The next Metallica album won’t have any shortage of riffs.
Speaking with the Rolling Stone Now podcast, guitarist Kirk Hammett shares that he’s written 767 new riffs for the band’s follow-up to 2023’s 72 Seasons.
But while Hammett is stockpiling guitar parts, he says that he “[doesn’t] foresee us starting the next album for at least another year because we’re still finishing the 72 Seasons tour.”
“Once we fully finish this and go to all the outlying places like Asia and Australia and New Zealand, I think we’re gonna take a little bit of a break,” Hammett says. “Not too much of one, and then we’re gonna get right back into it.”
Meanwhile, Hammett says he’s also working on a full solo album to follow his 2022 instrumental EP, Portals.
“I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles,” Hammett says of the upcoming solo record. “All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing, like, a funk thing.”
“There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around,” he continues. “So I’m like, ‘O.K., who’s gonna be doing the vocals?’ I don’t know. I hope I’m not — I already have too much to do on stage.”
Metallica will resume their tour in April.
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