Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett (pictured right) has announced he will be joining his former band Exodus — they of Bonded by Blood, "Toxic Waltz" and, well, not really much else — for a special one-off encore performance at horror-slash-metal convention Kirk von Hammett's FEAR FestEvil at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco on Fri., Feb. 7.
[jump]Before joining the world's biggest and perhaps most overrated metal band, Hammett was a member of Exodus, one of the Frisco Bay area groups that first kick-started and then defined the first wave of thrash in the mid-'80s. He'll be reuniting with whatever guys are left from the original lineup to help inaugurate the first-ever FEAR FestEvil, a horrorcon developed by Hammett himself, ostensibly because he's a huge horror nerd, and also because not enough horrorcons have household-name-level musical talent going on after all the walking around and getting things signed by the dude who was Jason in Friday the Thirteenth IV and VIII. FEAR FestEvil runs February 6-8, and features performances by Carcass, Death Angel, Death Division and Orchid, because death (and flowers).
In all seriousness, kudos to Hammett, who has managed to not only avoid most of the narcissistic weirdness that seems to have defined the last decade of Metallica's existence, but also find a way to celebrate and share his other interests to the benefit of horror fans.