“To me, it doesn’t even feel like my guitar. It feels like a guitar for the people.”

Kirk Hammett reflected on his relationship with the legendary Les Paul called “Greeny”, and argued that it had a profound impact on him as a player.

Having served as the weapon of choice for the legendary British blues-rock guitarist Peter Green (hence the name), the 1959 Les Paul standard ended up in Gary Moore’s possession before it found its way to the Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett (although James Hetfield revealed a while back that he almost got hold of it before his bandmate).

As the story goes, Kirk had been eyeing the instrument almost since the moment Gary Moore parted ways with in the naughties, but only ended up buying it in 2014, via his friend and guitar seller Richard Henry. Hammett, who tells American Songwriter in a new interview that he’s been enamored with the instrument ever since he saw a photo of Moore playing the guitar in a trance-like state, adds that the guitar felt special from the very moment he laid his hands on it:

“I had never played Greeny. I have to say, man, when Greeny was put in my hands, within 90 seconds, I said, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on here?’ It felt good. It sounded incredible. The pickups sounded incredible. But the icing on the cake was, when I put on the switch in the middle position, all of a sudden the entire sound went out of phase, and that sound was so unique. I had not heard anything like it.”

“That’s one of the endearing things about Greeny. Its tone is amazing, and when it goes out of phase, the sound is so individual. It’s a signature. I said to Richard, ‘I’m not giving you back this guitar. It’s my guitar now.’ We worked out a deal, and Greeny has been in my possession ever since. Greeny is never that far away from me, ever. She’s either in the same room or the same building, everywhere I go.”

Moreover, Kirk suggests that acquiring the guitar transformed him as a player:

“It’s interesting because people say a lot of things have changed about me since I got that guitar. My playing has changed, my attitude has changed, my tone has changed, my approach has changed. All those things have changed over the last five or six years because of this guitar. I’m really happy about it.”

“Whenever I have to work on music or compose or answer a musical question, Greeny allows me to connect to something inside me or something from somewhere else. I’m able to find divine inspiration from Greeny nine times out of 10. I use it as a pipeline or a spout to get creative energy to play with and manipulate. I’m so thankful for it.”

“It doesn’t even feel like my guitar”

Ultimately, however, it is inevitable that Greeny will pass on to another owner someday in the distant future, and Kirk Hammett seems to be aware of it, calling the legendary Les Paul a “guitar of the people”, and himself not as its owner, but its “wielder”:

“To me, it doesn’t even feel like my guitar. It feels like a guitar for the people. I’m just wielding it. My good friend Whit Crane [best known as vocalist for Ugly Kid Joe], from a band I play in called The Wedding Band, one day we were just sitting around at a rehearsal. He was sitting across from me, and he said, ‘You know what, Kirk? That guitar is your Excalibur. Think about it. You’re the one that it chose. All these people could have had it. But that guitar chose you. And now you’re wielding it and look what it does for you.'”