Kirk Hammett on New Metallica Album: ‘We’re Just Kind of Being Led’

As previously reported, the next Metallica album is beginning to take shape and according to guitarist Kirk Hammett, he thinks their next effort will be “pretty individual again.”

Hammett was in Los Angeles on Friday to attend the opening party for the ‘Obey Your Master: Art Tribute to Metallica” exhibit, a collection of art pieces inspired solely by the music of the metal legends.

There’s been a melting pot of recent activity in the Metallica camp, including the much-maligned collaboration with Lou Reed, the metal summit events that were the Big 4 shows and more recently, a quartet of hometown San Francisco dates to celebrate their own 30^th anniversary as a group.

Speaking with Alternative Press, Hammett agreed that all of this will have an interesting yet indefinable impact on their next moves in the recording studio.

“I think it's going to be something that's going to be pretty individual again," Hammett says. "We see these situations, these circumstances, and they always lead to something else. We don't know where the f-ck they're leading. We're just kind of being led."

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and Hammett commented previously on the developing new album, which is once again being produced by Rick Rubin and said that they have about seven or eight songs in the works so far and that they’re working “in rounds” on the material.

Kirk says that the new songs are more “groove oriented” and harken back to a “heavier version of what we were doing in the ‘90s."

Hammett is humbled by the new ‘Obey Your Master’ exhibit: "As a kid in Exodus, I just wanted to be able to play guitar well and that's all I f--king wanted to do. And to see your musical vision turn into something else, a totally different sort of vision—it's amazing, it's astounding."