Kirk Hammett Admits Metallica’s Music Is “Easy” for Him, Talks How Joe Satriani Became His “Yoda”

While known for being part of the heavy metal band Metallica, Kirk Hammett helped form the band Exodus just a few years before joining the iconic group. Joining Metallica during the 1980s, the musician helped the band gain worldwide success as he ranked among Rolling Stone’s Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Although enjoying the fame that came from playing with Metallica, the guitarist recently admitted that the band’s music isn’t hard to play at all. 

Appearing on The Metallica Report, Hammett opened up about being part of the hit band over the decades and how playing the music became easy. “I gotta tell you. I know that people are going to kill me but Metallica music isn’t that difficult for me to play! It’s difficult for me to play bebop – now that’s difficult s**t to play, okay?” He continued, “There are jazz progressions out there where there’s a chord change every beat, that’s difficult bro! That’s mind-bending, learning how to solo over that. That’s where my head is at – or looking at great classic solos from great soloists and trying to get deep into the theory side of things and looking at it musically and seeing what their approach was.” 

Although saying Metallica’s extensive discography is easy to perform, Hammett added that it came after decades of playing. “Metallica music, I’ve been playing it for the last 40 years. Of course it’s going to be easy for me. It’s because I’m a guitar player.”

[RELATED: Kirk Hammett Admits Metallica Doesn’t Tour Enough: “I Don’t Feel That There’s Enough of It in My Life Right Now”]

How Joe Satriani Helped Kirk Hammett

Besides his time with Metallica, Hammett revealed his love for Joe Satriani and how the guitarist mentored him. Considering him to be “Yoda”, Hammett insisted, “ I love so many of his solos. He’s Yoda, he’s my Yoda, okay? Every time Yoda says ‘Luke, Luke, you’re doing it!’, that’s how I kind of feel.”

As for Santriani, he discussed his approach to teaching students about music and how he simply guided them to explore the genre. Using Hammett as an example, the musician said, “Kirk would come in and say, ‘This is a rehearsal tape, we’re working on the song. What key is this in?’ And it was brand-new music! I mean, it was different from what other musicians had been doing for the last hundred years. And I’d say, ‘Well, I’m not going to tell you what to play. But here, I’ll tell you how to figure it out. And these are the choices.’”

Continuing to play with Metallica, Hammett’s decades on stage made him both a masterful guitarist and a pillar in the band’s history.

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)