Tim Virgin of 97.9 The Loop recently spoke with METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, Illinois.
Asked how METALLICA gets into the mindset of playing one-off live shows like Lollapalooza after being away from the stage for several weeks, Hammett responded: “Let me put it into some perspective. Okay, the last show we played before this was in Las Vegas, in…. whenever it was, April or June, something like that. And it seems like we might not be doing anything in between that show and this show, but what we are doing is we are in the studio, we’re recording, we’re working on music. And when we’re in the process of making an album, we’re in for, like, weeks at a time doing exactly that. And so, when it gets closer to the actual gig time, that’s when we start rehearsing the tunes that we’re gonna be playing. And so, for us, it’s just another date on the calendar, and we are active throughout that whole period. The only thing is that we have to shift the thinking from being in the studio and being creative in those terms to playing a live performance and getting the setlist together.”
Asked if METALLICA ever thinks about which direction to take on a new studio album and if they should change it or stay the same, Hammett said: “Constantly. A lot of times, we don’t know where it’s going, and we just kind of have to just keep it on the road and see where it takes us. And, at this point, we’re still on that road and we’re wondering where it’s gonna take us.”
Watch the entire interview in three parts below:
