Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Working on Debut Solo Album: ‘A Fusion of All Sorts of Styles’

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has confirmed he’s preparing his debut solo album, clarifying that the project is set to be a genre-shifting creation.

Hammett confirmed the record while speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the release of the book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, which shows off his large collection of vintage guitars. The discussion featured a number of revelations, including word that Hammett was finally working on a full-length solo record.

“I’m just actively getting ideas together for my [first] solo album,” Hammett explained. “I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles…. All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing…. 

“There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around,” he adds. “So I’m like, okay, who’s gonna be doing the vocals? I don’t know. I hope I’m not—I already have too much to do on stage… I have an instrumental piece that to me sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts.”

Hammett, who has been the guitarist of Metallica since the departure of Dave Mustaine in 1983, first issued a solo release in 2022 by way of the Portals EP. Described as “a collection of gateways to myriad musical and psychic destinations,” the four-track, 27-minute instrumental work showed off a new side of Hammett, while still finding itself rooted in the work he had risen to fame with as part of Metallica.

Almost one year later to the day, Metallica released their eleventh studio album, 72 Seasons, which became their first not to peak at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 1988’s …And Justice for All. Despite their ongoing touring schedule, Hammett told Rolling Stone he’s already in the process of writing riffs for the band’s next album as well.

“I have 767 new ones for the next album,” he explained. It is such a nightmare going through this stuff, too. And I’m the one responsible for all of it and I can’t do it…. I don’t foresee us starting the next album for at least another year because we’re still finishing the 72 Seasons tour. 

“Once we fully finish this and go to all the outlying places like Asia and Australia and New Zealand, I think we’re gonna take a little bit of a break, not too much of one, and then we’re gonna get right back into it.”

Metallica’s current touring schedule wraps up following their performance in Auckland, New Zealand on Nov. 19.