Kirk Hammett says vintage pickups now shape his tone, praises Greeny's magic
Kirk Hammett says he has moved past active pickups and now leans on vintage P.A.F.s, with Greeny driving much of the sound on Metallica’s new record.
Kirk Hammett has pushed his tone toward older Gibson hardware, saying the age of active pickups is over for him and that he is now more likely to get his gain sounds from vintage-style P.A.F. humbuckers, especially in Greeny. For metal players chasing the Metallica lead guitarist’s attack, that is a real gear-shift: the high-output EMG era that defined much of Hammett’s early reputation has given way to a clearer, more open response built around passive pickups and the feel of an old Les Paul.
Hammett laid out that change in a Guitarist Magazine conversation published July 12, 2026, where he said he had it backwards, starting with active EMGs before later falling hard for passive P.A.F.-style pickups. He also said there is “so much Greeny” on the new album and that he only played two guitars on it, with the famous 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard standing out whenever it was layered with other parts.
The story of Hammett’s tiger-stripe Les Paul helps explain why the swap matters to him. He said he bought the guitar, started taking it onstage, then broke the neck, had it repaired, got it back and thought it sounded better afterward. That experience made him even more attached to the instrument. It is the kind of player logic guitarists recognize immediately: once a repaired guitar comes back swinging harder than before, it stops being just a tool and starts becoming the one you reach for first.
Greeny brings an even deeper mythology to the setup. The guitar began with Peter Green, later passed to Gary Moore and was acquired by Hammett in 2014. Gibson says it has passed through the hands of three legendary guitarists and inspired both Gibson and Epiphone tribute models. The current Greeny-branded versions use a reversed neck pickup polarity to recreate the original guitar’s out-of-phase middle-position tone, the quirk that made the real thing so distinctive.
Hammett has described his relationship with Greeny as life-changing, and the latest comments make clear why. He is not chasing output for its own sake anymore. He is chasing the response, the air and the odd little wiring magic that a vintage Gibson can throw back at his hands, and that is the sound now shaping his side of the band’s attack.
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