James Hetfield Praises Lars Ulrich’s Performance on “M72” Tour
During a recent episode of “The Metallica Report,” METALLICA frontman James Hetfield was asked if he agreed that drummer Lars Ulrich is “probably playing some of the best gigs he’s played in well over a decade, if not 20 years,” on the ongoing “M72” tour. Hetfield responded affirmatively (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):
> “I’d say this tour in general, the last two years, we’ve been building up to it. Absolutely. Absolutely playing great. I hope he’s having fun and [is] not too worried about his playing, ’cause he would let his emotions just take him. Now he’s a little more concerned about the click track and playing along with it, being solid.”
Hetfield continued:
> “But, yeah, I think as a group, we are all playing really, really great, really tight. And it doesn’t scare me, but I don’t mind fucking things up. It’s fun. There’s still mistakes — or not mistakes, but there’s still unique moments that happen, and it’s good. We don’t want to be that frickin’ polished machine up there at all, so no matter how practiced, no matter how good we think we’re doing, there’s still stuff that happens.”
Three years ago, Lars Ulrich told METALLICA’s So What! fan-club magazine that he is no longer bothered by people’s criticism of his drumming abilities. At the time, he said:
> “Unlike years ago, I basically don’t read any of the interviews that the other guys [in METALLICA] do. Twenty or thirty years ago, we would all sit and fucking read every page of Kerrang! and every page of Circus magazine, see what so-and-so’s saying and what the other band members were saying, what James [Hetfield] was saying about this and that. Now there’s just none of that. I also don’t really read what people say about METALLICA.
> “I’ll say that occasionally, once every six months or something like that, it’s kind of fun to go through the trolling section just because of the ridiculousness of all of it, but it’s not something that I do regularly anymore. Twenty years ago, it would’ve been, ‘Oh, my God, somebody said something bad,’ or, ‘That person said a nasty comment in the comments section,’ or whatever. Now, none of that really means anything to me.”
Back in 2016, Ulrich, who has faced criticism over the years for his drumming, told the “Talk Is Jericho” podcast that he went through a period in the mid-1980s “that probably culminated in the ‘Justice’ album where I felt sort of compelled to try to show ability.”