Kirk Hammett Worries the Clock Is Ticking on the Electric Guitar

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett says the electric guitar is going "out of fashion," like many other instruments have over time.

Hammett points to declining guitar sales, financial troubles at major guitar manufacturers and the rising popularity and ease of creating music with modern recording software as signs of the instrument's reckoning. 

"I don't know what the f**k it is, but people seem to be seeing the guitar in a different light and passing [guitars] up for f***ing samples and whatnot," Hammett told Metal Hammer in a recent interview. "Maybe it's a sign of the time."

He continued, "Like all instruments, there's a time when it goes out of fashion."

But even in Hammett's career, he's seen the popularity of the guitar wax and wane. He recalled how guitars felt passé for a few years in the early '80s as songwriters began exploring the wonders of synthesizers. Ironically, that was around the same time Metallica started.

By the mid-'80s, the guitar was back in a big way, he recalled. Heavy metal had taken up more mainstream real-estate than ever before (or since) and the guitar was back at the forefront. Hammett wonders if it will come back again. 

One thing he knows is that Metallica won't ever diminish the electric guitar in its own music. Elsewhere in the same interview, Hammett pointed to blowback around the band's St. Anger album and its lack of guitar solos as "a weird vindication" for his role in the band. 

Metallica is set to go back on tour in September in what will likely be the final leg of its WorldWired tour in support of its latest album, Hardwired...to Self-Destruct. 

Get the tour dates here. 

Photo: Getty Images