The Singapore-based rock magazine BigO pulls a surprising museum piece out of its archives: my 1997 interview with Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett.
I knew nothing about Metallica (as you can see from the first paragraph, my obsession was with obscure 1960s pop), so I'm sure any questions of mine that show some awareness of the band were suggested by my editors. My own personality comes through in the more offbeat questions like, "What have you been reading lately?"
Two years earlier, I had asked the same question to Los Angeles songwriter Ben Eshbach and he had answered The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton. Buying that book on Eshbach's recommendation led, over time, to my conversion to Christianity and my entering into full communion with the Catholic Church.
I leave it to you, dear commenter, to hypothesize, with copious puns, what my life might have been like had I followed Hammett's initial reading recommendation. One thing's for sure; it would have been in tents.
