Metallica is in the middle of their Las Vegas Sphere residency, but guitarist Kirk Hammett still took a moment to get in the Halloween spirit. The band’s resident horror connoisseur dropped a video of himself reciting Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem The Raven. To make the poem just a bit more eerie, the video features Metallica’s 2023 track “Inamorata” in the background.
Hammett recited an excerpt from The Raven, reading from a hefty tome of Poe’s collected works. The poem is around 108 lines long, with readings typically taking up to seven minutes including the desired pauses for dramatic effect. Hammett, however, chose to read a shorter passage. He began about halfway through the poem and read to its haunting, gothic end.
The guitarist has often shared his love of horror with many fans. He has several custom designed guitars painted with classic horror icons. One is made to look like a Ouija board. Others depict Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein.
Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Recalled ‘Truly Being Frightened’ By One Particular Horror Film Growing Up
With Halloween just around the corner, what better way to celebrate than with Metallica? Whether it’s going to one of their Sphere shows, or just kicking back and reading The Raven alongside Kirk Hammett. Clearly, the man knows his horror.
Hammett’s love of the genre goes way beyond guitars resembling Universal Monsters. In 2014 and 2015, he hosted his own horror convention. Kirk Von Hammett’s Fear FestEvil was a gathering of horror fanatics from all over. The festivals featured live concerts, horror-themed interview panels, and much more, all rooted in the guitarist’s favorite genre.
But inquiring minds want to know, is there a horror movie that can actually freak out Kirk Hammett? Or is he such a horror lover that nothing fases him? Speaking with Gibson Guitars in 2022, Hammett admitted that the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre “truly” freaked him out when he first saw it.
“There was a buzz on the street and everyone was talking about it,” he said at the time. “I remember going to see it and truly being frightened because there hadn’t been a film like that up to that point that was so graphic and violent in its brutality. There wasn’t anything like that.”
He added, “I remember me and my friends leaving the theater shaking our heads going, ‘Wow’, and looking at each other wondering, ‘Did we just see that?!’ It was a real experience.” Perhaps that was the experience that made Hammett a lifelong horror buff.
Photo by Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns
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