So will Gibson Publishing's The Collection: Kirk Hammett come with a warning — or at least a towel to mop up the drool that will likely be prompted by the pictures?
"Maybe a trough," the Metallica guitarist suggests with a laugh.
The Collection: Kirk Hammett has just been released via Gibson.com and Gibson Garage locations. The 400-page book, featuring photos by Ross Halfin, is a spin-off of Hammett's The Collection episode last fall on Gibson TV and spotlights some 65 guitars from the Metallica axeman's stash.
It's offered in three formats that should please the range of Hammett's fans. The top offering is a Custom Edition of 300 copies with a lenticular cover and a portrait of the guitarist signed by him and Halfin. It comes with case candy that includes an Axe Heaven miniature replica of Hammett’s 1979 Gibson Flying V with case and stand, an exclusive pick tin with six Dunlop Kirk Hammett signature Jazz III guitar picks, and a Gibson Publishing Certificate of Authenticity. It's all contained in a presentation box that bears an illustration of the guitarist catching a wave.
There’s also a Deluxe Edition of 1,500 in slipcase packaging, signed by Hammett and including a poster; as well as the Standard Edition premium coffee table book.
In addition to photos of Hammett's guitars, The Collection: Kirk Hammett includes photos of the guitarist shot by Halfin on location in Hawaii and Los Angeles as well as rare images from Halfin’s photo archives, new interviews with Hammett by Gibson editor-in-chief Chris Vinnicombe and Gibson director of brand experience .Mark Agnesi.
"I always wanted to do a book about my guitar collection," Hammett, on break from Metallica's M72 World Tour, tells Guitar Player via Zoom from his home in Hawaii. The Collection follows It's Alive!: Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Movie Posters, a 2017 book that documented Hammett's collection of those items. It's also Gibson’s second guitar tome, following The Collection: Slash in 2023.
"Once the [movie poster] book came out, it opened up so many opportunities for me, for my collection," Hammett says. "I was able to showcase my movie poster collection in top-notch museums, as an art collection — that was directly the outcome of putting out a book.
“So I realized, wow, putting out a book has amazing benefits and returns. I have no idea what that might be for the guitar collection, but I'm just hoping that it gets to people who really just love and enjoy looking at these guitars like I do, and maybe somehow, some way, it might inspire people to start up their own collection."
And before you raise your eyebrows about that — "I do have resources," Hammett acknowledges, including scouts who find guitars for him — he's adamant that you don't need to have his kind of money to join the collector’s ranks.
"There are so many guitars out there that still are hanging out — in closets, underneath beds, in attics, in storage places — that need to come to light," contends Hammett, who began collecting guitars and amplifiers in earnest during the mid ’80s.
"If you think about how many guitars were produced in the years of 1952 to now, if you just reason that maybe half of those guitars have survived, that's still an overwhelmingly large number of guitars. It's got to be in the millions. There are so many guitars just lying around in corners that have value and worth.
“So I’m hoping this book can wake up and inspire people to go into zones that they never really explore and take a walkabout and see if there's any old guitar out there. If you're diligent enough, and savvy and smart and know how to make a deal, you can track down some really amazing instruments out there."
Included in The Collection book are many of Hammett's likely suspects, such as Greeny, the 1959 Les Paul Standard previously owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore, and the 1957 Korina Flying V prototype, which Hammett estimates is only the second or third ever made. There's also the 1979 Flying V that Hammett played in Exodus and used for the solos on Metallica's first few albums.
But the book allows him to dig deeper into the collection than the Gibson TV episode did. It includes, of course, his ESP models adorned with images of his horror collection as well as three Gibson SGs with noteworthy pedigrees.
"I came to SGs pretty late in the game," Hammett says. "It wasn't til probably Load/Reload that I started playing SGs, and it's 'cause [producer] Bob Rock put one in my hand: a '61 SG with P.A.F. pickups. And, man, what a sound it had!
“From that point on I've always been waiting for great SGs. There's a lot of SGs out there, but I just wanted to wait for one that was a cut above."
