![\"Lars](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Lars-Ulrich-Drummer-Metallica-2024-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Thu 12 February 2026 14:00, UK <\/p>\n
From the minute that he started playing music, Lars Ulrich<\/a> lived and breathed all things metal. <\/p>\n While he might be more known these days for trying and failing to recapture the same magic he did in Metallica\u2019s prime, you can\u2019t say that Ulrich doesn\u2019t still have the same passion he had for music when he heard bands like Diamond Head and Angel Witch for the first time back in the 1980s. He has always been a fan of music before anything else, but that didn\u2019t every single one of his tastiest needs to gravitate to the heaviest bands in the world.<\/p>\n Granted, that\u2019s always going to be the area he\u2019s most comfortable in. Even before heavy metal had a proper name, Ulrich was following in the footsteps of bands like Deep Purple when he was growing up in Denmark, and when he finally moved to the US, it was all about the new wave of British heavy metal for him. He lived for the kind of rush that music gave him, but it\u2019s not like he didn\u2019t have a more refined palette than most when he started with everyone else in Metallica.<\/p>\n If anything, we should thank Cliff Burton for the band moving in different directions. The bassist may have been known for being the classical wizard that would throw in some of the most complex arrangements into Metallica songs, but he also wasn\u2019t afraid to talk about his love for everyone from Kate Bush to REM to Lynyrd Skynyrd alongside the Black Sabbath records in their collection.<\/p>\n Then again, that ended up being an extremely mixed blessing when the thrash titans reached the 1990s. The Black Album is still one of the finest metal albums ever made, but when they started working on their two Load<\/a> albums, it\u2019s not like everyone was in love with them changing things up. They were clearly pulling from bands like Alice in Chains when making their newer riffs, but when it came to the fashions of the day, Ulrich was far more interested in seeing what U2 were capable of.<\/p>\n There had been a few guitar riffs in \u2018Sad But True\u2019 that sounded suspiciously like The Edge, but the sounds of Achtung Baby were what really stood out to him. The Irish legends had already become one of the biggest bands in the world, but seeing them dismantle their sound and start going for music that created a mood was a lot more exciting for Ulrich than rehashing the same thing over and over again.<\/p>\n