“Completely awe inspiring”: Kirk Hammett on the band Metallica wouldn’t exist without
There’s a certain reverence that comes with every stripe of metal band. Even though everything from thrash metal to groove metal to nu metal are all totally separate takes on the same genre, there’s always that common understanding amongst acts that everyone is coming together to celebrate the music that stands as the antithesis of the mainstream charts. While Metallica may have crossed over into the realm of mainstream rock more than a few times, Kirk Hammett always knew that he had a home listening to the classics in his downtime.
Because for all of the massive stadium shows they play, Metallica are basically a garage band that happens to play in much bigger garages these days. They were never afraid to flirt with ballads here and there and may have one of the biggest metal albums of all time to their name with The Black Album, but they also aren’t afraid to throw caution to the wind and go against what everyone else is expecting, even if it’s into one big ditch like St Anger.
And that kind of fearlessness came from the old school of heavy metal that they started with. When looking through all of Hammett’s early guitar heroes, he was always drawn to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, whether that was listening to the gallop of Iron Maiden, the twin-guitar assault of Judas Priest, or the pure savagery of how Michael Schenker played his flying V guitar.
But that was only the first time that people started acknowledging heavy metal. The genre had been going strong for years when people like Blue Cheer and Led Zeppelin started kicking the door down for something heavier in rock and roll, but whereas Jimmy Page and Robert Plant hated being associated with the term, it’s hard to deny the influence that Black Sabbath had on everyone who heard them.
“If it wasn’t for those four guys, man, we might still be just kind of like wandering around in the dark.”
Kirk Hammett
They may have started off as an offshoot of blues rock, and yet the minute that Tony Iommi hit that dreaded tritone riff on their first album, every single hard rock fan had their minds warped. The tritone had been around forever, but combined with the looming rhythm section and Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals, the band gave everyone the foundation for metal to stand on right as the 1960s drew to a close.
Although Metallica have reached a point where they could practically eclipse Sabbath in many regards, Hammett doesn’t even pretend to be in the same conversation with them in terms of influence, saying, “If it wasn’t for those four guys, man, we might still be just kind of like wandering around in the dark. But the fact that they created a genre — not only created it, but then developed it and then turned it into like a few different things over the course of their career — is completely awe inspiring to me and my peers musically.”
Inspiration might be one thing, but Hammett might be a little too generous by using that qualifier. Aside from taking metal and running with it, many early Metallica riffs sound like Sabbath songs that were given a lot more punch behind them, like turning the lick from the end of ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ into the motif from ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’.
Sabbath could justifiably sue them if they wanted, but that wouldn’t be in good faith, looking at what they have brought to the world. Because suing every metal band for ripping off Sabbath would be like suing every single pop songwriter for ripping off The Beatles. There may be some similarities, but it’s hard to beat the people who laid the groundwork for everything.
