Mike Portnoy’s Thoughts on Lars Ulrich and Metallica Albums

Mike Portnoy opens up in a new interview and shares thoughts about Lars Ulrich and Metallica. Before Metallica’s new album, other band members reveal their opinions during their latest interviews.

Lars Ulrich seems to hold a one-of-a-kind position in the field of heavy metal drumming. Also, Lars Ulrich’s extraordinary influence means that he has probably influenced more metal drummers than any other artist in his area. However, the high bar that early Metallica specified led to Lars Ulrich receiving a lot of abuse in recent years.

By the way, Mike Portnoy‘s third and latest album with The Winery Dogs titled “III” is out on February 3rd, 2023 via the band’s Three Dog Music label (via Burnside Distribution/The Orchard).

“III” (The Winery Dogs) is the follow-up to the band’s highly praised and Billboard-charting album “Hot Streak,” which was released on Loud & Proud Records via RED on October 2, 2015. It sold 30% more than their 2013 self-titled debut, landing them on various Billboard album charts including No. 2 on “Top Current Alternative Albums,” No. 5 on “Top Current Hard Music” and “Top Hard Music Albums,” No. 6 on “Top Current Rock Albums” and “Album Core / Genre Rock,” No. 15 on “Album Core / Genre Rock,” No.

In a new interview with Revolver, Mike Portnoy made a similar point to Mario Duplantier. He also talking that the Metallica drummer had a major influence on him: 

“Around 1983, I heard Metallica’s ‘Kill ‘Em All’, and Lars Ulrich turned my world upside down. I can’t state enough how much of an impact he had on me. And, you know, he takes a beating in the drum world. A lot of drummers like to talk smack about him, but I disagree. I think Lars is so tremendously important to the drum world. He was the type of drummer that I admired, that was like the leader of his band; you could tell he was behind the songwriting, and the producing, and the merchandise, and all that stuff.

And the way he led Metallica – and still does to this day – was something that had a huge huge impact on me. When I was coming up with Dream Theater, I wanted to be that type of drummer, that [is] hands-on with everything and had control over what you were doing. His drumming was groundbreaking. The drumming on ‘Kill ‘Em All’ and ‘Ride the Lightning’ and ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘…and Justice For All’ – the drumming on those albums had a huge huge impact on me, and still does to this day. And I can’t state how important he is to drumming and the metal world in general.”

Metallica also presented something radically different with their debut album “Kill ‘Em All” in 1983, as Mike Portnoy said:

“This was the one that kind of shifted my listening altogether. And it was this one, Metallica’s debut ‘Kill ‘Em All.’ (1983) Yeah, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest – they were all heavy. But when this came out, you had never heard anything this raw and crunchy and fast.

I heard ‘The Four Horsemen’ and ‘Seek and Destroy’ and ‘No Remorse’ and ‘Hit the Lights,’ ‘Whiplash,’ ‘Metal Militia’… Every song on here was just like ‘Holy shit!’ You would never heard anything this fast, this raw, this energetic. You know, the bass, hearing Cliff Burton’s bass…

You would never heard a lead bass played like that. I mean, you had Geezer Butler and you had Lemmy up to that point. But Cliff was taking it to another level. You heard that bass solo on this album, it was like ‘What the fuck is that?’”

You can watch the full interview below!