. At the same time, Andrew Tate remains a figurehead for alienated young men, despite facing sexual misconduct charges (he denies all allegations) and shows such as Netflix's Adolescence dig into the pervasive 'incel' culture.
'In the last two or three years, I've gotten way into ancient history, and the interesting thing is that, back then, almost all the major civilisations were led by women,' Hammett responds. 'Matriarchal societies, they are very, very successful. This patriarchal society, with all this f---ing masculinity stuff, it's ingrained in all us males that, if males are leading at the top, that means all males in our culture need to be a leader.'
That's a lot of pressure, I reply. 'That's such pressure, bro! We can't all be leaders and that's where the masculinity comes in: 'Who's the best to lead, the strongest, the fastest, the meanest?''
You must have felt those things in Metallica, too? 'Oh, yeah! We're just products of our culture.'
With our allotted time nearing its end, our conversation turns to the future. Hammett hopes for his Collection book to inspire a new generation of guitarists. As for what's next, he will embark on a North American tour with Metallica in April, and he says that they aren't yet ready to think about a follow-up to 2023's 72 Seasons album. Even though the band may not enjoy an argument-free union after all they've endured, he's committed until the bitter end.
'Leaving Metallica is not an option,' Hammett says. 'If I ever left Metallica, everyone in the world would remind me that I used to be in Metallica!'