Metallica's Kirk Hammett: "I still feel like we haven't really peaked; we're still real hungry"

Following on from the announcement of their huge 40th anniversary celebrations in San Francisco later this year, Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo have reflected on their latest Metallica milestone – and what it also means for their future.

Speaking with George Kontos (via Blabbermouth), the guitarist and bassist respectively seem pretty pumped on the band's past, present and future, with Kirk admitting that he doesn't yet think Metallica have "peaked" – and they've still got plenty to give for many years to come.

"Man, it's crazy when I think about four decades," the metal legend says. "’Cause I swear to God, it seems like just yesterday that we were on a tour bus somewhere in the middle of America, just trying to keep up with everything. And nowadays it's just… Forty years passed so quickly. It's amazing.

"What's truly amazing now is the fact that I still feel like we haven't really peaked; we're still real hungry, we still wanna make music, we still care about music, we still care about each other," Kirk continues. "I don't see any signs of us slowing down, man, ’cause we have stuff that we wanna do."

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Rob agrees: "You know, what's insane about all this is that there's no shortage of musical ideas and riffs and grooves and basslines. A lot of times when bands have been around that long, there is a shortage – people run out of ideas – and we have the opposite problem; we've got too many ideas. So it's a good problem to have."

Indeed, back in May frontman James Hetfield revealed that ’Tallica had "quite a few songs" for a new record – the follow-up to 2016's Hardwired… To Self-Destruct.

"Well, hopefully a new album," he said. "Whatever you call it these days – I guess it’s an album, a CD, a group of songs, a collection, whatever, a stream or however you get your music now. But, yeah, a bunch of songs. We wrote quite a few songs. So we’ll see how many we like first, and then we’ll put ’em out. We’re pretty selfish that way; we like what we write as well.”

Exciting times! Watch Kirk and Rob's new interview below:

Catch Metallica live at the following upcoming tour dates:

September 2021

24 Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life
26 Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life

October 2021

8 Sacramento, CA – Aftershock
10 Sacramento, CA – Aftershock

November 2021

6 Atlanta, GA – ATLive
12 Daytona Beach, FL – Welcome To Rockville
14 Daytona Beach, FL – Welcome To Rockville

December 2021

17 San Francisco, CA – Chase Center
19 San Francisco, CA – Chase Center

June 2022

15 Copenhagen, Denmark – Copenhell
17 Landgraaf, Netherlands – Pinkpop
19 Florence, Italy – Firenze Rocks
22 Prague, Czech Republic – Prague Rocks
26 Clisson, France – Hellfest

July 2022

1 Werchter, Belgium – Rock Werchter
6 Madrid, Spain – Mad Cool
8 Lisbon, Portugal – NOS Alive

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