The ESP Guitar Company

It seems like our friends in Metallica are in the news a lot recently, for good reason. First, on Friday August 28, they're releasing S&M2, the second live album that features the band performing along with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (available for pre-order now at their web site). One day later, on Saturday August 29, they're doing a special live show that fans across the USA can watch at drive-in theaters... check for ticket availability here.

On August 12, James, Kirk, Lars, and Rob appeared live on The Howard Stern Show on SiriusXM. The band was at their famed rehearsal facility and band headquarters in Northern California, and performed several songs, including "The Unforgiven", "Wherever I May Roam", and "All Within My Hands". Perhaps we're biased, but it seemed to us that Metallica was sounding better than we've ever heard them. Check out the performance below, with James Hetfield using one of his ESP Truckster signature guitars, and Kirk Hammett playing the purple sparkle version of his iconic Ouija® guitar.

A little later in the show, Howard and his longtime co-host Robin Quivers had a conversation with Kirk about the circumstances of his leaving his original band Exodus in 1983 to join Metallica. Kirk related the story of informing his then-bandmates (including ESP player Gary Holt) about his decision, which resulted in a wrestling match and, according to rumors, Kirk having a beer poured over his head. During the chat (below), Kirk is holding a special LTD TL Series 12-string guitar that has a custom red sparkle finish we created at his request at our ESP USA shop here in Southern California.

James and Kirk also gave a shout-out to ESP during the show after Howard complimented the sound of their guitars. After Howard pointed out that the guys could play any guitar brand they wanted to, they let him know that ESP is the guitar that they'd both been using for decades, and that ESP is able to deliver the high-quality instruments that allow them to do their best work. You can check out Howard on SiriusXM here. 

OUIJA is a trademark of Hasbro and is used with permission.