James Hetfield Thinks Lars Ulrich’s Drumming is the Best It’s Been in 20 Years
Who doesn’t love dunking on Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich? Anyone who’s seen those guys live generally says the same thing — everyone else sounds great, but Lars just can’t hang. Dude half-asses his old double-bass parts and his fills kind of feel sort of just there. It’s a far cry from his …And Justice For All days, that’s for sure.
Yet one person is still carrying the Lars Ulrich banner pretty high, and that’s his close friend, bandmate, and (what I imagine is) his foil, James Hetfield. During a recent episode of the band’s official podcast The Metallica Report (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), he was asked if he agreed that Ulrich’s playing on the massive M72 World Tour was the best it’s been “in well over a decade, if not 10 years.” Naturally, Hetfield didn’t bury his friend.
“I’d say this tour in general, the last two years, we’ve been building up to it. Absolutely. Absolutely playing great.
“I hope he’s having fun and [is] not too worried about his playing, ’cause he would let his emotions just take him. Now he’s a little more concerned about the click track and playing along with it, being solid.
“But, yeah, I think as a group, we are all playing really, really great, really tight. And it doesn’t scare me, but I don’t mind fucking things up. It’s fun. There’s still mistakes — or not mistakes, but there’s still unique moments that happen, and it’s good. We don’t want to be that frickin’ polished machine up there at all, so no matter how practiced, no matter how good we think we’re doing, there’s still stuff that happens.”
Considering that 20 years ago, Metallica was fresh off the release of St. Anger and touring on the back of that monstrosity, it’s probably fair to say that the bar is so low it’s probably in Hell. Still, it’s easy to criticize the guy when he’s making squillions of dollars and touring the world while our regular asses are out here not making music and busting our asses in jobs we all hate. So who’s got the last laugh now?
