The Metallica member a producer called “useless”
For every great rock and roll band, there is usually one weak link weighing everything down. Although everyone might put everything into making sure a song sounds right whenever the record button comes on, there are always a handful of musicians who haven’t done their homework when working through a song. While Metallica was a machine throughout the 1980s, their producer knew Lars Ulrich’s drumming could have used some work.
Before Metallica had even started, James Hetfield already questioned Ulrich’s skills behind the drumkit. During their first jam sessions, Hetfield thought that the whole thing was a disaster, recalling that all of Ulrich’s equipment kept falling over and how he practically had to force himself to keep time on guitar while the drummer got up to his usual shenanigans.
Although the band quickly started gelling together over the first few weeks, Hetfield and Ulrich struck up a chemistry that few have been able to replicate in rock and roll. Instead of focusing on what key a song is in or what the root accents should be, Ulrich operated as an overseer for what every song needed, eventually convincing Kirk Hammett to restructure the riff to ‘Enter Sandman’ into the heavy metal mainstay we know today.
While the band got by recording their debut album, Kill Em All, on next to nothing, many of the imperfections of their early years came out in full force. Apart from Ulrich’s struggles behind the kit, Hammett said that most of his solo tracks were far too messy, wanting to redo them but not having time to commit to doing more overdubs.
Once the band had enough money to afford studio time for Ride the Lightning, they got a shot in the arm from producer Flemming Rasmussen. Known for dialling in the perfect tones for the band, Rasmussen would go on to create the sounds of the band’s most celebrated work, including working the knobs on their masterpiece, Master of Puppets.
When the producer first got into the studio with Ulrich, he was shell-shocked that the drummer couldn’t keep time properly. Instead of spending the first few days getting the right drum sound, Rasmussen would complain that the first few hours saw them sitting Ulrich down and teaching him to play on time.
For all of their help, Rasmussen thought Ulrich may have been actively hurting the band, saying, “I thought he was absolutely useless. The very first thing I asked when he started playing was, ‘Does everything start on the upbeat?’ and he went ‘What’s an upbeat?’. We started telling him about beats. That they have to be an equal length between that hit, that hit and that hit, and you have to be able to count to four before you come in again.”
Despite the impromptu drum school the group started in the studio, Ulrich’s unusual style saw them throwing in different time signatures almost accidentally. When working on albums like And Justice For All, their experimentation with progressive rock came from them trying to cram everything they could into the song, which often meant Ulrich throwing in extra beats to compensate for everything. Any drummer may need to know how to count to four, but given Metallica’s status as a metal juggernaut, common time is merely a suggestion for Ulrich.
