Kirk Hammett On Metallica 2.0

The Fresno Bee has an interesting interview with Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett. Back when Metallica was butting heads with Napster and becoming the face of the anti-online music-piracy movement, Kirk Hammett wasn’t sure what the years ahead held for his band.

“Is this what the future is going to entail?” Metallica’s Kirk Hammett recalls. “Us battling all this different technology that’s coming out of left field that doesn’t have any boundaries?”

“It’s great that the capabilities of the Internet are totally working for us now. I would say we have a very sensible approach,” Kirk Hammett says. “The model that we’re trying to build, I think, is really working for us these days. MetallicaLive.com is just one of the coolest things that we could possibly do. Back in the day, in the early ’90s, pre-Internet, we used to let the fans come to the concerts and tape the shows so they could have their own little memento. Now the Internet allows us to do that quickly, efficiently and have it in pretty good quality.”

“Our approach to this is a lot different than Radiohead’s approach, which is throw the music out there and leave it in the hands of the listeners,” Metallica’s Kirk Hammett says. “What we try to do is come up with creative packages that will appeal to our core fans.”

Which brings us back to Napster. As Hammett point outs, the band was never “anti-Internet;” it just wanted to control its music. That’s what Metallica 2.0 with websites like MissionMetallica.com, MetOnTour.com, MetClub.com and LiveMetallica.com has done.

“We’ve always had an open mind toward the Internet and definitely noticed how much the Internet has changed the industry. We also saw the potential that using the Internet can bring to the band’s cause and the band’s mission.”

Considering the music industry’s constant state of flux, who knows what’s next for Metallica.

“Instead of a new album in three or four years,” Kirk Hammett says, “we might be releasing a video game with 12 new songs.”