DUBLIN – Kirk Hammett, lead guitarist for Metallica, detailed the intersection of instrument provenance, musical pedagogy, and songwriting during a public appearance at the Academy Theatre this weekend, coinciding with the band’s two-night engagement at the Aviva Stadium.
The discussion focused on the technical and emotional influence of high-value instruments, specifically regarding Hammett’s acquisition of “Greeny,” a 1959 Les Paul Standard previously owned by guitarists Peter Green and Gary Moore. The conversation took place alongside the promotion of The Collection, a book authored by Hammett and photographer Ross Halfin.
Instrument Provenance and Songwriting
Hammett described his role as the current owner of “Greeny” not as a traditional collector, but as a custodian. “Greeny sleeps where I sleep. Other guitar collectors like to geek out on Greeny. And Greeny is just one of those guitars that people love. And I’m not going to get in the way of that. I’m her babysitter,” Hammett said.
The instrument has played a direct role in the band’s compositional history. Hammett noted that while watching a Gary Moore video in a London hotel room in 1990, the sound of the guitar inspired the verse section of “The Unforgiven.”
“Greeny somehow sent me some inspiration that caused me to write that part in The Unforgiven that made it possible for me and gave me the resources to actually buy Greeny. Now I play The Unforgiven on Greeny,” he stated.
The guitarist utilizes the 1959 Les Paul for “all the emotional songs,” including “Orion” and “Nothing Else Matters,” citing its ability to evoke a specific emotive factor. Hammett framed the use of such historically significant instruments as part of a wider debate about how cultural assets are stewarded – whether by private owners, public institutions or, increasingly, through formal heritage frameworks that treat iconic instruments as part of a shared, regulated cultural commons.
Pedagogy, Access and Industry Standards
Hammett addressed the shift in how musicians acquire technical skills, contrasting the modern era of digital accessibility with his own education, which relied on the repetitive listening of records.
He noted that the absence of tablature and music books in his early years forced a reliance on the ear, a process he described as “monotonous” and “tedious,” but essential for developing a unique sonic identity.
I kind of lament those days when people had to really struggle to learn, because it’s all in the struggle. 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.
This shift in learning mechanisms led to a critique of current songwriting standards in the commercial music sector. Hammett stated, “right now, songwriting and pop music is crap,” expressing hope that musicians using the internet for technical education will apply those skills to raise the standard of popular music. His comments come as policymakers across Europe and the United States continue to debate how education and funding structures – including protections around authors’ rights set out in instruments such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works – can support sustainable careers for songwriters in an era of streaming and algorithm-driven discovery.
Institutional Preservation and Heritage
The discussion extended to the institutional preservation of musical history, specifically the 1961 Fender Stratocaster owned by Rory Gallagher. The instrument was purchased at auction last year by MCD concert promoter Denis Desmond and subsequently gifted to the Irish State for display at the National Museum of Ireland. Hammett categorized the instrument as a “national treasure.”
In Ireland, such donations sit within a broader policy push to formalise the status of cultural artefacts as public goods, reinforcing the role of state-backed museums and galleries as custodians of material that might otherwise remain in private collections. Hammett’s own emphasis on custodianship echoed the logic behind state-acquired collections, where governments use tax, heritage and export-control regimes to keep nationally significant works accessible to the public rather than allowing them to disappear into opaque global markets.
Hammett also acknowledged his own ancestral ties to the region, following research by the Epic Museum (the Irish Immigration Museum) which traced his paternal great-grandmother, Sarah Fulton, to Lisdorf, near the Tyrone-Armagh border. For local officials and cultural agencies, such diasporic links are increasingly leveraged in soft-power and tourism strategies, with visiting artists folded into broader narratives about Ireland’s global cultural footprint.
Collaborative Dynamics
Regarding the internal operations of Metallica, Hammett cited the similar musical trajectories of himself and bassist Rob Trujillo as a contributing factor to the band’s creative output. He described the collective brainstorming process within the group as “exponential,” noting that the volume of ideas often makes it a “task just to get through” them.
That scale of collaboration, he suggested, now intersects with a more tightly regulated touring environment – from safety and noise standards to visa rules for international acts – in which large bands operate as medium-sized enterprises subject to the same compliance obligations as other cross-border businesses. For Hammett, the challenge is to preserve the spontaneity of the writing room while navigating industry structures increasingly shaped by contracts, regulations and intellectual-property enforcement.
The Collection, published by Gibson Books, is currently available, positioning Hammett’s archive not only as memorabilia for fans but as a curated record of instruments that sit at the intersection of private ownership, public heritage and the evolving governance of global popular music.
Related reading
