‘I Can’t Listen To It’

METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett has revealed a surprising vulnerability, admitting that one particular song from the band’s extensive catalog evokes such strong emotion that he finds it difficult to listen to.

The confession came during a recent appearance on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast last month, where Hammett was discussing the band’s polarizing 2011 collaborative album with Lou Reed, Lulu.

“That album means so much to me for a number of reasons,” Hammett said. “The lyrics are amazing. It’s poetry from track to track. I’m a huge Lou Reed fan. To be able to hang out with him and work with him musically meant so much.”

“And the track ‘Junior Dad.’ Ugh. I can’t listen to it, man. Brings me to tears,” he continued. “And remember when Lou said, ‘I have a song for you and I want this to be on the album.’ And he played it for James [Hetfield] and I. And by the end of the song, I looked at James, and James looked at me and we both had tears in our eyes. And then Lou Reed came in and saw us both crying in the kitchen, and he was smiling and said, ‘I got you, didn’t I?’ I was like, ‘F**k Lou. Yeah, you got me. And you got him too.”

Back in 2020 interview with Marin Independent Journal, Hammett defended Lulu, calling it “a real accomplishment.”

“I have always been a big supporter of that album, even when all my friends are shaking their heads and looking at me going, ‘Bro, what were you thinking?’ “It was a real accomplishment as far I was concerned,” he said at the time. “We were there to help Lou Reed fulfill his vision, and I think we did that 100 percent. This was not a METALLICA album and it was not a Lou Reed album. It was Lou Reed and METALLICA together, doing something completely different.

“It’s not for everyone,” Kirk added. “But ‘Junior Dad’, I think, is one of the best things we’ve ever been associated with, in terms of real art and literature and music coming together. That, to me, is a real accomplishment, just as much as ‘Ride The Lightning’ is.”

When asked what it was like playing guitar with Lou, Kirk responded: “He’s a really, really good rhythm guitar player. He had a good, solid rhythm pulse to his playing.

“He was really not into lead guitar playing, and he was really, really not into wah-wah. In fact, one time during a rehearsal, I set the wah pedal and he just walked up to the microphone and said, ‘Noooooo. No guitar solos. No wah-wah.’ And I was blown away. [Laughs]

“He had his musical preferences,” he added. “He had his musical boundaries. And he was not shy in letting us know what those preferences and boundaries were.”