Kirk Hammett believes that Metallica have been powered for 40 years by toxic masculinity.
In a new lengthy profile of the band in The New Yorker, Hammett says, “Toxic masculinity has fueled this band. I’m still sitting around saying, O.K., I’m gonna write a really, really tough, kick-ass riff. Just look at my rhetoric there: tough, kick-ass riff. It’s an aggression that everyone feels, but it was ratcheted up in us — this weird masculine macho [BS] thing.”
Elsewhere in the article, James Hetfield says that even though he filed for divorce from his wife of 25 years Francesca Tomasi, she’s still crucial to his sobriety. He explains, “She was the one that threw me out of the house to go find help. I don’t want to call it tough love, because that’s cheapening it. It couldn’t have been easy for her to say, ‘Get out.’ That affects her life, too.”
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