Lars Ulrich on his friendship with Jack White
When you’ve been a major rock star for decades, you tend to form some friendships with your peers. Lars Ulrich hasn’t always been the easiest man in show business to get along with – it’s probably not the best idea to mention Napster around him – but the Metallica drummer has been a prominent force in popular music for the better part of four decades.
Along the way, Ulrich managed to gain a major friendship with none other than The White Stripes frontman Jack White. When Ulrich sat down with Conan O’Brien for the latter’s podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Ulrich opened up about the fact that he and O’Brien have a mutual friend in White.
“Wherever Jack White is playing, if I’m in the same vicinity, I’m always there,” Ulrich revealed. “I love Jack, have loved him obviously back to The White Stripes days. I think he personifies that sort of edgy rock and roll that’s becoming less and less of a big thing these days. He’s in the studio, he makes records impulsively, and it just oozes a lot of the same elements: danger, and impulsivity, and not quite knowing.”
“One of my favourite things about him is that he never has a setlist,” Ulrich says. “He just makes it up as he goes along, and so I’m always watching. He’s doing this song and then this song, and then he’ll yell back at the other guys in the band, ‘Now we’re gonna do this.’ They really have to be on their toes.”
“Jack is really one of my maybe top five all-time musicians,” Ulrich added. “I love him and whether he’s doing his own stuff, he’s doing The Raconteurs, obviously back in the day with The White Stripes, he’s such a great artist. Such an unpredictable artist. It’s always interesting to see where he goes and it’s so inspiring. On top of that, he’s a really nice guy. Always welcomes you.”
“We were in Nashville a couple of years ago. We based out of Nashville and played sort of the southeast out of the state,” Ulrich remembered. “He said, ‘Come on over to the house. Let’s go out to dinner. Come to Third Man.’ You got to his house and there’s a bowling alley and you’re hanging out.” Ulrich even revealed that White offered to jam with him, something that music fans need to hear someday if there is a tape of it.
Watch Ulrich discuss his friendship with Jack White down below.
