Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has criticised the state of the current pop scene in a new interview. Speaking to The Irish Times during the metal legends’ stayover in Dublin where they played two huge shows as part of the latest leg of their ongoing 72 Seasons world tour, Kirk took aim at the more straightforward ways in which people are able to make music now, chiefly thanks to the huge advances in technology over the last two decades.
“I kind of lament those days when people had to really struggle to learn, because it’s all in the struggle,” he explains. “And it’s all in the determination and being inspired at the same time that forces you to come up with your own stuff and eventually your own sound and style. I just worry about, how things are so perfect these days, the musicianship. It’s great that all these guitar players have all this vast knowledge of technique at their fingertips. I wonder where it’s leading to.
“I hope it leads to a better quality of pop music, popular music, and just a better quality of songwriting,” he muses. “Because right now, songwriting and pop music is crap. I’m hoping that all these great musicians who can teach themselves through the internet step up and put all that great learning and all that great inspiration into creating new stuff, new songs, the future of music, and at a higher standard than what it is now. Because I’ll say it again, K-R-A-P. Crap. Sorry for all you pop fans out there.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Kirk pays tribute to hugely influential, Dublin-based rock icons Thin Lizzy, who put on the first show Kirk ever attended as a fan when still a young teenager.
“I saw Thin Lizzy when I was 14-years-old in San Francisco,” he says. “It was the first concert I ever saw. And I couldn’t believe that was the band on stage. The guys that I would stare at on the album cover were actually up there on stage.
“These people were real. To me, they’re like comic book superheroes, come to life. I’ll never forget that concert. And Phil Lynnott, Brian Robertson, Scott Gorham, Brian Downey…it was amazing I have to say. It was fantastic.”
Metallica’s 72 Seasons tour will climax with a historic residency at the Las Vegas sphere later this year.
