METALLICA's LARS ULRICH: 'Nobody Wanted To Make Videos With Us'

Aidin Vaziri of the San Francisco Chronicle recently conducted an interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich about the group's first-ever collection of all its music videos, called "The Videos 1989-2004". Read on:

Q: You guys were not so into making videos at first. What changed?

Lars: You know what? Nobody wanted to make videos with us. So it wasn't like anybody was going, "Please come make a video for 'Seek and Destroy'. It just didn't seem like we were part of that whole thing in the '80s.

Q: At least no one caught you on film with poofy hair and acid-wash jeans.

Lars: Don't worry. I keep that all locked away in bank vaults around Marin. When I sat down and looked through all this stuff a couple of months ago, somebody asked, "What do you want to call this thing?" I said, "How about '15 Years of Bad Hairstyles'?" Obviously, we were so the antithesis to all those hair metal bands, so maybe our stuff has dated itself a little better. I don't know.

Q: Do you remember the first time you saw METALLICA on TV?

Lars: Yeah. I remember when I saw the first video that we did on "Dial MTV" or something, and it was pretty different from the nine other videos that were on there. So at least we got that part right.

Q: Do you have a favorite clip?

Lars: I would say the "One" video has aged pretty well. It still plays pretty unique, so I'm obviously pretty proud of that.

Q: Is that because you're barely in it?

Lars: That might have something to do with it. It was literally like one of those things where we were in a warehouse in Long Beach for a couple of hours and it was, like, done, and all of a sudden, months later, this whole thing came out of us just standing there.

Q: What else do you like?

Lars: "I Disappear" plays pretty good. At least my 8-year-old thinks so, because Tom Cruise is in it.

Q: Tom Cruise was in a METALLICA video?

Lars: Yeah. They asked if we would write a song for his movie ("Mission: Impossible II"),so I spent a whole day on the set with him in L.A., met John Woo, saw some of the footage and got the whole treatment, which was very cool. But we never interacted with him in the video. That was all cut together.

Q: Exactly how crazy was he at that time?

Lars: Tom Cruise? He's super cool. He instantly makes you feel like you've known him his entire life. He has that effect on you. I've seen him a couple of times since, and he always remembers my name. Good vibes.

Q: How much persuading did it take to get Marianne Faithfull to hang upside down in the video for "The Memory Remains"?

Lars: Surprisingly, not that much. Once we did the song and had 17 glasses of wine, she was good to go. She was into doing the video. She was on "Saturday Night Live" with us. She did a bunch of TV shows in Europe. It was a lot of fun being around her, man, I'm telling you.

Q: Is there anything you would have personally left off?

Lars: Nah. Looking at the list here, I can't say there are any of these videos that are embarrassing to me. There are some that are a little more experimental and some that make you scratch your chin, but I would say most of this stuff has aged better than I thought. Other than a few somewhat ridiculous haircuts, I'm pretty proud of this collection. I'm getting all misty-eyed.