ULRICH On MUSTAINE: 'I Don't Have A Problem With Him As Much As He Has A Problem With Me'

August 28, 2008

The Quietus conducted an interview with METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich earlier this week. An excerpt from the chat follows.

The Quietus: Rumor has it that you and MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine [former METALLICA guitarist] still aren't friends. Do you have a relationship?

Lars: "No. We did the movie ['Some Kind Of Monster', 2005], and as has been well documented, he was not pleased with what came in the movie and what came in the wake of it, and since then we haven't spoken. I'm sure we'll cross paths one day, and usually when we cross paths it's all OK. There's the public relationship and there's the private relationship. People say, 'Kerry King [SLAYER] and METALLICA — whoo!', but whenever I see Kerry King we hug, we laugh, we talk, we embrace. I haven't seen Dave since I filmed that scene in the movie, and I'm sure I'll see him again and maybe it won't be the same — but when did he leave the band, 24 years ago, 25 years ago? Every time I've seen him since then, it's always been, 'Hey, how are you doing? What's going on?' and then there's the shit-talking thing in the press, and then I see him three years later and it's fine again."

The Quietus: All this childish squabbling has been going on for decades. Can't you just call him and say, "Let's stop this now, once and for all?"

Lars: "Yeah, but I gotta tell you, honestly — I don't feel that I'm the instigator. I don't have a problem with him as much as I think he has a problem with me. I've always quite liked the guy. It has a tendency to depend on which mood he's in. If he's in happy-go-lucky mood, then it's 'Lars is OK, ha ha, the little Danish guy, we used to dig holes in the earth and smoke bongs,' or whatever, and if he's in a particular type of mood then it's 'Lars is a fuckin' asshole.' I can't control that, so when people say to me in an interview, 'Dave Mustaine says this and that and that'… I can take on anybody in verbal diarrhea match, but I don't feel the need to. I keep coming back to the statistics, which are interesting: he's never played on a METALLICA record, he was in the band for 10 months, 25 years ago! That's an amazing statistic when you think about it, and still METALLICA is such a prominent part of his existence. That's just mind-blowing, because he has made some of the best heavy metal records of all time. It blows my mind."

Read the entire interview from The Quietus.

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