Kirk Hammett – the new champion of Roadrunner? Steve Baltin of AOL Music recently asked METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett which new guitarists have impressed him of late. “I really like this absurd band called DRAGONFORCE,” Kirk said. “Those are the fastest guitar players I think I’ve ever seen. They’re like Yngwie [Malmsteen] on steroids. No, they’re like Barry Bonds on guitar. It’s amazing. I saw one video and I swear to God the guy must’ve played 75,000 notes*.” As for some of the other music Hammett’s been digging, he said, “I like MUSE, MARS VOLTA, TRIVIUM, THE SWORD. I think WOLFMOTHER is fun. THE BLACK KEYS. And I’ve been listening to HANK WILLIAMS, because you’ve just got to. It’s as heavy as ROBERT JOHNSON or BOB DYLAN.” What was the last concert he saw? “Must’ve been our own show on YouTube. I was watching our Moscow show from 1991 and thinking, ‘Damn, we were good that night. What happened?'” *we checked this statistic with Herman & Sam, and apparently he was at least 4,500 notes off.