Kirk Hammett’s guitar collection is getting a lot of attention these days. Gibson made a feature-length YouTube video about it, and is documenting it in a deluxe coffee-table book. His most-famous electric guitars – Greeny, the Mummy, his ‘Factory Black’ 1959 Les Paul Standard et al – are household names.
But the Metallica guitarist has a problem. It’s a problem that many some players might relate to, an occupational hazard in Hammett’s instance. He has too many guitars. So many that he admits he has been selling them anonymously online to shrink his collection.
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Hammett says he has been sneaking onto eBay and Reverb to thin out the herd.
“I’ll list them on eBay or Reverb and I don’t say they’re mine,” says Hammett. “I get anxiety because I believe guitars should be played… I don’t believe in just storing them away and forgetting about them. I feel guilty! So I have been on a quest to shrink my collection and get rid of the ones I don’t play.”
People collect guitars for all kinds of reasons. Some just can’t help it. Others might see it as an investment. Players like Hammett collect guitars to play them, to have another tool for the stage or studio.
That is one of the reasons you will always see him out on tour with Greeny, his 1959 Les Paul Standard owned by two late blues guitar icons, Peter Green, from whom it takes its name, and Gary Moore.
Speaking to Total Guitar in 2020 for a tribute to Green, Hammett insisted that Greeny needed to played, shared with the world. When asked what should happen to it after he dies, Hammett insisted that the guitar should be played.
“I don’t know, but I hope it is someone who can keep on playing it, and keep on recording with it, and keep on touring with it, so that people who love the guitar can go see it and hear it in real time,” he said. “If I could find someone who was capable enough and qualified enough, sure, then by all means. This guitar needs to be out there. It’s a gift to the music world and I should just keep giving that gift.”
Back to the issue at hand, giving away the guitars is one solution, too. Hammett has been there, done that.
“I try to trade them off because it’s better than just doing a cash deal,” he says. “Everyone leaves with a smile on their face and has something they want! Another way is to just give stuff away.”
The guitars Hammett has been selling off are probably not the ones you will see in The Collection. He won’t be getting rid of his vintage Gibson Flying Vs any time soon. He owns is another Les Paul Standard that was once owned by Moore, and Moore said that this one sounded even better than Greeny. We are not going to find that on eBay.
But maybe if you see some ESP KH-2s on sale, and the seller is posting it out from Hawaii… Well, then maybe, just maybe that KH-2 Hammett’s signature guitar and go-to electric for all Metallica business is coming from the man himself. This, of course, is all guesswork. All we know is that a lot of the guitars came were from the Death Magnetic era.
“I played them on that tour, then as soon as that tour stopped they went into storage again as I’m not playing those songs,” says Hammett.
Looking back on that era, there was a black Jackson Rhoads with the gold pickguard. We haven’t seen that in a while. He was also rocking a black KH-2 around then with a mirror pickguard and metal control knobs. Or could some of these guitars come from his stockpile of custom graphic ESPs? Speaking to Gibson’s Mark Agnesi, Hammett said he might have up to 40 of them.
You can find out more about Kirk Hammett: The Collection at Gibson. The book was written my MusicRadar alumnus Chris Vinnicombe (who also wrote Slash: The Collection) and features exclusive photography from Ross Halfin.
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