A few words to the wise: If you’ve got any important data on your phone, remember to back it up every once in a while. It’s a lesson Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett was forced to learn the hard way when he misplaced his iPhone, losing about 250 recorded riffs in the process.
In an interview with the Jasta Show (hosted by Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta), Hammett talked about how he felt when he discovered the phone went missing. “I was crushed. It didn’t get backed up. And when it happened, I was bummed out for about two or three days,” he said. “I’m still looking for it to this day. I just set it somewhere and…it still might turn up. I’m hoping it will. To try to remember those riffs? I can only remember, like, eight of ‘em. So I just chalked it down to maybe it just wasn’t meant to be and I’ll just move forward with it.”
Missing riffs aside, Hammett also revealed in the interview that Metallica is currently hard at work on their first record in nearly seven years, and that it sounds a lot like some stuff, but not at all like that stuff either. “It’s a lot similar to Death Magnetic, but different in certain parts,” he said. “James [Hetfield] is doing a lot of really, really cool melody stuff these days, a lot of vocal layers. ‘Lords of Summer’ is a good example of that, the beginning…. There’s a couple of songs that remind me of something on …And Justice for All, but the album doesn’t sound like …And Justice for All.” So there’s that.