Spoilers might be present from this point on

I’m a big Metallica fan.

I love their music, have listened a lot over the years, got lucky enough to see them from the Snake Pit at one of their concerts and we’ll see them again next year with Gojira as the opening act. ♥️

So when I found out that this book was about to come out, I really wanted it.

Purchased it last year and it’s been sitting there for a long time, not because I wasn’t interested, but somehow I didn’t want to start and finish it. After I finish it, what then?!

It was like a fear of reading it and not getting to experience it again. Which is stupid, it’s a book that I have and I can always open it again.

I would describe it as a coffee table book because of the format, weight, and the fact that it includes tons of images. You definitely need a table to open this, coffee is optional.

What do you get in this book?

You find out about James’s love and passion for guitars, what his collection includes, how he came about owning some of the guitars, interviews with the people that worked on the custom guitars, why they did things in a certain way, and a view inside of his world.

I appreciated:

• The passion for music, guitars, and art.
• No nonsense stories to show off his status.
• Interviews with people involved in building the guitar, maintaining or restoring them.
• Actual genuine good stories of how a project (guitar) came into existence.
• The pacing and structure of the book. It’s curated so well, that you don’t get too much nonsense or very little information. For all guitars there are included mods/repairs/alterations, when were they made, what specs do they have, how are they tuned, etc.
• Not once was money mentioned. Like “Look this guitar cost X amount of dollars!”. It was about building something interesting, meeting his needs, but allowing the artists involved to take charge with their vision in a lot of cases. Because in the end, why would you commission an artist if you don’t want to have him leave his mark?
• Gorgeous photos. For each guitar you get multiple sets of photos, showing all the details. And man, some of the guitars are stunning: Dragon, Elk Skull, Carl, Sun, ’58 Explorer

I didn’t appreciate:

• That it ended

The final chapter of the book is dedicated to amps/rigs they use for recording and concerts. It’s really interesting to see the logistics and size of everything, as they have identical rigs in different locations (US and Europe for example). And even when they travel in Europe there is one rig at the location, one that is moving already ahead to the next location.

Next, I guess I’ll have to look out after Kirk’s “The Collection”.