Kirk Hammett discussed his approach to guitar solos on Metallica’s 1986 classic “Master of Puppets,” telling Rolling Stone:
“Back then, I was really into composing the entire solo, beginning to end. I wanted to have it at least 80-to-90% complete before going into the studio.
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“I didn’t improvise in the studio. I was young, and I didn’t really have the development in my playing or the ability to show up with nothing and then put down 500 ideas.
“I can do that now because I’m so much more of a musician now; with ‘Hardwired’ I had no idea what I was gonna play and I figured it out within 90 minutes. I couldn’t do that in 1986.
“With ‘Damage Inc.,’ I would have just sat there and been scratching my head with a dumbfounded look thinking, ‘What else am I gonna play?'”
Asked on how late Cliff Burton presented his ideas to the band, Kirk replied:
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“He played the intro to ‘Damage Inc.,’ with the volume swells, and then he played me the tune that was the inspiration for that, which is a Bach piece.
“And he said, ‘Does it sound alike?’ and I said, ‘No way, man. You’re totally in the clear. It sounds completely like your own thing.’
“And he wrote the whole middle bit in ‘Orion’ on bass and then worked out the harmony parts on guitar but played them on bass. On the record, James and I were playing all this harmony and initially Cliff wanted to do all of those harmonies on bass.
“It wouldn’t have worked because it would have been more of a solo sort of thing, like the thing in ‘Damage Inc.’ So we integrated it into ‘Orion’ and came up with the guitar-bass arrangement that’s on the album. That was his swan song, really.”
