The first album that Metallica’s Lars Ulrich ever bought
Read More
Credit: Ralph Arvesen
Lars Ulrich’s least favourite Metallica album
It has been six decades since Metallica loudly stomped onto the scene and released their debut album, Kill ‘Em All. However, drummer Lars Ulrich has admitted he struggles to connect with their first record and believes it sounds like a different band to the Metallica he knows today.
A few years before Metallica released their debut album, Ulrich was still chasing his dream of being a professional tennis player, which is the reason why he moved to America in the first place. Becoming a drummer for a metal group wasn’t on his agenda, but a concert by Yesterday and Today in 1980 convinced him that it was the path he wanted to follow.
After watching Yesterday and Today in 1980, Ulrich suddenly had a eureka moment and decided that music was something he wanted to follow. On top of the show giving him the desire to become a drummer, Ulrich also had the stark realisation that tennis wasn’t his calling, and now there was a new dream he wanted to chase. Soon later, he became friends with James Hetfield in 1981, they decided to form a band together, and he waved goodbye to the world of tennis.
Ulrich threw all of his energy into music, and Metallica soon began to make a name for themselves as a live act in California. However, their sound wasn’t particularly refined and, instead, was crafted purely to enhance their live show.
Looking back upon “the worst record” he’s ever made, Ulrich made it clear he feels there is no such thing as a bad Metallica album, but Kill ‘Em All is certainly his least favourite. He explained: “Lars Ulrich shocker – we haven’t made a bad record! But seriously, without pussying out, I don’t look at any of them as mistakes. Kill’ Em All [1983]sounds like a very long time ago, a lot of youthful energy on that one. But I’m very at ease with the past.”
Frontman James Hetfield feels similarly towards their debut offering. However, he believes the group learned from their mistakes in the follow-up release, Ride The Lightning. Speaking to Newsweek in 2018, Hetfield explained: “I like Ride The Lightning a lot because I think that was the first time we got to be part of it. Kill ‘Em All, obviously, we recorded and wrote all the songs for it, and they were basically songs from the first couple of years we had been playing in the clubs.”
He added: “So we just went in and recorded them, but we weren’t allowed to be in there for the mix or anything. With Ride The Lightning, there was no manager telling us ‘Stay away from the studio’, we were really integrated into it, and we were able to help with the sounds, help with the ideas and all that stuff.”
The sound that Metallica showcased on Kill’ Em All was firmly a group in their infancy, and they needed to develop to survive. Similarly to Arctic Monkeys’ debut album, it captures the essence of youth and stands as a monolith of another time that shouldn’t ever be recreated.
