Kirk Hammett Biography
In Brief...
Kirk Lee Hammett
Born: November 18, 1962
From: San Francisco, California
Personal: married
Specialty: kick-ass, full blown lead guitar vocals
Plays: guitar
Vitals: brown eyes, brown hair, 5'8"/1.75 meters tall, weighs 134
lbs/60.78 kilos
Views from band members......
"He's not afraid to say ANYTHING to
ANYBODY." - Jason
"The thing that is so cool about Kirk
is that he retains his feel" - Lars
Biography.....
April 1, 1983, San Francisco, California. A phone rings; "Hi, Kirk?
This is Metallica, we just
fired our lead guitar player, and we need a new one. Interested?"
Things didn't exactly happen quite that way, but Kirk did play his first
show with Metallica fifteen days later in New Jersey. Metallica's then road manager, Mark
Whittaker, once managed Kirk's band Exodus. When it became time to switch lead players,
Mark was quick to suggest Kirk.
Hammett's playing brought Metallica into an era of more melodic and
controlled guitar work. He's been in the band ever since that day in
1983, which surprisingly was less then a month after he and his former
band, Exodus opened for Metallica.
Kirk grew up in the Bay area town of El Sobrante and began playing
guitar at age 15. His first guitar was a Montgomery Ward catalog special
and his first amp a shoe box with a 4 inch speaker. A few years later
Kirk "graduated" to a 1978 Fender Stratocaster. Always searching for his sound, Kirk managed to "Frankenstein" the
guitar with different pick up and amp combinations. Eventually he traded
up to a 1974 Gibson Flying V (just like Michael Schenker's!) That Flying
V is still part of Kirk's collection, and still pops up on Metallica's
albums.
With his new Flying V, Kirk started playing with other people. This led
to a whole other problem: money. A short stint working at Burger King
fixed that as it earned him enough cash to buy his first Marshall amp.
Around that time, Kirk co-founded Exodus with Paul Baloff. They were the
support act for Metallica twice: on November 29, 1982 and March 5, 1983.
After the call from Metallica, Kirk scraped up enough money for a flight
to the east coast. He found himself outside his native California for
the first time, on the other side of the country and in a new band.
Oddly enough, the band never really asked Kirk to join, it wasn't until
the recording of Kill 'Em All that he felt confident he was in. After Kill 'Em
All and the tour that followed, he took lessons from Joe Satriani and
learned the virtues of jazz,
blues, classical and Hendrix.
Currently, Kirk can be found in the Bay area, with his wife Lani and dog
Darla.
Related Links:
Kirk Equipments | Kirk Pictures | Kirk Quotes
