Metallica Launches Whiskey Despite James Hetfield’s Battle With Alcohol

Metallica rocker Kirk Hammett has defended the group’s decision to launch their own whisky, despite frontman James Hetfield’s long battle with alcoholism.

Metallica scrapped plans to tour Australia last year, as Hetfield had returned to rehab to cope with an addiction he first publicly battled back in 2001, before going sober for a long period.

Back in 2018, the group launched Blackened, a whisky that used their music, played through a subwoofer to disrupt the whiskey inside its barrel, a decision lead guitarist Hammett is still comfortable with despite his bandmate’s relapse.

“You can’t compare the two things. James’s struggle to get dry is a completely personal matter mentally and emotionally,” he tells Britain’s Daily Star newspaper. “The fact that we produce, bottle and sell alcohol is totally independent of this.

ESP has officially announced a brand new signature guitar model for Metallica frontman James Hetfield: the LTD Snakebyte SE Baritone.

We are looking at a replica of the ESP model James has been playing on the band’s ongoing WorldWired tour.

The instrument features a mahogany body with a figured quilted maple top, along with a 27-inch U-shaped three-piece mahogany neck with Macassar ebony fingerboard.

In the hardware department, the six-string is loaded with signature EMG JH Het Set active pickups, a set of LTD locking tuners, and a TonePros locking TOM bridge and tailpiece.

The guitar comes tuned to standard baritone tuning: B-E-A-D-F#-B.

Only 500 models will be produced worldwide with a price tag of $1,399. More info on the official site.

“It is completely up to you whether you drink or not. And I think I can sell what I want. If I were a diabetic, that wouldn’t mean that I couldn’t sell sweets.”

Updating fans on Hetfield’s situation, he adds: “We hold a virtual meeting once a week to keep in touch. James is working his way out of his situation. We can really only try to support him.”

Hammett went on to assert that the band would emerge stronger from their latest setback.

“We’ve definitely survived so much and have become ­brothers,” he explains. “We love one another, even if we sometimes hate each other as well. But that’s the way it is with brothers. We realise that we are bound to one another for the rest of our lives. I could say I’m leaving Metallica. And then what? Everyone would look at me and say: ‘Hey, that’s the Metallica guy.’”