The album that turn Lars Ulrich into a prick
It’s safe to say that Lars Ulrich is far from the most beloved figure in the metal scene.
Although he does have the kind of praise from the masses that anyone would have died for, it’s not like the metal faithful are bending over backwards to give him compliments on his drumming or claiming that he is one of the most humble artists in the world. But if you look a little bit closer, the guy has a lot more self-awareness than you might think.
First of all, let’s start by doing the one thing that most people ignore when it comes to Ulrich: the good things he’s done. A lot of people would gladly call him the worst part about Metallica’s sound thanks to his sloppy drumming over the years, but if it weren’t for him behind the scenes, Metallica would have probably never existed in the way it does today. He had a firm belief in how the band should sound and what they needed to succeed, but that didn’t stop people from bitching when he made the few oddball decisions.
The idea of making a film like Some Kind of Monster was always going to get a mixed reception, but even at his lowest level of popularity during the Napster debacle, no one had the guts to admit he was right. The amount that artists are getting paid for music nowadays is far less because of Napster, and Ulrich was simply looking out for not only himself, but the countless other bands that would be coming up after him.
Granted, it would have helped the cause if he hadn’t been the spokesperson for everything. Ulrich did have that kind of alpha-dog attitude that almost every single metal artists is supposed to have, but after years of being kings of the underground, the transition that they made halfway through the 1990s was bound to be a little bit shaky for those that wanted to hear another version of And Justice For All.
When you listen to Ulrich talk about that era, though, a lot of what he was feeling came from not wanting to sell Metallica short. They had the power to take over the world if they wanted to, and while they did have a lot of moments where things simply didn’t work and they had to take a loss, Ulrich said that the overnight success of tunes like ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’ was enough to make his ego grow a little bit too much.
The Black Album may as well have been their version of Dark Side of the Moon, but there were plenty of moments where Ulrich felt that he was getting difficult to deal with, saying, “I’d say that if the word ‘prick’ has been applicable, it would be more late 20s, early 30s. That’s when it got a little nutty there, post-Black Album success. I think, thankfully, we’ve left that behind.” But if we take a wide-eyed look at the situation, there isn’t a soul on this Earth that wouldn’t be doing the same thing if they were in the drummer’s position.
For anyone in the metal scene, it’s almost customary for most non-metalheads to say that your favourite music is different, dangerous, and doesn’t have a chance of getting on the charts any time soon, so when they finally went above ground, it was a breath of fresh air again. They had to leave the underground behind in many respects, but that was a small sacrifice if it meant getting the average everyday listener to listen to a song that might actually get their heads banging like ‘Sad But True’.
So while a couple of people had to deal with a fair amount of bullshit from Ulrich around that time, that may as well have been him taking his small victory lap. The rest of the world had bent to their will, and it was time for them to go out and conquer the world one stadium show at a time.
