METALLICA's ULRICH Doesn't Want To Hide The Fact That He's Filthy Rich

Keith Spera of The Times-Picayune is reporting that some thought METALLICA's "Some Kind of Monster" documentary revealed too much, especially about money. At an early meeting with his new bandmates, bassist Robert Trujillo struggles to maintain his composure as he's awarded a $1 million signing bonus. In one of the documentary's most discussed scenes, drummer Lars Ulrich sells off his modern art collection at a New York auction house, gulping Champagne as his collection grosses $13 million.

To Ulrich, portraying the band's financial reality was essential to the film's integrity.

"If you are going to open the door, you've got to open it as much as possible," Lars told The Times-Picayune. "I don't think it's right to open and close it depending on what the information is. That's bullshitting people to say, 'OK, you can know about this, but you can't know about money.'

"People get so shocked that we reveal these money things. Some people might find it crass; I can respect that. But to me, you keep it clean if you don't hide anything. You're not pretending that you've sold 90 million records but don't make any money. If you throw it out there, you demystify it a little bit."

After the current tour wraps up, the band will likely take six months off before starting work on another album. Can the creative tension between Ulrich and frontman James Hetfield still exist in the post-therapy and rehab METALLICA?

"That will be tested next year," Ulrich said. "Certainly in the latter third of the film, where we start steering toward that happy ending, the creative dynamics are functioning well. It would surprise me if we wouldn't continue where we left off, or continue in a stronger place, simply because the year and a half we've spent on the road has gone on with no major hiccups or incidents.

"Everybody's functioning well, everybody's getting along, everybody's maintaining."

Read the entire interview at this location.