Metallica star Kirk Hammett has added his tribute to late THIN LIZZY star Gary Moore by calling the editors of Rolling Stone magazine and cooing about his guitar hero.
Hammett was on holiday at his home in Hawaii when he heard the news of Moore's death on Sunday (06Feb11).
In his call to the publication, the heavy rocker said, "Gary Moore is definitely in my list of top five guitar influences, right up with Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Michael Schenker. His influence is strong to the point that the opening lick of the guitar solo of Master of Puppets is a variation of a lick that Gary Moore played a lot.
"I first heard of him in the late 1970s. I was a big Thin Lizzy fan then. I had seen them on the Dangerous tour and not long afterwards I heard there was a new album out called Black Rose. I heard Waiting For An Alibi on a college radio station and I was amazed because I instantly knew that they had a different guitar player.
"He just blew me away from the first time I heard him. It was like Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan. He had a very distinct sound and a very distinct way of approaching his guitar playing. Soon after that he came out with G-Force, which is a heavy rock band. There was this one instrumental track on the (first G-Force) album that just totally blew me away, and at that point I just made a conscious decision to make him a part of my regular listening.
"Gary was also a big influence on me visually. Every time I saw a picture of him and he was playing a solo, the expression on his face conveyed that he was feeling it deep. I remember seeing a picture of him onstage with Thin Lizzy in a guitar solo, obviously, with him bent back. He's playing the Gibson Les Paul gold top, and he's bending the s**t out of this one string and he has that expression on his face. I just thought, 'Wow'."
Hammett also recalls meeting Moore for the first time just 18 month ago: "I was in a hotel room in Germany and I was going to the gym. I got into the elevator on the fifth floor and the elevator stopped on the fourth floor and in comes Gary Moore. I just couldn't believe it. I introduced myself and had a chance to tell him how much of an influence he was on me.
"I was a little intimidated because I heard at one point that he was really mad at a contemporary guitar player for ripping him off. He couldn't have been more gracious to me though, and, in retrospect, I'm very glad I had the opportunity."