Kirk Hammett

I love 'True Blood.' I love 'The Walking Dead.' Those are fantastic series.

I love this pedal to death. The only way you could keep me from playing one is by chopping off my legs!

I love horror movies in space. I love it when the genre switches over and what was sci-fi becomes horror.

A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.

Deep Purple definitely belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 'Cause they had great songs, great musicianship, they had an impact, and they're a huge influence on the heavy metal community as a whole.

I went through a whole blues period in the Nineties, and that had some influence on 'Load' and 'ReLoad.'

When I got my first Marshall amp, it was so empowering. No one ever forgets their first Marshall amp if you're a guitar player pursuing a big powerful sound. I mean, no one ever forgets their first Marshall amp.

We wanted to offer something new to our audience. I hate it when bands stop taking chances.

Ampeg made incredible guitar heads in the early Nineties and then stopped. And I don't know why. The one we used had a nice clean, warm sound, and it blended well with the other amps that were in the studio.

Musically, there's a movement called the flatted fifth that's really evil-sounding. It was outlawed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. That movement is what gives you a real evil sound that conjures up dark, fantastic images. It's like an audio horror movie. It personifies what a horror movie is about.

The same sensations that you get in heavy metal are in horror movies. Heavy metal sounds evil and horror movies are evil, ha ha!

I've learned that there's a signature Metallica sound, and if we stray too far from that, our fans get impatient, or they just don't understand, or they miss the point. And I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing; it's just something we have to contend with.