Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett believes that heavy metal music has what it takes to live on for centuries to come. While chatting on a recent episode of Gibson Icons, Hammett spoke frankly about how he feels the genre will be perceived and dissected in the future, explaining, "I hope this doesn't sound too far-fetched or whimsical, but classical music has survived 700 years, even longer, but they can't really document it. I really believe that heavy metal will probably outlast this century and maybe outlast us."
He went on to say, ""And I don't know what the world's going to be like in the future, but as long as there's a need for aggressive, energetic music that's somewhat therapeutic, I think that there will be musicologists in the future, they're going to find our music and find some merit and quality in it. And that's huge."
During the pandemic, recording has proved to be a big hurdle for Metallica — but the band has been busy culling ideas for its next studio project. Kirk Hammett told us a while back that coming up with material is never a problem for Metallica: ["We're a band that never has a shortage of ideas. Y'know, you hear about these bands that are like, oh, they're sitting in the studio and they don't have any songs, what are they gonna do? That's not Metallica. Metallica's problem is the total opposite: we have too many ideas, which ones are we gonna use. And so that's pretty much how it stands with us."] SOUNDCUE (:17 OC: . . . stands with us.)
Metallica’s Kirk Hammett On Having Too Much New Material :