Kirk Hammett

For a while I was collecting Satan and devil stuff - you know, anything that had to do with old Beelzebub or Lucifer. But I had to put the brakes on it, because there's a lot of stuff out there, and the collection was just growing too quickly.

If I had unlimited funds, wall space and storage, I would collect a lot more things, like 'Planet of the Apes,' 'Star Wars,' science fiction stuff, autographs, and prop guns and weapons. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Getting sequestered and not really knowing what to do with your time and then discovering, 'Oh, I can watch a bunch of horror movies' has probably played out in a lot of people's discovery of horror.

When I see my kids totally into their Legos, it brings me back to the days I was hanging out and playing with my monster models. It brings me there in a second.

If a guitar is too easy for me to play, it makes me too laid back. I like to battle with my guitar.

On 'Metallica,' I recorded six or seven different guitar solos for almost every song, took the best aspects of each solo, mapped out a master solo and made a composite. Then I learned how to play the composite solo, tightened it up and replayed it for the final version.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that young players - I mean 10- and 12-year-olds - really like my guitar style. There's something in my guitar style that they totally can latch onto and learn quickly, and then go from there to your Yngwie Malmsteens or your Steve Vais or whatever.

Metallica is like the phoenix rising from the ashes. We set everything on fire, and this is what has risen from it - 'St. Anger' being the fire and 'Death Magnetic' being the phoenix.

Much of my playing is rhythmic and choppy; I use a lot of double stops. The wah just accents all those stops and chops and brings out the rhythmic aspect that much more.

I've always loved horror, I've always loved collecting, I've always loved weird and macabre things, and I've always loved conventions. So what could be better than having your own Fear FestEviL where all those great and crazy things can be enjoyed by like-minded people under one pretty cool roof? Nothing!

I think it goes without saying that a lot of big horror fans are just nerds and geeks.

I don't think success has changed us as people at all. We are the same lunatics that we were when this band first got going. We never see ourselves as being on a higher level than our fans.