Kirk Hammett on Not Taking Things Like Award Noms For Granted
Metallica is up for a pair of GRAMMY Awards for Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, which came out during November of 2015 and wasn’t eligible for the 2017 GRAMMYs.
The set is nominated for Best Rock Album, while the track “Atlas, Rise!” is up for Best Rock Song. Hardwired… debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — the sixth consecutive for the group — but guitarist Kirk Hammett tells us that Metallica doesn’t take big sales and GRAMMY nominations for granted:
“Just because we’re an immensely successful metal band, that doesn’t guarantee that everyone’s gonna like everything we record, and we’ve experienced great success in the past with stuff we’ve recorded and not so great success in the past with stuff we’ve recorded. So our attitude going into a new release is hope for the best, expect the worst. Just because we’re one of the biggest bands in the world doesn’t mean we’re gonna sell biggest band in the world record numbers…At the end of the day you just have to live with…knowing you’ve done the best you possibly could and it’s good enough. That’s good enough for me, at least, knowing that.”
Metallica has won nine previous GRAMMYs, the last one in 2009, Best Recording Package for its Death Magnetic album. The group resumes its WorldWired Tour on February 1 in Portugal.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
