The card game that saved Kirk Hammett’s life
Every musician hoping to make it to the top of the world must have a fair bit of luck. Even though many artists spend years trying to break through to the mainstream, there’s usually a moderate amount of serendipity that goes along with being a great player and being in the right place at the right time. For example, Kirk Hammett saved his own skin by happenstance.
Before he had even joined Metallica, Hammett was already beginning to become one of the most sought-after guitarists in the thrash scene. Although James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich may have helped pioneer the scene with the help of guitarist Dave Mustaine, Hammett was developing his own voice on the instrument, putting a subtle taste of blues into his licks for his original band, Exodus.
As Metallica started making their way to the East Coast to sign a contract with Megaforce Records, Mustaine would be ditched by the rest of the group, citing his wild antics and drunken tirades as being destructive. By the time Mustaine was given a bus ticket back to California, Hammett was boarding a plane to New York, working on putting his own spin to the thrash legends’ first songs.
Although Hammett would later recall that most of his guitar parts on the debut, Kill Em All, were a bit scattershot, he would have time to prove himself on Ride The Lightning. Bringing with him the riffs that would become ‘Creeping Death’, the band would continue to go from strength to strength on Master of Puppets, creating one of the most savage metal albums of the decade.
While the group couldn’t have asked for more when out on the road, they were about to hit one of the biggest stumbling blocks in their career when bassist Cliff Burton was killed in a tragic bus crash during their tour circuit through Sweden. If it weren’t for a card game, though, there’s a good chance that Hammett wouldn’t have survived that bus ride.
After drinking all night on the bus, Hammett and Burton were the last ones awake when they started to talk about where they would sleep that night. By deciding to draw cards, Hammett inadvertently saved his life by losing the game.
Discussing his time in Behind the Music, Hammett remembered, “The first card Cliff pulls out is the Ace of Spades, and he looks at me and says, ‘I want your bunk’, and I said, ‘Fine, take my bunk, I’ll sleep up front. That’s probably better anyway.’” In the next few hours, the bus would start to roll off the road, leading to Burton being thrown from his bunk out the back window, with the bus landing on top of him on impact.
Even though there was no set explanation as to why the bus went off the road, the band would lose a massive part of their sound, spending their next album And Justice For All, grieving for their fallen friend with new bassist Jason Newsted in tow. While Hammett would go on to become a pivotal part of Metallica’s sound going forward, he most likely hasn’t forgotten his subtle brush with mortality.
