LARS ULRICH On Life After METALLICA, NAPSTER And On-The-Road Excess

Stereo Warning has posted the first two parts of a three-part interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Stereo Warning: Magazines made a big deal about you flying on different planes last summer in Europe. What's the travel arrangement on this tour?

Lars: We're flying home a lot after shows so we're travelling together. People have a tendency to focus on something that can be perceived as negative. The reason we travel separately a lot is we want everybody to be comfortable, not that we don't wanna hang out together. James Hetfield doesn't want to base in Copenhagen for two weeks he shouldn't have to just because I want to. It's about giving each other space and freedom to be comfortable in that crazy touring bubble. Guys that are content have a tendency to want to tour longer and be more productive. It's an investment back in the band. Sure, it can be perceived as overkill or excess and I understand that, especially with English magazines, but it's okay. You set yourself up for that.

Stereo Warning: Do you ever miss the wild old days?

Lars: I'm glad I lived them. I have a lot of great memories and I had a lot of fun. We had a lot of crazy shit that was going on. I don't need to live it anymore. A lot of kids that grow up around hard rock and metal have a tendency to be loners, outcasts and misfits, and I don't mean it necessarily as a negative thing. I was a loner. I spent a lot of time alone. I'm an only child and a lot of times in social circles guys can be awkward. When you're in a band all of a sudden girls pay attention to you, so you spend a lot of time chasing after girls, especially when as a youngster you were kind of an outcast because you didn't get a lot of girl action when you were 17. All of a sudden you are 25 and making up for that lost time. In some way it also can help give you confidence and identify who you are, because you feel better about who you are. But when you're 44, I've got a great girl, I've got three beautiful kids, I don't need to validate who I am anymore through that kind of partying or pursuit of being accepted or noticed. I've had a lot of fun but now it's not something that identifies who I am. I can drink like every body else, but mostly red wine not vodka tonic like it used to be.

Stereo Warning: What would you do without METALLICA?

Lars: I've got a whole laundry list. I'm pretty sure I'd probably start off in the movie world, most of my friends either make or produce or write movies. I'm not so interested in acting, Connie (Nielsen, Lars' Danish actress girlfriend) can do that. Writing, producing... directing is more challenging, maybe I'll leave that for later. But I'd love to sit down for 6 months and write a movie. There's not shortage of things to do, I'm not scared about what's gonna happen on the other side of METALLICA. I just hope I get to all the things I could do.

Stereo Warning: Any ideas of what kind of movies you might write?

Lars: I got things stored up in my head. There are more film people that come over to the house for dinner than musicians. It seems natural to go that direction.

Stereo Warning: You were right about Napster and most people would probablly admit it now, but you took a lot of heat at the time. Was it a PR mistake to take on those guys then?

Lars: No, it was the right thing to do but we should've been better prepared. But that's METALLICA, man, we just jump and we don't know where the fuck we're gonna land most of the time. And that's a beatiful thing to do but once in a while you also hurt yourself when you land. They were brilliant because they set us up against our fans. It wasn't true that METALLICA was suing the fans, we never sued any of our fans. We said please take us off the server, they said we can't do that, we don't know who's downloading your music. We said that's bullshit. So we called up some company and they got the names of everybody. It was as easy as putting milk on your cereal. So we said here they are, and they said Lars is suing his fans. They were very smart. I wish we'd been more prepared. It was annoying that it was so misunderstood and still to this day, 8 years later some people remember that "METALLICA is about money." It wasn't money, it was control. It wasn't supposed to be a big thing. The way I look at METALLICA this is a footnote. But to some people METALLICA are the guys that went after Napster.

Read the first two parts of the interview at Stereo Warning. The final installment is expected to go online later today.