We Spoke To Lars Ulrich About Movies and the End of the World

Metallica just made a movie called Through The Never, it's half live footage, half Mad Max in half cabs, and it's a good time. Ever the artistic pragmatists, Metallica don't inflict a load of new songs on the viewer, instead they shred through the hits as a skate-rat and his hood ornament companion are chased through street riots by a masked horseman, as you can imagine, it's a total blast to watch.

World's most hated drummer™ Lars Ulrich was in London a couple of weeks ago doing promo for the damn thing and I got to hang out with him and ask him stuff. I'm not a Metallica fanboy particularly, but meeting someone who —to all intents and purposes—created the DNA of heavy metal music as I know and love it put the shits up me, to the point that I've taken three weeks to get round to transcribing this interview because I can't stand the sound of my own voice as I stutter and fawn through our conversation like a 14 year old competition winner meeting Harry Styles live on T4. This is so late that everyone at Noisey hates me, but I hate myself more.

A few things you should know about IRL Lars Ulrich:

- Contrary to what you've been told, he was perfectly nice, friendly, and self-effacing—maybe he's had some kind of Elton John-style reformation, maybe he thought I was a cool guy, I don't know, but he was just a pretty chill guy.

- He is what people who actually went to college to study journalism might call "diminutive". I'd say he weighs in at 5'3.

- He dressed in a manner befitting his age and metal-gawd status (well fitted double denim), which looked kinda cool, but wore those gross pre-distressed, elasticated, Converse that have no laces, which was a bit of a disappointment.

- He was as psyched as I had hoped he'd be on my Negative Approach tee, which I'd worn to prove that I rly knu whut I was talking about.

There follows a transcript of our discussion:

I thoroughly enjoyed Through The Never, it was lots of fun.

Thank you.

I watched it at 9am on a Wednesday morning.

It’s never too early, often at home we drop our kids off at school and get to studio and start playing and writing at 9 in the morning. Cynics would say that you can’t rock at 9 in the morning, I tell you, you can do a lot of things at 9 in the morning, including rocking.

There's a narrative movie alongside the concert footage, which one of Metallica is the frustrated screenwriter?

I guess it's somewhat common knowledge that of the four members of Metallica, I’m the one who spends the most time in the movie world, I wouldn’t call myself a frustrated screenwriter but I would call myself the biggest film nerd in the band.

I spent six months in Hollywood, trying to get someone to help write it and direct it, but it wasn't straightforward. When you don’t have any points of reference in Hollywood, people, they can get a little suspicious, they get a little sorta like, “what exactly are you trying to do?” if you can’t point to something that was successful two years before.

What did you tell them it would be like?

It was easier to figure out what it wasn’t like, it was not a straight concert movie, it wasn’t The Song Remains The Same, obviously, it wasn't The Wall. We weren't going to cut away from us getting out of airplanes and cars but we weren't gonna cut away from us, you know, acting.

What worked about Some Kind Of Monster was that there was some kinda dramatic story with a dramatic arc to it, and we figured if we could somehow put a dramatic arc into this, you know, instead of just a concert, somehow like an arc, that would be pretty interesting.

I found a writer/director who was willing to try that sort of experiment. He created Trip and the whole world that Trip lives in. None of the members of Metallica wrote the story.

There's a doomsday/end of days feel to the story, is the film a warning? Are you worried about impending societal collapse?

Worry is not a big thing in my life, I’m not particularly a worrier. But if you’re gonna cut away from a Metallica concert to a story, what would you cut away to, Julie Andrews running across a grassy field?

Don’t spend too much time trying to analyse it, it’s supposed to be fun, I’ve been talking about this movie for about a month now and people have all sort of wonderful abstract analogies of what it all means but I try to remind people that this is not, like, Schindlers List Part Two, it’s supposed to be a fun experience.

How closely are you following the art world these days?

I follow it as closely as I can, but Metallica is busier than it has ever been and I’ve got three kids that take up a lot of my time. So I’m not maybe immersed in it as much as I was, but I get the catalogues, I look at what’s happening.

I’ve been in London before and I haven’t been to the Tate yet. I haven’t been into any art dealers since I’ve been here but my interests are a little broader than they used to be. I am interested in furniture, I’m interested in design and architecture. I’m interested in a lot of different things. The things I’m interested in I read about, I immerse myself in, but it’s not limited.

Fifteen years ago or ten years ago, it was pretty sort of a particular kind of painting. I would like to say, as I get a little older, my horizons have broadened quite a bit.

I have a theory.

A theory? I love theories.

Metallica are to the music world what Damien Hirst is to the art world. They're this huge, vulgar behemoth that people are kind of rude about, but that no one can ignore because, at the root of it, they fucking rule (I didn't say 'fucking', for some reason I felt it would be inappropriate to swear in the presence of Metallica's drummer).

I like Damien Hirst. Every time I sit down and hang out with him, he’s always a very nice and normal guy. I guess there is an image there, I guess I don’t get so caught up in images. I guess Metallica has an image, but I’m just me doing my thing and when I sit with Damien or run into him or whatever, it’s just Damien.

But listen, we’ve been called way worse than that, so I’ll definitely take that. I appreciate that very much.

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