As an environmentalist and surfer, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is concerned in regards to the impact the policies of President-elect Donald Trump is going to have on the oceans. In a new interview, Kirk Hammett mentioned that he is considering taking a more active function in politics if he is sad with Trump.
Talking to Yahoo! Music, Kirk Hammett took issue with Donald Trump’s long-running denial of climate change. “What does that tell you about the man?” said. “What does that tell you? Any normal, educated person who has a pretty good grip on reality — evenly balanced, could even be a centrist sort of person, not left or not right, any person who I just described — upon hearing something like that would just think, ‘What the f—in’ fairy story did that come out of?’”
The guitarist then outlined a great leader as “somebody with integrity, honesty and altruism, and a general sense of what is right and what’s wrong. We don’t have that in our leadership right now, and that puts me in a state of awareness and attentiveness, and it puts me in a state of wait and see what’s going to happen. But if something happens that I am not okay with, I am going to be super vocal about it for the first time in my life.”
Nonetheless, he made it clear that he won’t use the stage as a platform for his views, and that it is coming from him and not the band. “Metallica appeals to such a wide range of individuals,” he continued. “We have people on the left, people on the right, in droves. Part of the reason why we don’t consider ourselves a politically oriented band is as a result of when you begin speaking about politics you draw a line in the sand, and all of a sudden [there’s] division, and that’s not what we want. We want everybody to be in this together, experiencing the music together. … I — not Metallica, but I — will take it upon myself to get involved, if there’s something I see that’s seriously wrong, and I really feel that it is my job to say something, and to call out individuals who need to be called out.”
And if meaning resorting to social media to attempt to make a change, he says, so be it. “I could pick up my telephone right now and say exactly what I said and provoke a fight with the President [Elect] of america,” he mentioned, “and chances are he is going to fall for the bait. That’s a sad thing, right there.”
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