Guitar Hero: METALLICA is due on March 29. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke to Matt Rosoff from Cnet.com about the game and other issues related to music and technology. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: With the Guitar Hero game, do you think you'll be reaching longtime fans, or is this mainly a way to reach younger fans who might know a song or two but don't really know Metallica?

Hammett: "We'll be reaching fans across the board, longtime fans, fans who've just gotten into us, Guitar Hero fans who might have reached Metallica through Guitar Hero. It works in a lot of different directions. Our demographic gets wider and wider through the years; at our shows we see a lot of kids who are 10, 12 years old, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that their parents have been fans for a long time. And a certain percentage of it is because they're Guitar Hero fans and they got turned on to Metallica through Guitar Hero, and they want to actually see Metallica as a live performing band."

Were you a Guitar Hero player before this?

Hammett: "I have to say, I've only really played Guitar Hero once. I'm the kind of person who, if I start playing video games, I don't stop. So a few years back, I said to myself that I have to stop playing because I don't play guitar, I don't eat, I don't sleep. I had found out about Guitar Hero from seeing it in the media, seeing the poster on the wall in the studio where we were recording our album, hearing about it from friends. So I did actually play it once, I played against Lars and I beat him. He plays it all the time. But I had to tell him I had a fair advantage being a guitar player myself."

What about the songs from other bands that are in the game? Did you guys pick all of those bands, and were there any specifics that you picked?

Hammett: "Well, I wanted UFO to be in there, but for legal reasons we couldn't do it so we had to settle for MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP. Same thing with The Misfits. We would have loved for THE MISFITS to be on here, but for legal reasons, we have SAMHAIN instead."

Read the entire interview here.