James Hetfield

Hetfield bought this guitar in 1980 for $200, and it was his second electric guitar. He played it on Metallica’s first album “Kill ’em All”, and kept playing it up until 1984 when the neck snapped after an accident on stage. At that point the guitar had two Seymour Duncan Invader humbuckers, a Tune-o-Matic Bridge.

Just prior to recording “Death Magnetic” in 2008 Hetfield decided to restore this guitar. He changed a couple of things, including the pickups which he replaced with the EMG 81/60 set, and reparation of the headstock which was broken more than one time in the past.

James’s first ESP, and one of this most recognizable guitars. He bought it just prior to recording “And Justice For All”, and used it as his main axe during that period. The guitar featured neck through body construction (as with all of James’ ESPs), with mahogany body and neck featuring rosewood fingerboard and custom middle finger inlays. The guitar was also equipped with a Tune-o-Matic bridge, Gotoh tuners, and EMG 81/60 active pickups.

James Hetfield is pictured using the Blackstar Series One 200 Guitar Amp in a user-uploaded photo.

In this picture, James Hetfield is pictured singing and playing the white ESP Flying V on stage.

James Hetfield uses the DigiTech Whammy Pitch-Shifting Pedal, as noted on Groundguitar's "James Hetfield's Guitars and Gear" page.

This picture shows James Hetfield preparing to lay down a track in the studio with a Shure SM7B in his hand.

James Hetfield can be seen here using a Black BC Rich Wrath. This was probably used once only as he cannot been seen again with this guitar

In this source picture, James Hetfield is using the Trussart Metal Explorer electric guitar for live work.

Listed on http://www.metallica.com/band/band-bio-gear.asp

Here is a picture from "Some Kind of Monster", a documentary about the making of St. Anger. We see a Peavey 5150 sitting under one of James' Marshalls. It's unclear whether this actually belonged to James.

The front-man and rythym guitarist for the Legendary Metallica, James Hetfield, poses for an advertisement from ESP guitars holding his custom made ESP MX-250 entitled "Man to Wolf". The 24th fret of the "FAKE" Replica versions features an inlay that says "MetalliFu%$inyeaH". The original guitar will not have this.

James is playing this guitar during the unforgiven II

James Hetfield acquired the Gibson Custom Les Paul "Cliff Burton RIP" in 2008 and used it for select live performances. This usage is documented in a user-uploaded photo on Guitarscollector.

This video from Metallica's performance from Yankee Stadium in 2011 shows James playing this guitar for Fade to Black.

The item can be seen at 7:26 min in the video.

In this Instagram photo posted by ESP Guitars, Metallica's James Hetfield can be seen wielding his signature ESP James Hetfield Snakebyte Electric Guitar (Snow White color). This particular one has a San Francisco Giants decal/logo on the body.

"@papa_het_ with his custom ESP snakebyte with @sfgiants logo. #espguitars #metallica #jameshetfield #sfgiants"

James started using this guitar around the release of the “Load” album in 1996, but it was likely used during the studio sessions as well.

The guitar was built by ESP and painted by Dino Muradian to feature an elk skull surrounded by barbed wire. Dino used a technique called pyrography – a process of burning a design on the surface with a heated metallic point. The barbed wire extended on the fretboard as well, serving as inlay.

Seen on stage in almost every Metallica live video, James uses Mesa Boogie 4x12 Roadking and Rectifier cabinets with a custom grill cloth, loaded with Celestion Vintage 30's

This is an amazing guitar that was created by Ken Lawrence in the style of James' usual Ken Lawrence explorers, but with a cool twist. It was made using the wood from the garage where Metallica wrote Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets.

The fretboard art depicts James, Lars, and Kirk together, them meeting Cliff, his death, and them all returning to the garage forever. A very meaningful guitar and a work of pure art.

James Hetfield appears to use a modified Mesa/Boogie Stiletto Deuce Stage II head during performances of the National Anthem at various sports events, such as Giants, Sharks, or Warriors games. The amplifier's front panel is customized with team colors, and Hetfield's "JH" badge replaces the original Stiletto badge. Despite these modifications, the control layout remains consistent with a Stiletto head. This suggests its suitability for a single 4x12 live setup or possibly its tonal preference for these performances. A user-uploaded photo supports this observation.

James Hetfield used AT M50x while recording the album 'Hardwired...To Self-Destruct'.

Listed on the Official Metallica website.

Around 2007, prior the recording of Death Magnetic James started experimenting with Krank Krankenstein and Revolution 1 amps, which he ended up using on the album.

An interesting photo of James using a Jackson RR5 Rhoads Black And Gold!

This is actually Kirk Hammett’s guitar that he uses live for D Standard tuned songs such as Sad But True. This picture is from Lisbon 2019 on their WorldWired tour; James was having some sort of issue with his guitar for this song, so Kirk lent him his 1984-ish modified Jackson Rhoads RR5 to use at that moment. James has only used that Rhoads once (though he looks pretty awesome with a Rhoads too).

In the URL it's possible to see Hetfield using the ESP JH-1 in three different scenarios.

James Hetfield used the ESP JH-1 mostly in the Load "era". He also used a green version of the guitar, but in green colour instead of red. Apart from the colour, the guitars are identical.

If you look at the rack closely you will see the noise gate says 1074 on it and on the left of it says dbx. This Picture can be found in an article that Mesa/Boogie released on their website, and if you search James' rack or gear on Google you can find it in Images.

Ken Lawrence Flying V, can be seen used by James Hetfield in Making Of "Atlas, Rise!"

Here is James' pedal setup with an older EHX Bass micro synthesizer, along with a MXR Phase 100 and a Digitech Whammy.

In the video, Metallica is rehearsing with Lemmy, you can spot James Hetfield certainly playing on a Blackstar 100W series One (maybe 6l6 version). However, I do not know if this has ever been used on stage.

In this Photo, taken in 2006 live in Seoul, we can see Hetfield with his Black ESP LTD Viper Baritone with a Light Green flames, Hetfield Usually has this Baritone in Drop-D Tuning.

This Baritone first appeared around Metallica's "St. Anger" Era, it has only been seen live however may have been used in the studio recorings for "St. Anger".