METALLICA's LARS ULRICH: 'Our Driving Force Is Trying To Do Away With Whatever It Is That Separates The Bands And The Fans'

On March 11, METALLICA's Lars Ulrich joined Apple Music's global creative director and Apple Music 1 lead anchor Zane Lowe at SXSW (South By Southwest) conference and festivals for a session at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas titled "Breaking The Fourth Wall". Lars and Zane explored how the band is continuing to use revolutionary technology to connect more deeply with fans, bringing them truly inside their dynamic live performance. In this candid chat, attendees heard from Lars how METALLICA has leaned into technology throughout their career to the present day, to reinvent storytelling and redefine the fan experience that ultimately breaks the fourth wall.

Discussing METALLICA's relationship with the band's fans, Lars said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Going back to growing up in Copenhagen, Denmark, I used to go to rock shows, started going to rock shows when I was really young. My dad took me to see DEEP PURPLE when I was 10 years old, 1970-something. And so I would see all these shows, and I found myself just kind of wanting to get close to the music, close to the band, close to the players, close to the experience and try to sort of immerse myself into all of it.

"When DEEP PURPLE would stay in Denmark — all the rock bands in the '70s stayed at the Plaza Hotel, and I would park myself outside of the Plaza Hotel and I would wait for Ritchie Blackmore and David Coverdale and bands like THIN LIZZY and KISS and whoever else was coming through, BLACK SABBATH," he continued.

"There was just something about that when you were drawn to the music and drawn to the experience, you wanted to try to just get as close as you could. And anyway, so when we then subsequently later formed a band, the bands that we were inspired by and that made us want to be METALLICA and play music were also the ones that had the most transparency and the most open doors. A lot of the bands, as you know, that directly affected METALLICA's sound and attitudes in the very early days — bands like MOTÖRHEAD, IRON MAIDEN, a lot of the bands in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, which really at core was sort of the punk aesthetic, the punk attitude, the punk sort of DIY approach, but played heavier and set obviously in a heavy world. But all those bands, they had that door — let's call it the transparency door — wide open, wide open. So come in. Be part of what's going on. And if you like the music, you also had access to the band. And that was the attitude that we took with us when we started. We just wanted to be on the same level as anybody who was interested in listening to the music and being part of the ride. The fans, the kids, as the English would call 'em at the time, but it was all about being on an even playing field.

"A lot of the bands that, if you go a little bit back for sort of more understanding the threads and the history of music, the punk movement in itself was sort of an answer or a middle finger to how larger than life all the mid-'70s rock bands and how far from reality they were and how far removed from their audiences," Lars explained. "The bands were these elevated characters and the fans were down here, and the punk movement was all about bringing everybody down. And you guys know the RAMONES and the SEX PISTOLS and all that was about, 'I could do that. I could play those three chords. I could be that.' And so it was all about doing away with that separation, doing away with that kind of the pretend barrier. I kind of see it often as a barricade that separates the fans from the bands and vice versa, about doing away with that sense of separation. And that has really been our sort of driving force for the 40-plus years, is just trying to stay on the same level, do away with whatever it is that separates the bands and the fans, and that is still what gets us out of bed to this day."

Back in July 2023, METALLICA put out a casting call for "superfans" of the band to possibly appear in an upcoming documentary. The filmmakers were looking for "big personalities, unique characters and unexpected stories from METALLICA fans who consider METALLICA to be their favorite band, real 'Fifth Member' types. All stories and walks of life" were "welcome and encouraged to reach out."

The documentary was reportedly being produced by METALLICA and Mercury Studios, powered by Universal Music Group.

Two years ago, Ulrich credited the use of "Master Of Puppets" in 2022 in the hit Netflix series "Stranger Things" with creating a whole new generation of METALLICA fans.

As a result of the song's appearance in the show, "Master Of Puppets" — the title track of METALLICA's 1986 album — went on to top of the iTunes Rock Chart and crack the Spotify Top 50.

Ulrich told Japan's TVK: "I'm just so happy that hard music and hard rock still has a place. To see so many young people connecting with music again. . . I can see it my kids; I can see it, in the last nine months, the 'Stranger Things' phenomenon of so many young kids discovering 'Master Of Puppets' and that being a gateway to maybe more METALLICA music or to more heavy music or heavy rock music."

Lars went on to say that the possibility for METALLICA's music to reach a new audience seems endless.

"I see that there's still so much, all over the world, a coming of age when kids are 12, 13, 14 years old, to get into music and for us to be part of that discovery is an incredible thing," he explained.

In a 2015 interview with Time Warner Cable News, METALLICA frontman James Hetfield was asked what it feels like to get such a strong reaction from the crowd every time the band performs live. He said: "Well, it's like an ultimate family for us — especially for me. When I'm able to just be honest and ask, 'Hey, help sing this part,' or I screwed up the words and they sing it for me. It's, like, 'Man, they really do have our back.' And we don't look at things as mistakes. There are no mistakes that happen. There's just unique ways of doing it for that day. We go up there and we play it. So there's just such a freedom when you have… When the crowd has your back, there's such a freedom to be able to even explore more up there or to even do better. 'Cause you know you're not out there to impress people, you're out there just to deliver what you've got in you."

In 2016, Ulrich told Vice that he and his bandmates don't make a concerted effort to bring in new fans or win over naysayers whenever they release a new album. "I mean, we are all aware kind of aware of the fact of how wide the net is cast," he said. "And like I said, most things that I see in the world is in grays, so it's pretty easy with this stuff. So 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 20-year-olds, teens, it's fine. We don't go out of our way to do one thing more than the other. I think that there still there seems to be a rite of passage for 13 and 14-year-old boys and in lots of places around the world. There are still a lot of young kids. When I occasionally check our social media, I can tell that a lot of them are younger, which is cool. So I think we got a pretty good balance. There are certain places like in Scandinavia, they're really young and there is like 14-year-old girls down in the front row. Sometimes parents bring their kids, or kids bring their parents. It's fun."