Metallica guitarist exclusive: New songs are really strong

Metallica will finish up its Sick of the Studio '07 tour on Wednesday (July 18th) with a concert in Moscow, and then it's back home to California to continue working on the band's ninth studio album. We caught up with guitarist Kirk Hammett in London last week, who gave us a progress report on the project: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "Things are going well. I mean, the tunes are really, really strong. I think it's some of the best stuff we've done in, like, the last 10 or 15 years. Again, it's different from (2003 album) St. Anger. Yes, there are guitar solos. Everything's going pretty well so far. I really can't wait to release the album and start touring behind it."

The band hopes to complete recording and mixing by November and release the new CD in the spring of 2008.

In a new interview with Q magazine, past and present members of Metallica share some bizarre memories. Kirk Hammett reveals that he watched his next door neighbor have sex with Kirk's dog when Kirk was just 11 years old, while frontman James Hetfield admits to being jealous of Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich's cocaine binges. Hetfield explains in the article, "I resented the closeness they had through their drug use."

Meanwhile, former bassist Jason Newsted says that Hetfield and Ulrich found their own way to bond: over groupies. Newsted says, "Those guys really went for it. Lars would probably be the king as far as that crazy promiscuity goes. B******s under the stage during the bass solo, that kind of stuff."

Metallica has also contributed the song "Enter Sandman" to the highly anticipated Rock Band video game, due out this fall. The group plans to make its entire catalog available for future editions of the game.
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