While speaking with Metal Hammer in a recent interview, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett explained that he loves his job too much to ever consider retiring.
“I don’t believe in retirement,” he said. “Retirement is something that’s been forced onto people. I don’t believe musicians are allowed to retire!”
Reflecting on musicians from “the 30s and 40s and 50s,” Hammett explained that their “goal was to die onstage.”
“This was the thinking of musicians, of all musicians for the last century: because you’ve earned the right to be up there, you have to fulfil that responsibility to the very end,” he stated.
“Playing music is a gift, a blessing and a privilege. I love what I do and it’s magic – it helps people. So I can’t walk away from that.”
This is not the first time Hammett has brushed off the idea of retirement. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, the guitarist said he never wants to quit Metallica – even when he gets into arguments with frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich.
“Leaving Metallica is not an option,” he told The Telegraph. “If I ever left Metallica, everyone in the world would remind me that I used to be in Metallica!”
