Guitar Heroes: Metallica's Game Face

Kirk Hammett on how the metal icons embraced gaming

By Jonathan Zwickel
Special to MSN Music

"'Guitar Hero' and Metallica—it's a no-brainer for me. Our band is custom fit for this game."

In a few hours, Kirk Hammett and the rest of Metallica will take the stage at Stubb's in Austin,Texas. It's South By Southwest weekend and there are thousands of fans already lined up outside Stubb's—an outdoor, gravel-floored venue about half the size of a high school soccer field—and amassed atop a parking garage across the street, hoping to catch the "secret" show when it happens later tonight.

At the moment, the guitarist ranked #11 out of Rolling Stone's 100 greatest is calmly sipping herbal tea in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. Kirk Hammett is here to talk about video games. The SXSW gig and their impending induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may be capturing mainstream headlines, but Metallica's triumphant resurgence, which began last September with the release of "Death Magnetic," is getting an emphatic boost from the rise of music gaming.

Released March 29 for Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3, "Guitar Hero: Metallica" is the latest in Activision's insanely popular "Guitar Hero" franchise. Using the Guitar Hero World Tour full-band package, up to four players can assume Metallica's entire lineup, shredding Hammett's solos, roaring with James Hetfield's vocals, crashing the kit as drummer Lars Ulrich, and unleashing Robert Trujillo's bass lines.

Thanks to motion capture technology—whereby the band were wired with sensors and lip-synched each song in a studio surrounded by cameras—the on-screen action is about as close as most people will ever get to being the master of puppets.

"When you watch it, it is us playing the song," Hammett says. "It's Lars doing his whole theatrical drumming sorta deal, it's James with his swagger, you know, it's me with my weird sort of head-banging style, and it's Rob with his particular heavy-handed approach. Really, it's there."

Not surprisingly, it was the band members' middle-school-aged kids who first turned them on to "Guitar Hero.".

"Friends of mine starting talking about it and starting telling me how much they loved, loved the game and how our songs were just so fun to play, so I kinda had a grasp on the concept," Hammett says. "And then one day Lars said, 'Oh my kids starting playing "Guitar Hero" and it's the best thing in the world.' And then it all just kinda unfolded from there."

Hammett's first time on the plastic axe was a challenge—and a revelation.

"I actually played an Aerosmith song, and it was somewhat difficult," he says. "But I did get the feel of playing my guitar, even though such a different approach. I did kind of get that feel. And that in itself is what I think makes 'Guitar Hero' so popular."

"It's more like reading music than it is actually playing guitar," he continues. "You're reading notations on the screen and you're doing the corresponding fingering. Even though it's completely different than from the real deal, it's very similar in that aspect."

Now, he says, the whole band is playing—ironic, because they're also in the midst of a two-year, real-world tour. And while Hammett initially balks at the idea of the game being an influence on Metallica's songwriting, he ends up reconsidering. This, really, is where the "Guitar Hero" phenomenon could get interesting.

"No, absolutely not," he says about rock band simulators inspiring the rock bands they simulate. "It's apples and oranges. I don't know if it's possible to actually write music using 'Guitar Hero,' and so we'll see how that all plays out because we're still relatively new to the whole concept. Maybe because Lars picks up the game and starts playing, maybe he'll get an idea and that will transfer into something, something we can use as a band outside of 'Guitar Hero.' Who knows?"

As a parting shot, Hammett addresses the online petition to remaster the band's 2008 record, "Death Magnetic." As of March 31, 2009, 20,120 fans are clamoring for a better CD version, which they claim sounds inferior to the version released on "Guitar Hero."

"I haven't really sat down and done much comparison, but you know, people are always gonna..." Like a diplomat, Hammet rephrases his response as both criticism and compliment. "Lemme just put it this way: Our fans are always gonna find something that they're not satisfied with, and they're gonna pick it to pieces. [That] tells me they just want more from us, and they're gonna do anything or say anything to get more. And I'm totally fine with that."

Jonathan Zwickel writes about music for the Seattle Times and is working on a biography of the Beastie Boys.