Lars Ulrich Interview on Making New Metallica Songs

During his latest interview, Lars Ulrich discusses making new Metallica songs and albums. Metallica‘s drummer Lars Ulrich revealed the changes in the music industry that he and his colleagues in the band have faced over the previous four decades.

Lars Ulrich is a Danish-born musician best known for being the co-founder and drummer of Metallica, the iconic American heavy metal band. Ulrich, born on December 26, 1963, in Gentofte, Denmark, came to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1980s and established Metallica with guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield. The band became one of the most influential and popular rock bands ever.

Metallica produced a string of breakthrough albums under Ulrich’s direction, including “Master of Puppets,” “Ride the Lightning,” and the self-titled “Metallica” record. Lars Ulrich and Metallica have experienced their fair share of problems and obstacles, including conflicts with file-sharing services and creative disagreements among band members.

Lars Ulrich’s impact on the metal music community is massive. As Metallica‘s drummer and leader, he helped create the sound of heavy metal and influenced numerous artists worldwide.

Besides that, Metallica‘s “72 Seasons” sold 147,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release in the United States, propelling it to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 list. It was the band’s 12th Top 10-charting album, with eight of them reaching the top two.

With 280,000 equivalent album sales, “72 Seasons” has been the most incredible week for any rock or hard rock album since Tool‘s “Fear Inoculum“ in September 2019.

The first North American leg of Metallica’s “M72” worldwide tour concluded on September 9 in Glendale, Arizona. The band will headline Power Trip at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California on October 8, before “M72” returns with its next “No Repeat Weekend” on November 3 and 5 at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

The 46-show “M72” tour, presented internationally by Liquid Death and Blackened American Whiskey and sponsored by Live Nation, began on April 27 in Amsterdam and will continue through 2024. Each “No Repeat Weekend” on “M72” has two separate setlists and support acts. 

The “M72” tour will include a radical new in-the-round stage design that moves Metallica from the snake pit to center stage, the “I Disappear” full-tour pass, and the premiere of reduced tickets for fans under 16. Pantera, Mammoth Wvh, Five Finger Death Punch, Ice Nine Kills, Architects, Volbeat, and Great Van Fleet are among the tour’s opening musicians.

In the latest interview with Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich and “SmartLess” podcast with hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett: 

“Well, obviously it’s changed quite a bit. And in your guys’ industry, some of the same things that we were dealing with 20 years ago are happening. Big picture, and I know this may sound like a little bit of a cop-out, I’m just happy that fucking anybody cares about what we’re doing and shows up to see us play and still stream or buy or steal our records or whatever. The engagement itself, I think, is the triumph and the victory. Obviously, it’s way, way harder for a lot of the younger bands nowadays because they don’t get the support of the record companies for basic things — just like gear and tour support. So there is very much of a different thing.

Talent, good songwriting eventually will find a home with a larger group of people. And whether you do it from your bedroom or through a record company or whatever, I believe that everybody will be heard eventually if they’re talented. But it is tough. It’s tough for a lot of the younger bands out there and for a lot of the… The bands that 20 years ago could make a living playing clubs or theaters are having a harder time now because they don’t sell as many records and you really have to be out there and pushing it.

The key thing as an artist… I think when you write songs, and it’s the same with you guys, you wanna start a conversation, you want people to engage, you want people to hear your music. How they hear it, I guess, eventually becomes second tier. And you understand that it’s a changed model than it was 25 years ago, 50 years ago, or whatever. I think that in our band, we just love writing songs and we love making records and we love the creative process, and that’s… There are a lot of bands that have been around as long as we have that simply don’t wanna make records anymore because it either doesn’t work for them or the business model of it doesn’t work for them.

And I can’t speak for everybody else. We love writing songs. Being creative is a significant part of who we are. And it gives us a chance to… What makes us stay functioning is that we go from writing to recording to playing gigs to writing to home. We’re always changing up what we’re doing so we never get stuck in the sameness over and over. So we’re not always on the road, we’re not always in the studio, we’re not always taking our kids to school or whatever. We’re not always doing the same thing, so you have to kind of keep just breaking it up and changing what you’re doing.

Obviously I understand that we’re exceptionally fortunate, but our success gives us the opportunity to sort of do all that. But if somebody said, ‘You can’t write or make records anymore,’ we would probably stop what we’re doing because it’s such an essential part of just our existence as people.

You can listen to the podcast Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich interview below!