Metallica's Kirk Hammett Talks New Album Plans and Big 4 Shows

With all the touring, has the band been able to get cracking on a new album? We haven't really started yet; we're thinking about it though [laughs]. There's just a bunch of other things that we're doing right now. We keep telling ourselves that we're going to get 'round to start writing songs but you know, something comes up. Normally it's a show or us having to travel to India to play or something or the other, and then the album gets put on the backburner for a bit. But I think personally, the new album will just happen when it happens.

Let's talk about the Big Four, the run of shows you've been doing with Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth. The four biggest thrash metal bands in the world on the same stage. How did that happen? Actually the idea came from us thinking about how cool it would be if all the old San Francisco thrash metal bands came together in like a festival sort of situation; maybe play a festival in San Francisco. As we started talking about it we realised that the four main metal bands of the '80s � Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth and us � had never played a show that included all four bands together. We decided to see if it was possible, if we could actually do it. As it turned out, the other bands were into it. We played that first show in Europe [16 June, 2010 at the Sonisphere Festival in Warsaw, Poland] and it turned out great.