Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962) is an American musician. Hammett has been the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Metallica since 1983; prior to joining Metallica, he co-formed thrash metal band Exodus in 1979. In 2023, Hammett and Metallica bandmate James Hetfield were co-ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone's list of Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2009, Hammett was ranked number 15 in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists.
Hammett was born on November 18, 1962, in San Francisco, California, and raised in the town of El Sobrante. He is the son of Teofila "Chefela" Hammett (née Oyao) and Dennis L. Hammett (a merchant mariner). His mother is of Filipino, specifically Cebuano, descent and his father was of English, German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, although he has referred to his father as a "a full-blooded Irishman who liked to drink and liked to scrap. He was always fighting people, even fighting his friends. He would get together with my uncles and it was just one big fucking toxic soup of masculinity, and that’s what I came out of."
He attended De Anza High School in Richmond, California. While attending De Anza High School, he met Les Claypool of Primus, and they remain close friends.
Hammett has a well-known passion for horror movies that stretches back to the late 1960s. After spraining his arm in a fight with his sister at age five, Hammett's parents placed him in front of the television. It was during this time that he first watched The Day of the Triffids. After that, Hammett found himself drawn to his brother's Frankenstein figures and began spending his milk money on horror magazines. For the better part of the next decade, Hammett dove deep into the horror scene.
Hammett began showing an interest in music after listening to his brother Rick's extensive record collection (which included Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and UFO). He began selling his horror magazines to buy music records, which led him to properly picking up the guitar at age 15. Hammett's first guitar was (in his own words) a "wholly unglamorous" Montgomery Ward catalog special, which was accompanied by a shoebox (with a four-inch speaker) for an amp. After purchasing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster copy, Hammett attempted to customize his sound with various guitar parts before eventually buying a 1974 Gibson Flying V.
Hammett's musical interests eventually drew him into the fledgling thrash metal genre. In 1979, he formed the band Exodus at the age of sixteen, along with vocalist Paul Baloff, guitarist Tim Agnello, bassist Geoff Andrews, and drummer Tom Hunting. Hammett named Exodus after the Leon Uris novel of the same name, and played on the band's 1982 Demo and its successor Die By His Hand from 1983. Exodus was an influential band in the Bay Area thrash movement. During the Exodus phase Hammett took lessons from Joe Satriani who was based in Berkeley, California at the time.
In 1983, Metallica traveled to the east coast to record its debut album, Kill 'Em All. Due to lead guitarist Dave Mustaine's substance abuse and violent tendencies, he was fired shortly after their arrival, and would eventually form the band Megadeth. Hammett received a phone call from Metallica on April 1, and flew out to New York for an audition on April 11, the same day Mustaine was let go. Vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield said: "The first song we played was "Seek and Destroy", and Kirk pulled off this solo, and it was like ... things are going to be alright!". Hammett was instantly asked to join the band.
Hammett has written a number of riffs for Metallica since Ride the Lightning (the band's second album). One of his riffs was used on "Enter Sandman" - which went on to become one of Metallica's most popular songs. It was the first track and the first single on the band's self-titled album (also known as The Black Album), and was ranked 399th on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The bridge for "Creeping Death" was originally an Exodus riff that Hammett took with him to Metallica.
In 1986, during the band's European leg of their tour to support Master of Puppets, the group had a dispute over sleeping arrangements on their tour bus. The outcome of the dispute was decided by a card draw, which Cliff Burton won by picking the Ace of Spades. Once the draw was completed, Burton looked at Hammett and said "I want your bunk", to which Hammett complied, saying that he might be able to sleep better in the front of the bus anyway. In the early hours of the following morning, Metallica's tour bus slid off the road and overturned in Sweden. Burton was thrown through the window of the bus, which fell on top of Burton and subsequently killed him. Hammett has stated in an interview that he once thought that it easily could have been him who was killed instead, since Burton was sleeping in what was considered to be Hammett's bunk. In Kirk's own words: "You know to this day I just think, it could have been me or it couldn't have been me but ... it's never left me to this day."
Between the end of touring (and promoting) the Black Album and the start of touring in promotion of Load, he studied at San Francisco State University, focusing on film and Asian arts. Hammett went through a "blues period" around this time - which had some influence on Metallica's Load and Reload albums. He also began listening to a lot of jazz music. Hammett described this period of his life as "great education", because he was able to discover where all of his own rock influences had gotten their own guitar licks. However, even though jazz music had a profound effect on his improvisation skills and solos, Hammett felt that he was delving too deep into the genre. Since Death Magnetic, Hammett has gone back to being "primarily" a metal guitarist, but some of his influences of jazz and blues music still remain.
Hammett wanted to have guitar solos on Metallica's 2003 album, St. Anger, but drummer Lars Ulrich and producer Bob Rock thought that the solos did not sound right in the songs. He later admitted himself, "We tried to put in solos but they sounded like an afterthought so we left them out". Recording for St. Anger was halted in 2001 so that Metallica frontman James Hetfield could enter rehab for alcohol abuse. Due to tensions within the band (which were well-documented in the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster) at the time, Hammett expressed interest in working on a solo album. According to Hammett, if he ever worked on a solo album, it would not be "super-duty" heavy metal, and may include some classical guitarists. When he was asked about his experiences of recording St. Anger, Hammett said:
Honestly, I was ready to start working on a solo album. I had a bunch of music I was sitting on. I was going to ask Lars [Metallica's drummer] to play drums on it.
On April 4, 2009, Hammett, along with Metallica bandmates Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, and Robert Trujillo and former Metallica bandmates Jason Newsted and the deceased Cliff Burton, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2009, Hammett provided the foreword to British author Joel McIver's book To Live Is to Die: The Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton.
In April 2015, Hammett admitted to losing his phone - which contained 250 new "ideas" for Metallica's upcoming studio release. The incident happened about six months prior to the admission (around November 2014). The phone was not backed up and Hammett can only remember eight out of the 250 "ideas" he had. On the subject, Hammett said:
For me, music comes at all times of the day. When I get a riff, sometimes it's a complete riff and I can just play it and there it is, sometimes it's half a riff and I have to tweak it. Sometimes it's just a rhythm or a note selection. Or sometimes it's just something that I hum in my head. But it can come from anywhere, and I put it on my phone, and I make sure the phone is fucking backed up.
In 2016, Hammett provided the foreword to author Greg Prato's book German Metal Machine: Scorpions in the '70s.