Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett sat for a new interview with Rolling Stone, to promote the upcoming 2025 M72 tour dates and festivals. In that chat he shared that he has 767 new riffs written for the band’s next album. He also stated he is working on his first full length solo album, and that Metallica will continue to tour for one more year behind 2023’s M72 album, touring dates already announced for in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, before the band takes a short break and then begins working on a new album. Hammett said the following:
Kirk Hammett of Metallica ID 24705247 © Yakub88 | Dreamstime.com
I have 767 new ones for the next album. It is such a nightmare going through this stuff, too. And I’m the one responsible for all of it and I can’t do it…. I don’t foresee us starting the next album for at least another year because we’re still finishing the tour. Once we fully finish this and go to all the outlying places like Asia and Australia and New Zealand, I think we’re gonna take a little bit of a break, not too much of one, and then we’re gonna get right back into it.
He also added the following about his upcoming solo album:
I’m just actively getting ideas together for my [first] solo album. I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles…. All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing…. There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around.
So I’m like, okay, who’s gonna be doing the vocals? I don’t know. I hope I’m not—I already have too much to do on stage… I have an instrumental piece that to me sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts.