Kirk Hammett is best known as the guitarist in Metallica, but he’s also a not-so-secret horror fanatic, with a huge collection of movies and memorabilia. In 2011, the guitarist published his first book, Too Much Horror Business, to shine a light on his love of the genre, and Metal Hammer caught up with Kirk to chat about all things blood-splattered.
The affluent life of a rock superstar may be something we all envy, but it is important to remember that all of our heroes began their careers with the same hopes and dreams as the rest of us. Oh, and the same hobbies. Even though he is best known as lead guitarist with the biggest metal band of all time, Kirk Hammett is still very much a fan at heart, not just of music but also of the wild and weird world of horror.
An aficionado of scary movies, monstrous comic books and all things sinister, Kirk’s hardly made a big deal about his favourite extra-curricular pastime in the past, but that’s about to change as this devoted collector of horror memorabilia publishes his first ever book. Too Much Horror Business is both a paean to the celluloid frights that the Metallica man has enjoyed for most of his life and an unmissable invitation to look at the huge collection of toys, posters, comics and other intriguing items that he has amassed over his 49 years. Speaking to Hammer, it is very obvious that Kirk’s love of horror is heartfelt and lifelong.
“I saw my first horror when I was five years old, a British film called Day Of The Triffids,” he recalls. “It moved something inside of me that didn’t happen when I watched cartoons or Disney features. It was something that resonated inside me and I wanted to watch more and more horror movies.”
As far as both heavy metal and horror culture go, Kirk was born at the right time. A teenager during the 70s, when both of his primary passions were evolving at an exponential rate and slowly taking over the world, he was perfectly placed to nurture and refine his obsessions. In particular, the horror movies of the 70s, whether the numerous classics produced by the legendary Hammer team or the gems that emerged at the end of the decade as the VHS generation was born, remain widely acknowledged as among the finest of all time. No wonder the young Kirk spent much of that decade gawping at a screen, bits of popcorn stuck to the front of his Sabbath shirt.
“I spent a large part of my youth at my local movie theatre,” he says. “For 50 cents you could see three major releases – I would go to every weekend. They were almost always horror films or kung fu movies or exploitation movies, and I just ate that stuff up. A lot of great low-budget flicks came out in those days, and things like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre too. At the end of the 70s, horrors started getting even better, with movies like Alien, American Werewolf In London and Halloween. In the late 70s the genre almost reinvented itself; it went from some- thing low budget and lo-fi to something great.”
f course, there’s a big difference between someone who goes to the cinema on a weekly basis and someone who collects anything and everything related to the horror movie business. There is a point where an interest evolves and becomes an obsession, and as Too Much Horror Business deftly demonstrates, Kirk willingly stepped over that line with wide eyes and a head full of ominous shadows.
“When I was six I started collecting comic books and monster magazines. I was a pretty big collector up until about 12,” he says. “Then I discovered music big time. I discovered hard rock and I went from playing air guitar to a real guitar. At that time, guitar was my main focus in life and I made a very conscious decision to become a musician so the collecting thing fell by the wayside, but I was still watching horror movies and going to movie theatres and then later on renting VHS movies and it was always horror. I guess you could say it was always bubbling in the back of my brain, my love for this stuff. When I started getting a bit of disposable income, I started buying comic books and monster movies again, and collecting the toys again, and before I knew it I was full on into it all over again. My love for this stuff never really subsided – I just got sidetracked for about a decade. I’m just so in love with this stuff!”
The extent of Kirk’s passion for horror may come as a surprise to many who view the guitarist as one of our world’s more laidback and modest individuals, but few of us would dare to deny that heavy metal and horror have long been natural bedfellows. The links between the two media are plain for all to see, not least through countless metal bands’ use of subject matter and imagery ripped directly from the dark side of cinema.
“Yeah, they use a lot of the same ingredients,” Kirk agrees. “They definitely use a lot of the same imagery. The classic case is Black Sabbath naming their band after the movie Black Sabbath. They both focus on dark-sounding things and suspense. The same sensations that you get in heavy metal are in horror movies. A good heavy metal song is like a good horror movie, and vice versa. Heavy metal sounds evil and horror movies are evil! Ha ha!”
Despite that brief lapse in focus when Metallica rocketed from obscurity to become one of the biggest bands on the planet, Kirk’s life as an avid collector of horror memorabilia has steadily gathered pace over the years. Helped in part by the fact that he is a very wealthy man these days, the collection that he reveals in Too Much Horror Business suggests that this is something that he connects with on a profound, very personal level. While some rock stars fritter their fortunes away on hedonistic foolishness or fast cars, Kirk has been slowly amassing a vast quantity of what he calls “super-cool stuff”.
