“Not amazing”: the Metallica member James Hetfield was never impressed with
When someone is putting together a band, musical proficiency isn’t always a number-one priority. Most people are happy enough to have people that are willing to fork over their own time to play music with them, and even if they aren’t the most sophisticated songs in the world, it’s usually worth it when they start hearing the slightest bit of chemistry in the room when they meet the right person. Although most of the members of Metallica run a fairly tight ship, James Hetfield admitted that there were always some people who were far from perfect behind the scenes.
Then again, every single member of the band has had their fair share of slip-ups. Hetfield himself is necessarily safe from the occasional screwup onstage, but since he has earned the pedigree of one of the greatest down-pickers in the world of guitar playing, it’s not like his devotion has been called into question. The same couldn’t always be said of what Kirk Hammett has been doing.
While Hammett’s leads are perfectly serviceable for the music that he’s making, there have been more than a few naysayers claiming that all he does is hide behind his wah pedal and hope for the best. In fact, newcomer Robert Trujillo might be the most proficient musician by comparison, if only for the fact that he’s willing to do his homework when it comes to even the hardest Metallica tunes, even switching up the way that way that he plays ‘Anaesthesia (Pulling Teeth)’ so as not to take away from what Cliff Burton originally did.
But every single rock and roll drummer in the world has had their fair share of potshots they’ve taken at Lars Ulrich. There’s no denying that the band wouldn’t be who they are today without Ulrich, but it’s no secret that he doesn’t practice at the same level as the rest of the band, based on the fact that he can hardly play the most basic of drum patterns from time to time during a concert.
“We bonded a lot in the music and in the drinking as well.”
James Hetfield
What he lacked in musical ability, though, he made up for in being one of the biggest cheerleaders for the group. He was the one with the ideas about how the band should sound when they made their move towards the mainstream, and while he doesn’t write music in the traditional sense, he understood what makes their longer exercises work, usually arranging them in the same way one might look at the blueprint for building a house.
Even Hetfield himself had to admit that Ulrich’s passion for the music far outweighed his lack of finesse in his playing, saying, “You know, his drumming was not amazing, but he had this drive. Hooking up with Lars was awesome, and we bonded a lot in the music and in the drinking as well.”
Then again, the lacklustre performance Hetfield describes may have been putting it lightly. According to original bassist Ron McGovney, the first time they heard Ulrich play was when he hardly had a proper handle on the kit, with most of the cymbals falling over and a performance that would have been mistaken for someone who had jumped behind the kit for the first time that day.
Ulrich may not have been God’s gift to drumming in the same way that someone like Neil Peart or John Bonham was, but his greatest strengths were always in keeping Metallica’s name alive, and over the years, he developed the dexterity to be at least in the conversation of the great drummers of the 1980s. You could have loved his playing from day one or thought that he was terrible throughout every iteration of their career, but one thing’s for sure: without Lars Ulrich, Metallica would have probably never existed.
