April 1, 1983, San Francisco, California. A phone rings; "Hi, Kirk? This is Metallica, we just fired our lead guitar player, and we need a new one. Interested?"

Things didn't exactly happen quite that way, but Kirk did play his first show with Metallica fifteen days later in New Jersey. Metallica's then road manager, Mark Whittaker, once managed Kirk's band Exodus. When it became time to switch lead players, Mark was quick to suggest Kirk.

Hammett's playing brought Metallica into an era of more melodic and controlled guitar work. He's been in the band ever since that day in 1983, which surprisingly was less then a month after he and his former band, Exodus opened for Metallica.

Kirk grew up in the Bay area town of El Sobrante and began playing guitar at age 15. His first guitar was a Montgomery Ward catalog special and his first amp a shoe box with a 4 inch speaker. A few years later Kirk "graduated" to a 1978 Fender Stratocaster. Always searching for his sound, Kirk managed to "Frankenstein" the guitar with different pick up and amp combinations. Eventually he traded up to a 1974 Gibson Flying V (just like Michael Schenker's!) That Flying V is still part of Kirk's collection, and still pops up on Metallica's albums.

With his new Flying V, Kirk started playing with other people. This led to a whole other problem: money. A short stint working at Burger King fixed that as it earned him enough cash to buy his first Marshall amp. Around that time, Kirk co-founded Exodus with Paul Baloff. They were the support act for Metallica twice: on November 29, 1982 and March 5, 1983.

After the call from Metallica, Kirk scraped up enough money for a flight to the east coast. He found himself outside his native California for the first time, on the other side of the country and in a new band. Oddly enough, the band never really asked Kirk to join, it wasn't until the recording of Kill 'Em All that he felt confident he was in. After Kill 'Em All and the tour that followed, he took lessons from Joe Satriani and learned the virtues of jazz, blues, classical and Hendrix.

Currently, Kirk can be found in the Bay area, with his wife Lani and dog Darla.