“It just moves me. Some people are moved by ballet; I’m moved by horror movies!” he laughs. “There’s a lot of effort involved. During the 80s it was all about networking and trying to find likeminded individuals and spending a lot of time calling other collectors and other dealers all across the country, writing a lot of letters to strangers and also a lot of footwork. I’d go to comic conventions because you’d find old toys and old magazines and comics there. I’d eat up all the flea markets I could ever find, all the garage sales, too. I’d go to antique stores in the hope of finding something. I covered a lot of ground back in the 80s, and I did that up until the late 90s, when the internet made it easier.
Doubtless the birth of eBay was a cause for celebration in the Hammett household?
“Oh yeah, man. That made it a lot easier to acquire this stuff. There was the golden age of eBay, when it came out and everyone put their stuff on there without having any idea how rare it was or how expensive it should be. I was picking up toys for $20 that were worth way more! It was that way for a few years until people got hip to the fact that almost anything you put on eBay could potentially bring in a lot of money. There weren’t as many collectors going on eBay for stuff as there are now. A lot of people put their best stuff out on eBay and it got bought up, but now it’s only rarely that you’ll find something super-cool on there because it’s either been bought or people think it’s worth a million dollars when it’s worth 20!”
A lavish 228-page compendium recounting many of Kirk’s most prized horror-related possessions, all depicted in full colour and described with something approaching religious fervour by the man himself, Too Much Horror Business is more than just a book. It’s a snapshot of Kirk’s life and a fascinating insight into the creatively rich and compelling world of horror culture that has given the author so many thrills over the years. Put simply, this is a labour of love and something that the guitarist deserves to be supremely proud of.
“I first thought about making a book maybe 10 or 12 years ago,” he explains. “I was well into my collecting at the time. But I’m just such a procrastinator! At the time I mentioned making a book and my friends just rolled their eyes! Ha ha! But a few years ago I bought some pieces that really brought up my collection quality-wise, and then I acquired a few more pieces and then even more stuff, so I thought ‘Well, if ever the time is right…’ I’d turned a corner with my collecting and I thought that now was the time to do it because my collection is better than it ever has been, so I felt I’d be able to knock out a book in three months or so. But it took me three years. Ha ha ha!”
When someone decides to write their first book, it probably doesn’t help if they are also rather busy being a member of the most successful heavy metal band of all time. No wonder that Kirk took his time putting Too Much Horror Business together. But it is also evident that he has applied the same level of commitment and professionalism to his book as he has always done in his day job.
“Whenever we do anything with Metallica, whether it’s making an album, writing an album, rehearsing or whatever, I’m so used to putting 100 per cent into it and giving it my all, so when I started this book I approached it with the same attitude,” he states. “I wanted to do it all myself. I didn’t want to hire a writer to write a bunch of text, or hire a photographer to shoot it all. I was completely involved in the process from day one right up until the deadline.”
Although he is reluctant to put an overall value on his impressive collection, stating that he “doesn’t really think in monetary terms about this stuff… I just love it!”, Kirk is clearly very serious about accumulating and preserving his beloved memorabilia; both for his own personal entertainment and as a comprehensive archive of the movies he adores so much. But while he is huge fan of all eras of horror cinema, stretching right back to the classic black and white movies of the 1920s and 30s through to the present day, Kirk is very much a discerning connoisseur and happily admits that there are certain aspects of the horror world that are simply not to his taste.
“Honestly? I don’t really enjoy movies that have graphic violence for the sake of it,” he says. “A lot of my favourite horror movies have to have a supernatural element or a fantasy element or a demonic, satanic element and I like movies that rely on those elements to carry the plot. Violence for violence’s sake, like the Saw movies and Hostel movies or even Friday The 13th, to me it’s kind of sleazy and cheap. It takes more thought and more imagination to make the type of horror movie that I like. Not to put down Texas Chain Saw Massacre or the first few Halloween movies or Friday The 13th movies, but those were made at a time when there was not really a market or a genre for this stuff, so for those to come out of the blue was pretty great. But sometimes as a parent I imagine my kids in those scenarios and it freaks me out! I wouldn’t want that to happen to my kids, you know? Ha ha ha!”
With a new Metallica album looming hazily over the horizon, it seems unlikely that Kirk Hammett will have much time to expand his collection in the near future. But Too Much Horror Business exudes such passion for the whole thing that it is not hard to imagine him grabbing every available spare moment to further indulge his love of being scared shitless. And, as that monstrous collection grows, there may even be scope for another book. Who knows what’s lurking around the corner?
“I think I could probably squeeze a couple more out,” he smiles. “I have a lot of things in my collection that didn’t make it into the book. My hope is that other monster kids out there will see this one and hopefully it’ll transport them to a place that’s magical for them. This is my gift to all the other collectors out there. It’s also my hope that there might be someone out there who may have something I might be interested in and that they’ll contact me, I’ll look at what they have and say, ‘Oh my god! I’ve been looking for this for 25 years!’ That’d be super-cool!”
Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 238, October 2011
