METALLICA's LARS ULRICH On His Earliest Musical Memories (Video)

The official YouTube channel of "Sound City", the new feature-length documentary directed and produced by FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl, has been updated with a short clip of METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich talking about his earliest musical memories. Check it out below.

"In about '73, when I was nine years old, there was a tennis tournament in Copenhagen [Denmark]. And Sunday night, DEEP PURPLE were playing a concert at the place where the tennis tournament was," Ulrich said. "The main thing I remember was just Ritchie Blackmore standing there, throwing his guitar, like, 30 feet up in the air and playing it with his ass and with his feet and all that. It was pretty cool. I had never seen or heard, obviously, anything like that, and I went down to the record store the next day and bought what DEEP PURPLE record they had, which was 'Fireball'. And that was kind of the first rock record that I bought. Also, my dad had a room opposite mine that was his music room, and there was nothing in there other than records and a big fuck-off stereo — I mean, a big one — and giant speakers and just couches. A lot of times when I woke up in the morning, he would just be finishing in there, and I could hear the music through the walls. He would be playing all kinds [of stuff]: THE DOORS, [JIMI] HENDRIX, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, and a lot of jazz stuff, [like] [John] Coltrane, Miles [Davis], Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, that kind of stuff. Those are the earliest musical memories I have."

"Sound City", about the legendary and now defunct recording studio in Van Nuys, California, was conceived by Grohl after he bought an equally famous Neve 8028 recording console from the studio. The console, built in 1972, is considered by many to be the crown jewel of analog recording equipment, having recorded classic albums by artists such as NIRVANA, Neil Young, FLEETWOOD MAC, Tom Petty, CHEAP TRICK, GUNS N' ROSES, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, SLIPKNOT, NINE INCH NAILS, METALLICA and countless others over the past 40 years.

Producer Butch Vig, who is working on the movie's soundtrack with Grohl, told The Pulse Of Radio how the seed for the film was planted. "When Dave got the board and put it in his studio, he had the idea to interview people who had recorded there. And he got a roster list of all the bands that had recorded there over 20 years — it's huge. I mean, it's like, FLEETWOOD MAC and THE JACKSONS and Tom Petty and METALLICA... I mean, it's amazing. And so Dave started calling up people and saying, 'Hey, man, do you want to do the interview for this documentary?' And everybody said yes."

Grohl said in a statement about the project, "'Sound City' is a film about America's greatest unsung recording studio . . . it was the birthplace of legend. It was witness to history. It was home to a special few, intent on preserving an ideal. An analog church, a time capsule, the last bastion of a craft defied by technology. It was rock and roll hallowed ground."

Grohl interviewed dozens of artists and producers who worked at Sound City about their experiences there and some of the legendary albums that came out of the studio.

The film will also feature brand new performances by artists who recorded at Sound City, including collaborations between musicians like SLIPKNOT's Corey Taylor and Rick Springfield.

Grohl hopes to get the film, his first feature-length project as a director, out by early 2013.

Lars Ulrich on his earliest musical memories:

"Sound City" trailer: