Metallica's Kirk Hammett to Release His Debut Solo Album at Age 62: 'A Fusion of All Sorts of Styles'

Kirk Hammett is making some career moves.

In an interview with Rolling Stone published on Sunday, March 23, the legendary Metallica member — who has been the band's guitarist since 1983 when Dave Mustaine left — revealed he's working on his debut solo album.

While speaking about his new book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, which offers fans a rare glimpse into his extensive collection of guitars, Hammett, 62, explained how he's getting the ball rolling on the LP.

“I’m just actively getting ideas together for my [first] solo album,” he told the publication. “I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles…. All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing…."

He added: “There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around. So I’m like, okay, who’s gonna be doing the vocals? I don’t know. I hope I’m not — I already have too much to do on stage…."

"I have an instrumental piece that to me sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts," the "Enter Sandman" artist concluded.

Hammett dropped his first solo LP in 2022 with the Portals EP, a four-song, 27-minute instrumental project.

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On Friday, March 21, the "Master of Puppets" musician spoke to PEOPLE about his new book The Collection: Kirk Hammett, written by Chris Vinnicombe, Gibson's Editor-in-Chief, and released via Gibson Publishing on Thursday, March 20.

"The idea with this book is to just put together the guitars that I love the most and share 'em with everyone out there and hope that there's some cool, unexpected results that come out of this," he said of the book.

Hammett added: "I love guitars, and I know there are people out there who love guitars just as much as I do and will just stare at a picture of a guitar forever."

Ultimately, The Collection: Kirk Hammett is for people who have "a real passion for the greatness of electric guitars, or guitars in general."