Despite being the greatest guitarist in the Rock world, James Hetfield still admires Kirk Hammett: ‘I wish I could play guitar like Kirk, but I can’t, he’s amazing’

“Kirk’s an amazing lead player with a great lead sound,” he replied. “And I wish I could play like him, but I can’t. So I become the best rhythm player I can.

“And being the singer, I love melody. Michael Schenker is probably one of my favorite guitar players as far as melody goes.

All of the kind of dual harmony things are things that I do in the studio, and Kirk comes in and does the solo stuff.

“I think I’m a little more subtle than him. He’s pretty bombastic when he comes in with a sound. In rehearsals, it’s like,

‘Do you notice that you’re really, really loud?’ And he doesn’t. He just loves noises, exploring noises. It is a great combo.”

During the rest of the chat, Het also discussed Kirk’s phone incident, saying: “Well, there could have been some really good riffs on there – maybe, maybe not. There were some riffs that Kirk contributed. They just did or didn’t make the heavy metal 40-year ear – we know if there’s a good riff!”