According to METALLICA‘s Kirk Hammett, non-musicians, who make up the majority of music listeners, are not likely to remember a great guitar solo. Hammett believes that what people remember and appreciate are the great melodies and songs that transport them emotionally to a different place.
In a new interview with U.K.’s Total Guitar magazine, Kirk said: “People are not going to remember a great guitar solo. I hate to say it for all your readers out there. They will remember a great melody. They will remember a great song.
“And I am not talking about musicians. Yeah, musicians will remember a great guitar solo, but non-musicians, who are the majority of the f**king listening world, they are not going to remember guitar solos.”
“Yeah, they are gonna remember a great melody and they’re really gonna remember a great song, especially a song that’s gonna bring them to a different place from where they were five minutes previously.”
He continued: “I figured it out when I was 15 years old. John Marshall [former guitar tech and fill-in METALLICA guitarist] and myself had literally been playing guitar for six months when I said to him, ‘We need to start writing tunes. Look at KISS, they write all their own songs… and AEROSMITH, VAN HALEN.’ So John and I started writing music. And it was a lot of crap, but it was something.”
Hammett stated that he took a unique approach to METALLICA‘s most recent album, 72 Seasons. He deliberately improvised around 20 to 30 solos, which he then handed over to drummer Lars Ulrich and producer Greg Fidelman, instructing them to take charge of the editing process.
“I wanted the solos to be more ’70s rock solos, or in a nutshell, [AC/DC‘s] Angus Young,” he said. “Because I love Angus‘s groove, and over the last couple of years or so I have found a bigger appreciation of his playing because Angus always plays for the song. Some of his solos are crazy and wacky and out there but they always, always are in that context of the song, and it never, ever sounded like Angus worked anything out. It sounded like he just went in there and went for it, and so that’s what I did. I had to do it this way because it was how I felt inside. I wanted spontaneity. I didn’t want picture-perfect solos because some of my favorite players’ solos were kind of rag-tag and I love that.”
