Metallica’s Kirk Hammett Releases Solo Track “High Plains Drifter”

As a first look into his upcoming debut solo EP, Portals, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett has just released a track called “High Plains Drifter.”

The track is cinematic and is a collaboration with conductor Edwin Outwater, Queens of the Stone Age drummer Jon Theodore, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Sharing its title with Clint Eastwood’s 1973 Western flick, Hammett explained that the song “was not meant to be specifically music for that film, but it was once it was written, I immediately thought it conveyed the same sentiment as the film, so the piece was christened accordingly. The music for ‘High Plains Drifter’ initially came from a flamenco piece I had written. It was a two-and-a-half-minute piece, and I really liked it, but it was one of those riffs that would be hard to integrate into Metallica.”

“I knew I wanted to do something with it, even though it came out spontaneously,” the guitarist continued. “I had been sitting outside messing around with a flamenco acoustic guitar I’d just bought, and it flowed out in the moment. I was determined it would have a life. It would have its moment.”

Listen to “High Plains Drifter” below.

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Photo credit: Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com