Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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You have to giveLars Ulrichcredit: you’re free to never accuse him of not following his gut.
and I go, Really?
Did I say that?
Okay, fair enough.
Ill own up to that.
But I reserve the right to change my mind along the way.
(For example, he still doesnt care about your feelings aboutSt.
Angers snare sound.)
This go-around, Lars also realized that many of the younger new symphony musicians grew up on Metallica.
Were not the youngest people onstage anymore.
Most classically written Metallica song
Weve done three or four instrumentals?
The Call of Ktulu, To Live Is to Die, Orion, and Suicide & Redemption.
I guess they all do.
I guess some songs of ours have kind of lighter and darker shades of color in them.
The first record was basically written by James and me.
All of them would have instrumentals.
It was more, We can go into the instrumental.
I guess it goes back to kind of a chicken or the egg answer.
If the song didnt work well with a classical interpretation, then we didnt pursue it.
There are certain songs, Creeping Death or Fade to Black, that didnt make either of the projects.
Chicken or the egg.
There was nothing that was forced at that level.
It all came together fairly effortlessly or else it sort of got sacked along the way.
Geekiest Metallica song for drummers
Its gotta be aroundPuppetsorJustice.
The Frayed Ends of Sanity, we never played live because it was just such a crazy undertaking.
And then a few years ago we did a Metallica by Request tour.
Every day we were playing like 18 songs that the fans voted on.
We werent changing the votes or doing any of that crazy shit.
We had like two weeks or something to learn this song.
the way we used to write these songs.
We didnt know anything about time signatures.
We didnt know anything about counting.
It was just the way the drum parts spoke to each other.
Some of that stuff just became so headstrong and so cerebral, almost mathlike.
There would be probably two [drumming] phases.
The first phase was really the first four albums.
But then we felt like we sort of took that as far as we could.
Also Jimmy Cobb, who played on [Miles Daviss]Kind of Blue.
You cant not appreciate the more big-band dudes.
Another guy I would put on the lesser-known list is the first drummer in Iron Maiden.
His name was Clive Burr.
On the first three Iron Maiden records, he was a very simple drummer.
Im just more interested in making the songs sound good.
It sounds like you put a square peg in a round hole.
It sounds like its got two different tempos.
It literally sounds like two different worlds rubbing up against each other.
It sounds very awkward to me.
Im not a huge fan of that song.
I guess the asterisk is that, to me, we did the best we could each moment.
So of course, sometimes you sit down and go Huh?
I dont listen to a lot of Metallica music.
Part of it is because Im sort of overly analytical [about the details].
The vocals are too loud, the bass is too boomy.
It becomes this exercise in analytics.
But when Metallica comes on its like, Huh?
You sort of learn to step away.
We trusted Joe [Berlinger] and Bruce [Sinofsky], who were directing.
but we trusted their gut.
There was none of that.
We stuck with it, and Im proud that we stuck with it.
Your kids favorite Metallica songs
I dont know if thats ever come up.
I dont think I can answer that!
The MetallicaGuitar Herogame I guess was, what, ten years ago [2009]?
They did enjoy playing that.
There were some of the songs that connected; I think Sad But True.
They use words like sick thats a sick song.
Most underrated Metallica album
The counterquestion to that would be By whom?
I cant listen to these records without putting myself in the spaces I was in.
What were we doing?
What were the moods?
What were the daily ups and downs?
When I hear songs from either of those records, Im pretty happy with what I hear.
Im okay with that.
Anger, maybe, is more of a polarizing record.
Some people had a hard time with the sound, the brutality of that record.
Anger, the album without the snare.
All this stuff, Im very okay with any of that.
Im proud of the fact that if nothing else, all these records represent the vision of the moment.
We were protective of that vision and we fulfilled it.
Then 10 or 20 years later, you could kind of sit back and go Huh?
or What were we thinking?
What was that about?
Why did we make that choice?
Generally, I dont spend a lot of time being analytical.
I even have a standard answer when people go, Whats your favorite Metallica?
Before they finish that question, I would say, The next one.
If Im not more excited about the next one, whats the point of making it?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
