Kirk Lee Hammett was born on 18th November 1962, in San Francisco, California USA, of Filipino (mother) and part-Irish (father) descent. Kirk is a musician, and is no doubt best-known as the lead guitarist of Metallica, the band with which he has been performing since 1983. Besides being a rock start, he is also a songwriter and a writer: his first book was published in 2012.
So just how rich is Kirk Hammett? His net worth is estimated at $70 million, most of the money having been made from music, during a career spanning more than 30 years.
Kirk Hammett Net Worth $70 Million
Kirk grew up in El Sobrante, California, where he attended high school. In the early ‘80s, Kirk Hammett took guitar lessons from the famed Joe Satriani, but also studied film and Asian arts at San Francisco State University. Kirk formed his first band, Exodus, in 1980, when he was only eighteen. Three years later, he became the guitarist of the rock band Metallica, by replacing the former lead guitarist, Dave Mustaine, right before the band started producing its first studio album, “Kill ‘Em All”. He has released eight albums with Metallica, from 1983 to 2008, and is actually the songwriter of many of the plays on these albums, from which the most famous are “Enter Sandman” and “Creeping Death”. The rock star had several appearances on other studio albums and videos, including “Kichigai” (by Septic Death), “John the Fisherman” (by Primus), and “Trinity” (by Carlos Santana).
Kirk Hammett is rated one of the best guitarists in the world: he is number 5 in “The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists” (Joel McIver, 2009), number 11 in “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” (The Rolling Stone, 2003) and has three songs in “The Top 100 Guitar Solos”: “One”, ranked number 7, “Fade To Black”, which is number 24, and “Master of Puppets”, which is number 51.
He has also appeared in a series of documentaries and television shows, which add to the income the rock star makes from music. In 2009, the Metallica members, including Kirk Hammett, were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, but the band, whose worth was estimated at $500 million, is still performing and touring, with Kirk as lead guitarist. Kirk Hammett contributed a lot the rock band’s success not only as a lead guitarist, but also as a song writer. Kirk’s earnings from performing with Metallica are confidential, but media have written about millions of dollars earned by the troupe’s members from albums’ sales, concerts, tours and royalties.
For more than 20 years, he has been working with the Japanese company ESP Guitars, for which he endorses; he also has his own range of electric guitars signed by this company, called The ESP Kirk Hammett (or just ESP KH). Kirk Hammett’s collection consists of more than 20 guitars, from which the most expensive was estimated to cost about $2 million. In 2009, Kirk Hammett sold a mansion in Pacific Heights, California, for $7.6 million.
He completes his earnings with television appearances, in shows and documentaries, and by doing voice-overs for animated characters, in series like “The Simpsons” or “Metalocalypse”. Kirk Hammett has a large horror memorabilia collection, which inspired him to write his first book, called “Too Much Horror Business”, published in 2012. The guitarist created also the “Kirk Von Hammett’s Fear FestEvil”, an annual horror convention, which had its first edition in 2014.
In his personal life, Kirk Hammett was married to Rebecca Enrica Kestelyn from 1987 to 1991, and in 1998 he married Lani Gruttadauro; the couple has two children.
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