He gravitated toward the SG Customs with three pickups. One he found, from 1961, was previously owned by the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante and played on the group's hit "Otherside" and in its "Fortune Faded" video.
But the real gem was another '61, a twin-pickup Les Paul SG custom that, it turned out, was owned by Les himself.
"It's a rare color, 'cause you usually see them in red, right?" Hammett recalls. "So I picked up this white SG and I plugged it in, and I couldn't believe how great it sounded, how great it played. I was like, 'Whoa! There's something about this SG.'"
Hammett subsequently took a photo of the electric guitar and sent it to his contacts at Gibson.
"I said, 'Guys, this SG is special. It's a cut above your standard SG.' The text back was, 'You need to send us more pictures. Send us a picture of the serial number and of the neck and of the pickups.'
“I was like, 'Okay, what's the big deal?'"
"It's Les Paul's SG, but, man, I wish I didn't have to part with that Ice Mist Stratocaster from 1963."
— Kirk Hammett
It turned out the guitar was indeed Paul's and featured in publicity photos as well as on the covers of Warm and Wonderful and Swingin' South, with his wife Mary Ford, and 1968's Les Paul Now!
"It was a match, and that was so cool," Hammett says. "The guy I got it from had no idea, either. I'm sure if he would've known the price would've been three times what I paid for it."
Hammett adds that he has "not really bought a guitar in a long time. I do trades, bro," which he acknowledges is its own weird kind of science. "I always trade up," he explains, "but in the process of trading up, sometimes you have some remorse: 'I got this really great guitar, it's Les Paul's SG, but, man, I wish I didn't have to part with that Ice Mist Stratocaster from 1963. That was a pretty weird guitar, too.'
“But I had to part with that. I'd rather have the SG than that Ice Mist Strat...
He laughs.
“But I still wish I had it!"
Hammett considers himself "a dynamic collector" and "not a hoarder," which makes it difficult to determine the size of his collection at any time. "My collection ebbs and flows," he explains. "It breathes. It doesn't remain static. Things come in, things go out, things change. And I like that. A collection should do that. Collections, I feel, should serve the creator." And, he adds, the guitars he chooses are made to be used rather than possessed.
"I do play all the guitars that I have," Hammett says. "The guitars you collect for their collectability and visual appeal I get bored with right away, 'cause they don't feel like instruments. I don't believe in turning a guitar into a piece of sculpture; I believe guitars should be played, and I'm actively purging my collection to get rid of guitars that I don't play because I believe they would be better off in someone's hands who'll actually play them. But I want to interact with my guitar, with my collection.
"I believe that certain guitars have music in them. Certain guitars have riffs in them — that's also kind of a standard bearer on whether or not I want to hang on to a guitar, 'Does this guitar have riffs in it?' I'll play it for 15 minutes, and if I’m reaching for the tape recorder the answer is 'yes.' Sometimes I'll play a guitar and it doesn't feel like it has any riffs in it; it's still fun to play, but..."
Hammett is already planning for a second volume of The Collection that would possibly include some of his vintage amplifiers as well.
Until then, he's preparing for the resumption of Metallica's tour on April 12 at the Sick New World Festival in Los Vegas, with U.S. dates booked into late June. The group is also planning to make another movie, although Hammett "can't really expound on that too much." In the meantime, he's spent part of the band's break writing music for whenever the studio next beckons.
"Before we start touring I always have a big, long check list of things to do, musically, and say, 'How much of this can I get done before we actually start rehearsing?'" Hammett says. "It keeps me busy, and I love staying busy...'cause I'm engaged with the music, and music is truly magic. Every day I feel like an empty vessel and I sit down with my guitar and stuff comes out and I don't even think about it. The music just flows.
“If I open myself up to these amazing creative forces that are out there — they're unseen, but they're in the room with me — the music will flow. Much of 72 Seasons, the writing for that album, and also on my Portals solo EP came just like that. It's bonkers, bro."
To explore and order The Collection: Kirk Hammett, visit Gibson Publishing.
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