Birthday Special: Kirk Hammett

Fri, 18 Nov 2011

Today sees the birthday of Metallica's lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett. Born Kirk Lee Hammett on November 18th 1962 in San Francisco, California, he turn 49 on today!

Hammett has been honoured by many awards and magazines throughout his career, including the 1998 issue of "Guitar Legends: The Top 100 Guitar Solos" where he was credited for 3 songs - One (No 7), Fade To Black (No 24) and Master of Puppets (No 51). In 2003 he was ranked 11th in Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list and in June 2004 he was presented with the "Outstanding Guitarist Award" at the California Music awards.

Prior to joining Metallica he formed and named the thrash metal band Exodus. In April 1983 when former Metallica lead guitarist, Dave Mustaine, was asked to leave the band due to drug and alcohol abuse and violent behaviour, Hammett flew in to replace him that very same day. His first show with the band was in New Jersey on April 16th; he would then go on to be the influence driving a more melodic and controlled sound for Metallica.

A major endorser for ESP Guitars since the early 1980's, Hammett was the second person to have a signature guitar made and his love of horror movies makes it into the designs of many of his
custom models. In 2007 ESP announced the release of a 20th Anniversary Limited KH-20 Guitar to celebrate their 20 years with Kirk Hammett, only 41 guitars were ever made. 

A former student of Joe Satriani, his influences include Led Zeppelin, UFO and Jimi Hendrix. Even after the success and Grammy awards won with Metallica, he was humble enough to study guitar at City College of San Francisco to continue learning everything he can achieve with a guitar. "A life lived unexplored is a life not worth living,” says Hammett, who believes his continual education of new styles is the answer to burnout so many other musicians face. It has been documented that he plays guitar 361 days out of the year which makes it easy to see why he is one of the industry’s top guitarists.

Metallica have toured the world, and played numerous landmark shows of their career, including that of The Big Four tour shows, featuring Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer together, the band have also played new territories in 2011 they’ve never been able to play live to their fans before in.

2012 will see Kirk Hammett and the band headline the UK’s Download Festival, where they promise to play their self titled “Black Album” in its entirety to the Donnington crowd.

---

Fancy playing like Kirk? 
Check out these popular DVDs available and shipping now from www.licklibrary.com 


Quick Licks: Kirk Hammett >>
Guitar Techniques: Kirk Hammett >>
Learn to Play Metallica: The Solos >>
Learn to Play Metallica: Volume 1 >> Volume 2 >> Volume 3 >>