The Rolling Stone Interview: Lars Ulrich

Did you travel with your father on the pro-tennis circuit?

I was probably around the world five times before I ever went to school — and places that I haven't been with Metallica, like South Africa. I have pictures of myself with my parents at the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park [in London, 1969]. From that point of view, it was a pretty open upbringing.

Every day I'd wake my parents up when I got home from school. I always had to wake myself up in the morning and bike myself to school. I'd wake up at 7:30, go downstairs, and the front door would be open — 600 beers in the kitchen and living room and nobody in the house. Candles would be burning. So I'd close the doors, make breakfast and go to school. I'd come home and have to wake my parents up.

Didn't it seem strange to you, considering your own adolescence, to be playing the songs on "Ride the Lightning" and "Master of Puppets," knowing Hetfield's own troubled family history and the kind of lyrics he was writing?

That didn't start creeping in until the last album. I really believe that the stuff we were talking about on Lightning and Puppets was more about fears and situations that anyone could imagine having. Like [the song] "Ride the Metallica Lightning." One thing I was always affected by in this country was capital punishment. The idea that some guy would actually have to take a walk, sit down in an electric chair and know he's innocent — that shit scared the living daylights out of me. Or James and I would sit on the couch in our old house on Sunday night and watch these TV preachers, things that ended up in "Leper Messiah."

It wasn't until the Black Album [Metallica, so nicknamed for its all-black cover] that James felt confident enough to really let some of the things from his upbringing come out. He never talked a lot about that. I knew his mom had died. But I never knew about the Christian Scientist stuff he went through until a couple of years ago. It wasn't a secret, but the relationship we had in those days was not one of heavy confession. Sometimes, here or there, we would talk when we were really drunk. But in the last year me and James have probably become closer than we ever have before, and those things are easier for us to talk about.

As someone who was born in a country that still has royalty, how would you describe yourself politically?

I consider myself pretty open-minded. I can't break down my politics into a particular party. There's more to it to me than just Republican and Democrat. A core problem in American politics and society, to me as an outsider, is that everything in this country gets broken down into a basic choice. It's yes or no, Republican or Democrat, black or white, gay or straight. It's all either/or. Where I come from, there's, like, 13 political parties. There are so many more answers, ways to look at things.

If you want specifics, I sit on the fence about certain things. Like the death penalty. I'm totally against it. The fact that one guy in this country has ever been executed I feel is wrong. But then again, how would you feel if someone came and raped, mutilated and totally fucked up three of your family members right in front of your eyes? How could you look at that person and not want him dead ? hung, drawn and quartered? It's hard to be that yes or no about it.

On abortion, I'm totally for choice. In a contemporary society, people should be allowed to choose what they want to do with their bodies. That's so simple. How anybody could question that boggles my mind.

But some of the politics stuff ... every time I think I have an answer, I find I have doubts. That definitely comes from being European. Most Americans will jump on an issue — "Do you like this or that?" "I like this." End of story. If someone asks Metallica me a question at a band meeting, everyone else will immediately give their opinion. I'll go into a 15-minute drawn-out discourse.

Looking further down the road, what do you think the chances are that Metallica will still be around in the year 2005?

The chances are very good for one very simple reason: We only drain our creative side once every three or four years. If you look at the history of rock & roll, most bands are only good for so much creative music. There are a few exceptions, like the Rolling Stones or Rush. But Ted Nugent did, like, five records in three years. We'll do five records in 15 years.

So what is the next Metallica record going to sound like?

You're the first person that's asked me that! I don't know. I'm dealing with it 40 hours a week right now, and I haven't taken a step away from it to evaluate it. But it seems like we're going in the direction of something less formulated, less staccato, less [pauses] locked in by barriers.

By what's usually defined as the Metallica sound?

Yeah. We're heading into a dirtier, looser thing, not so tied into the idea of "Here's the mighty guitar riff." It's so corny when you say "bluesier." I like the word greasy. When I listen to the last record, certainly compared to Justice, it's as loose as we'd ever been. But I still hear a tension, a staccato thing that we've always been a slave to. We've done that. It doesn't have a lot of soul in it. The human spark gets put to the wayside.

Most people would not describe Metallica's music as soulful. Everything you do sounds like it's in overdrive.

We're not stuck in any one place. I can listen to Muddy Waters and Oasis. And James and I will sit there and listen to Thin Lizzy. We don't sit and listen to Slayer records all day. That's not where we get our inspiration from. Sooner or later there comes a point in your life when you get comfortable enough where you can loosen up and not give a fuck.

Do you have an album title yet?

No. Way too early.

Well, do you have any goofy working titles? You know, the kind bands come up with to keep themselves amused during recording?

The working title we had for the last record — you don't get much stupider than that. Three of us were getting divorces. And we were sitting there getting real down on ourselves. When we wanted to cheer ourselves up, we looked at each other and said, "You know who we're married to? We're married to metal!" And that became the running joke on the last album: Married to Metal.

[From Issue 708 — May 18, 1995]