The metal band Lars Ulrich said nobody could match: “There was something special”
Nothing about the top 40 appealed to Lars Ulrich when he first came to the US.
He loved the idea of listening to heavier music, and it wasn’t hard for him to find one band and grow obsessed with them when he first crashlanded in California after spending his childhood in Denmark. He wanted the chance to make music that could crush people’s heads if need be, and he felt that the biggest names in music were coming from England by the time the 1970s had got underway.
Let’s face it: there was a slim chance that Ulrich was going to make a name for himself listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash or the Eagles, and a lot of what he was looking for had to include music that had roaring guitars and kickass drums. He didn’t spend his days listening to Deep Purple to suddenly appreciate mellow music, and the new wave of British heavy metal had everything he wanted to hear when he first started.
He hadn’t yet met James Hetfield to form Metallica, but he felt that there was a lot more going on in the underground of England than anyone realised. But if you look at the bands that eventually found their way out of the UK and became superstars, it’s important to look at the people who actually remained in their old stomping grounds whenever you study what made them so great.
Iron Maiden was the purest metal band out at the time when punk was ruling the mainstream, and while Def Leppard was playing the same shows that everyone else was, it was a stretch to call them truly metal when they started making Pyromania. They had their foot planted in the pop sphere to a certain degree, but when Diamond Head came out, Ulrich fell in love from the moment he first heard them playing ‘Am I Evil’.
The song has gone down in history as one of Metallica’s greatest live numbers, but half the time, it was about trying to pay respect to the band that started it all for them. Lightning to the Nations was one of the foundational pieces of Metallica’s record collection, and even at the time when he was falling in love with metal, Ulrich always put Diamond Head one notch above everybody else in that scene.
Other bands had stronger hits, but the songs and riffs behind Diamond Head are what really sealed the deal for Ulrich, saying, “If you look at the sleeve of the record and compare the photo of Diamond Head with all the other groups there, they had an attitude and a vibe about them none of the others could match. There was something special about Diamond Head, no doubt about it.” And while Ulrich went miles above anything they did, he did know how to pay it forward when listening to their records.
No one would have flinched if they found out ‘Am I Evil’ was a Metallica original, but the fact that the band ended up making Garage Inc was a great way to give back to the bands that helped found them in their early days. They had more money than they could have ever asked for at this point, so getting the chance to work on some of their favourite songs for the hell of it was them thanking all of them for their influence all those years.
And while Diamond Head still weren’t going to play the same massive festivals that Metallica were put on, it was never about them trying to make a living being one of the almighty gods of rock and roll. They simply wanted to make great music, and as long as there were people like Ulrich around to remember them, they were fine making the perfect riffs that made people want to bang their heads.
