Kirk Hammett: ‘Metallica have run out of excuses to delay new album’

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is positive the band will be back in the studio in the coming weeks as they have “run out of excuses” to delay work on a new album. The Enter Sandman hitmakers last released a full-length album in 2008 with Death Magnetic, and fans have been clamouring for their 10th studio record ever since.
However, the rockers are now preparing to create new music, as Hammett tells Billboard.com, “When we start, that’s going to be our main priority, and we’re pretty excited about it because we’ve been saying we need to start working on this album, but we’ve been procrastinating greatly with it.
“We’ve pretty much come up with every sort of excuse we can not to start work on the album, but we’ve run out of excuses, so we pretty much have to start work on it now.”
He adds, “We’re a band that never has a shortage of ideas. You hear about these bands that are sitting in the studio and they don’t have any songs, what are they gonna do? That’s not Metallica. Metallica’s problem is the total opposite. We have too many ideas. James (Hetfield) has, like, 800 ideas. I have 400. Those number alone are just crazy. That’s formidable.”
In the meantime, fans can tune in to the Grammy Awards on 26 January (14), when Metallica will perform with classical pianist Lang Lang at the annual music prizegiving.