The Metallica song Lars Ulrich’s dad told him to delete: “It doesn’t cut it”
If you’re not already your own worst critic, perhaps leave it to your parents to dish out the most cutting and honest remarks about your work when you need it most. Some people are probably eternally grateful for the words of wisdom passed down to them by their elders and take their sage advice and years of experience into account in order to avert disaster. Others might be less welcoming of criticism from such a close family member and dismiss the notion that ‘mother knows best’ in order to pursue their own ideas and see for themselves whether it pans out as planned. For Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, it was possibly best to listen to the words of his father, whether he wanted to or not.
The story of Metallica’s ill-fated 2003 album St. Anger is well-established and was brought to the wider attention of audiences through the release of the feature-length documentary Some Kind of Monster in 2004. It paints a grim picture of what it was like to be in the classic metal band at the turn of the millennium, as they went through a turbulent period that saw members butting heads and the departure of longtime bassist Jason Newsted.
Chief among those who were at each other’s throats around the recording sessions were frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, two notoriously larger-than-life personalities who clashed over Hetfield’s controlling nature, and while Hetfield was going through some of his struggles during the recording of the album, the impact that these tensions had on the album and band as a whole were of epic proportions.
During a period of Hetfield’s absence, Ulrich would invite his father, Torben, into the studio to preview some of the material that he had been working on alongside guitarist Kirk Hammett and producer-cum-bassist Bob Rock. However, the elder Ulrich didn’t hold back from telling his son what he thought of the direction the band were attempting to move in.
In an exchange documented on Some Kind of Monster, Torben told Lars with little to no remorse that “if you were after advice, then I would say ‘delete that’,” after hearing one of the demos the band had been working on. “I don’t know for you guys, but for me, it doesn’t cut it.”
These are harsh words to hear from anyone, but to have heard this from someone with more than just a vested interest and fandom of the band is especially damning. There were some awkward moments of laughter from the members of the band when Torben stated his frank opinion on the track, but there was also a sense that Lars respected the opinions of his father and was willing to take them on board, no matter how much it would have been damaging to his ego.
Further expanding on his thoughts on the song, Torben would say, “For me, that doesn’t sound right, unless I’m a guy that’s shouting in some kind of echo chamber.” While the song never made the final tracklist for St. Anger, his comments did lend themselves to the unofficial name that fans choose to refer to the demo of the song by, dubbing it ‘Echo Chamber’. Little more than a minute of the song has ever surfaced since the release of the album, but judging by the scathing reviews that it received from critics, it probably wouldn’t have done much more damage to the album’s reputation than the songs that did feature on it.
