Metallica singer James Hetfield was recently photographed at a market.
While talking about his guitar collection in a recent interview with Guitar World, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett revealed that one of his prized guitars used to belong to John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Speaking about the 1961 Gibson SG that Frusciante once owned, Hammet said:
“I’m honored to have a guitar that John owned. I like John; he’s a great guy who’s super-eccentric, just like I am. He’s a great player too. I’d been looking at SGs for a long time and it had been hard to find good ones. I managed to find a handful of great ones and I love them.”
Hammet went on to admit it took him a while to get into playing SGs, saying that he only really began enjoying them after he played one owned by Les Paul himself.
“I only started using SGs around the ‘Load’ era. That white two-pickup SG in the book [Gibson-issued ‘The Collection: Kirk Hammett’] is something else. It was Les Paul’s SG – he actually played it on an album. That was crazy, because when I first got that guitar I didn’t know who’d owned it,” Hammet said.
Listing other guitars in his possession that used to belong to other rock stars, Hammett continued:
“It’s weird how celebrity instruments over the last 10 or so years have gravitated towards me. I have Michael Schenker’s main Flying V that he played on his first four albums.”
“I used to stare at it when I was 15 years old, on the back of UFO’s ‘Force It’ album. I’d be thinking, ‘What an amazing instrument!’ Well, now I own it. It’s in the book, painted like a V-2 rocket, so Michael probably wouldn’t recognize it.”
