Metallica Are All in Their 60s — But Kirk Hammett Says There’s No Retirement Anywhere in Sight

Metallica‘s members are all in their 60s, and their music is way more physically demanding than anything their classic-rock forebears have had to tackle onstage — but lead guitarist Kirk Hammett tells our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast that he doesn’t see retirement on the horizon.

“As long as we have our health and our mind, I think we can just keep on going,” says Hammett, whose new coffee-table book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, dives into his world-class arsenal of vintage guitars. “Sometimes I forget how old I am, because I don’t feel like I’m 62 years old. I feel like I’m still somewhere in my thirties. I go out and surf, I bike, I run, I walk, I do all sorts of fucking crazy stuff, physically. And I’m still able to do everything I do. I do yoga every day, I meditate every day.” (To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.)

Drummer Lars Ulrich, the member with the most punishing job, “is in really great shape too,” Hammett continues. “As long as we’re all healthy, I think we can keep going. Rob Trujillo doesn’t even have gray hair! I don’t know what it is — maybe playing this music, maybe just being in this band — it’s a fountain of youth for us. I have no plans to give up anything. This is my life.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Hammett explained how 1991’s Black Album ended up fitting in so well with the grunge explosion around its release: He had discovered the scene early, and the riff to “Enter Sandman” was directly inspired by early Soundgarden. “I remember getting the first Sub Pop singles in like 1987, bro,” he says. “I still have all those  single-of-the-month records — Nirvana, Mudhoney, Tad, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Green River. James [Hetfield] was listening to a lot of it too. I knew things were happening. A couple of years later, I started seeing guys with hairdos that reminded me of what the Sub Pop guys looked like on all these singles. Then all those albums started coming out, and then we were full-on in the grunge era.”

Kurt Cobain, in particular, loved Metallica — when he attended one show, standing at the side of the stage, he asked Hammett if they were going to play 1983’s “Whiplash.” “Kurt [also] told me that he freaking loved ‘Ride the Lightning,’” Hammett says. “There’s a riff on Bleach that reminds me of ‘Ride the Lightning.’”

Hammett’s authorship of the “Enter Sandman” riff has long been clear, but fans have struggled to figure out who wrote what in many of Metallica’s other songs — Hammett says online lists of which riffs are his are “always wrong.” “It’s literally a crowd of riffs and people trying to randomly pick out which ones I wrote,” he adds. 2008’s Death Magnetic is “chock full” of Hammett riffs, he says, while also declaring the bridge riff of “The Thing That Should Not be” a favorite composition: “To this day, I still think it’s one of the heaviest things we ever did. And I’ve been chasing that heaviness ever since, trying to write a riff that hits that same way.”

Unlike the apparently cutthroat world of horror movie poster collecting, Hammett has found a certain code of honor among guitar-seekers over the years he’s spent assembling the collection spotlighted in his new book. He prefers trading guitars rather than buying them outright: “When you trade, everyone’s happy, man. When cash is involved, there’s something empty-feeling about it,” he says. A fellow super-collector, blues-guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa, even alerted Hammett to a black 1959 Les Paul Standard that the Metallica guitarist had been chasing for a decade. “I have to thank Joe for that opportunity, for not buying it, ’cause he already has one, and just for being really cool and calling me first,” Hammett says. As a gesture of thanks, Hammett sent Bonamassa a replica of Hammett’s most prized guitar, Greeny — another 1959 Les Paul Standard formerly owned by original Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green.

Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). Check out eight years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, SZA, Questlove, Halsey, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Dua Lipa, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone’s critics and reporters.