“Is he gonna call Eddie Van Halen a boomer?” Kirk Hammett weighs in on Tim Henson and the boomer bends controversy

It is over three years since Tim Henson found himself at the heart of the boomer bends backlash – a term he first coined off-hand, during Rick Beato’s modern guitar discussion with Misha Mansoor and Tosin Abasi – yet feathers continue to be ruffled.

Now Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, prompted in a new interview with Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, has added his two cents to the debate.

“I love that. Is he gonna call Eddie Van Halen a boomer guitar player?” responds Hammett, when he’s asked what he thought of the term. [The US Census Bureau defines Baby Boomers as those born “between mid-1946 and mid-1964” and EVH was born in 1955 - Ed]

Nonetheless, the Metallica man is (mostly) effusive in his praise for Henson’s playing.

“I really like his style. It's really unique, and in terms of technique, it's amazing,” Kirk raves, adding: “It's the age old question, how relatable is it? It's good to listen to three or four times, but can you really relate?”

“Sometimes people just want to listen to music and not feel challenged. Some people, sometimes people just want to feel raw emotion. Is he hitting on raw emotion? No, it's so complicated. It's a very distinct emotion that he's shooting for,” Kirk argues.

“Therefore, how accessible is it on a larger scale? It's only accessible to people who like that, or can understand that. It's a very small category of people. That's absolutely fine if he wants to reach that category of people.”

Polyphia's Tim Henson Responds To "Boomer Bends" Controversy - YouTube

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“It's amazing playing, but at the end of the day, people want something that's comforting and satisfying, and is not that hard,” contends Hammett.

“They're great at what they're doing. But I also know that sound, only a certain amount of people have patience for that, or even the musical temerity to actually understand the breadth of it,” continues the Metallica guitarist.

“I love watching him play, but man, after a while, I'm probably gonna go and put on a Jeff Beck album or Stevie Ray Vaughan or maybe put on the Misfits or something. I’ll tell you, I'll get more out of a Misfits album, singing along and screaming and yelling, then I'll do out of something really technically challenging.”

Tim Henson might point out that the “very small category of people” who can enjoy Polyphia’s music is rapidly ballooning. This summer the band will support System of a Down and Korn in US stadiums, and they receive high billing at European festivals.

“In France, we were playing Hellfest, and we were like, third from headlining, and there was, like, 80,000 people there,” Tim recently told Guitar World.

Henson acknowledges, though, that stadium music has different demands than music written for smaller venues.

“It made us realize, like, ’Hey, we should start composing for it to work in these situations of 80,000-plus people,’” Henson said. “I don’t want to say tone it down in the technicality department, but sonically, making sure that it can work.”

Hammett, for his part, acknowledges that he appreciates technical like Allan Holdsworth. “I love all that really fucking complicated shit,” he admits. “You know, some people just want just raw energy or raw emotion on a plate, and they want it now, and that's what I think we deliver in droves.”

Henson has previously responded to the controversy over his comments. In 2021, he clarified “No one said you couldn’t bend!”

He is currently working on a new Polyphia album as well as a secret project with film composer Hans Zimmer.

Meanwhile, Raven, the band who took Metallica on their first US tour, recently told Guitar World that audiences initially struggled to understand the thrashers, so maybe that concept of accessibility can change over time...