RollingStone.com recently conducted an interview with METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

RollingStone.com: Was there a point when you realized you were a rock star?

Kirk: It was probably the "Black Album" tour, when thing started to get really crazy. We would go to social events, and Ozzy would come up to us — "Hello!" Or we'd get a message — "Tony Iommi is here. He wants to say hello." If our heroes, the people we were so inspired by, are interested in us now, we might have crossed a line somewhere. We had reached a level, in musicianship, in respectability. It was a powerful feeling.

RollingStone.com: Did it also make you realize that your friend was right — rock stars are normal too?

Kirk: There came a time when you started feeling comfortable with them, and realizing, yeah, they have the same mechanics as every other human being in the world. Just because they played that fantastic guitar solo in 1978 does not make them non-human. I hope that carries on to people when they meet me. I'm always uncomfortable when people start bowing. I'm waiting to shake their hand, and they do that. Just shake my hand! [Laughs]

RollingStone.com: How much do you think you need to be in METALLICA — that there is nothing else you can or want to do? During the making of "St. Anger", when it was clear the engine was not turning over, were you able to accept the fact that nothing lasts forever?

Kirk: Honestly, I was ready to start working on a solo album. I had a bunch of music I was sitting on. I was going to ask Lars to play drums on it. But to get to the real meat of the question . . .

RollingStone.com: The need to be in this band.

Kirk: It's really important. I've been in the band longer than I haven't been. I joined the band when I was 20 years old. I've been in the band now 25 years.

Read the entire interview from RollingStone.com.