Of the four men who make up the legendary heavy metal band Metallica, guitarist Kirk Hammett is the subtlest and most deliberate.
His bandmates have made careers out of outwardly channeling their angst — musically, politically and artistically — but Hammett has always been in the background playing sick lead guitar and laying down searing riffs.
Whereas singer James Hetfield embodies the band's jockish, defiant spirit, Hammett embodies its musicality, an intelligent mix of pop hooks disguised as punk-infused metal.
Metallica is the crossover metal act that has been easy to love for more than 25 years, and the newly inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famers have grown with their audience and adapted to a new generation of fans — so much so that they just released their first video game, Guitar Hero: Metallica.
Hetfield, Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich and bassman Robert Trujillo star in their own Guitar Hero, the popular rhythm-based video game that gives players the full-band experience. Players can rock out as Ulrich on the game's drum-controllers, sing Hetfield's leads on a mic and play Hammett's solos on a guitar-joystick. And sure enough, Hammett, the real-life guitar hero behind Enter Sandman, Sad But True, Master of Puppets, One and so many others, digs the game's presentation.
SOUND SELECTION
“It's a completely different thought process,” Hammett said here during the South by Southwest music festival last month. “The whole execution of Guitar Hero is all brought down to [five] little buttons ... as opposed to hundreds of thousands of variations on your left hand and right hand [on a real guitar].
“It's compounded to simple movements, and it's super cool, I have to say.”
While these video games had included real-life musicians as characters before, it wasn’t until the mid-2008 release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith that a game was formed around an entire band. Nothing against Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, but Guitar Hero: Metallica makes for a better game-play experience, if only for the richness of Metallica’s catalog.
And some of that is the game programming itself. Through various mock performances, the band’s exact movements were logged and replicated in the virtual world.
“[The game] is very, very accurate,” Hammett said. “It is us playing the song when you watch it. It's Lars doing the whole theatrical drumming deal. It's James with his swagger. It's me with my weird, headbanging style. And it's Rob with his particular, heavy-handed approach. It's all there, and they did such an accurate job in capturing the way we move and the way we move together as a group.”
CLASSIC ROCK
The music is a tight compilation of Metallica songs mixed with a catalog of music that was handpicked by the band, including songs from Queen, Slayer, Mastodon, Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains and others. Whether you like video games or not, it's easy to see the educational value in these games, something that hits home when your five-year-old nephew asks you to take him to see Rush, AC/DC and Iron Maiden.
“I love that aspect of it,” says Hammett. “This younger generation is being exposed to a lot of great classic rock and classic metal that they wouldn't otherwise know, especially if they're just listening to the radio … It's a great musical education for them. And I’d like to think that it's inspiring enough that maybe one of these kids would buy a guitar and learn how to play it.”
That's exactly what's happening. Guitar sales are up. Many of these kids (and some adults) are starting bands and writing original music. And all this was inspired by a hard-plastic, guitar-shaped controller with colored buttons on its neck. The Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars are easy targets. They’re miniature-sized, rudimentary and as rock ’n’ roll as a Q-Tip. That said, it's an effective introduction to the real deal, according to one of the biggest names in the real-life game.
“[The game's controller is] more like reading music than it is playing guitar,” Hammett said, “because you're reading notations on the screen and you’re doing the corresponding fingering.”
The band was in Austin for the media launch of the game — and to play a secret show at Stubb's Bar-B-Que, a large venue by South by Southwest standards but a tiny venue by Metallica standards. (Stubb’s holds around 2,500, and Metallica can sell out 18,000-seat arenas in most mid-size markets.)
‘SMALL’ SHOW
The show was supposed to be a surprise, but even Hammett's mom had read about the “secret show” in the weeks leading up to the event.
“Obviously [South by Southwest] is a great launching platform for something like this, and it's always great for us to be able to sneak into a small club and play a small show.”
Hammett said the band isn't yet writing for the next record. They’re too busy completing the tour cycle for their latest, 2008’s Death Magnetic.
“We still have a year and a half worth of touring to do, and we’re going to make it through this tour in one piece and then think about coming up with new music,” said Hammett.
Of his band's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Hammett can’t help but feel a little old.
“Twenty-five years have to have gone past since the release of your first album [to be eligible for the rock hall], so I feel a little bit like a dinosaur,” Hammett said. “[But I'm proud] that we’re still a valid band, still making music. A lot of bands that get inducted are in the winters of their careers, so to speak. We're still making music and we're still on tour, and it's cool that we're still a band and still creating and trying to be somewhat relevant.”
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