Q&A: Metallica's Lars Ulrich

Like those long after-show autograph sessions I saw backstage in 1988.
It's not us and you — it's we, all of us together. The movie [the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster] is the ultimate in that access, better or worse again. Some people say, "I don't even want to know that." But once you've chosen your path, then go for it. It's uncensored. You make the choice, whether you want the access or not.

What was the lowest point for you, financially, in the band's early days?
I'll tell you exactly when it was. Kill 'Em All came out in August of '83. We did the tour. And the thing about being on tour back then was, you got your per diem, just enough money to scrape by. When we came off the Kill 'Em All tour, we had nothing. For the first time in a year, I had to call my mom up: "Listen, Mom, I need some help. Can you help me with the rent? Can you help me with some food money?"

It was all about hook up some dates, get us back on tour. Because on tour, you could go to people's houses. You could eat crap backstage. When you're on tour, you're surviving. When you were at home, fuck . . . It was tuna in cans.

People forget that to get to this level — the planes and champagne — you gotta start low.
That's the thing that was weird about the whole Napster thing. [In 2000, Metallica sued the file-sharing Website for sharing the band's copyrighted recordings online for free without the band's permission.] Nine out of 10 people go, "What was that about? It was about money." Fuck you — it wasn't about money. It was about control. We were eating off salad plates for $2.99 at Burger King in the fall of '83. Money did not matter. Money was a practical element. There was no attachment to it. In 2008, it's not something we sit around and have long conversations about. It's not like, "What's in the bank? How much are we making?" I have no emotional connection to money. And somehow I became the greedy Danish drummer, because of this Napster thing.

Give away stuff for free? Not a problem. The Internet? Not a problem. [Metallica sells complete downloads of recent shows at their Website and offers almost two dozen classic concerts from their soundboard archive for free.] Who makes the decision? We make the decision. I'll give away all my shit for free. But I'll decide when and where and how.

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