James Hetfield’s opinion on Lars Ulrich as a drummer

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich formed Metallica back in 1981 and with the help of Kirk Hammett and all the amazing bassists they had over the years created some of the most influential metal albums in history. Although they are highly respected and praised some band members are sometimes criticized such as Lars Ulrich who is often compared to other drummers in the genre. Hetfield has already given his opinion on his bandmates as musicians, including Ulrich.

What is James Hetfield’s opinion on Lars Ulrich as a drummer

Interestingly, in James’ view, he is the one who handles most of the rhythm in Metallica which gives Lars room to be creative with his playing. “(My guitar playing is) Percussive. I love playing drums, so a lot of the rhythms come from beats that I have in my head. A lot of times when you’re doing a rhythm and the drums play along exactly to that rhythm, it’s less effective. I see that a lot in certain bands these days, ‘Here’s the guitar riff and the kick and snare are doing the exact same thing.’

“With Metallica, Lars is always playing a little against the riff. It’s almost like I’m the drummer and he does counter beats to the rhythm. Onstage, the only thing Lars has got in his ear monitors is my guitar and some vocals. So I’m kinda keeping the tempo of the song and he’s able to get a little crazier on the drums. Quite a bit (of my rhythm playing style can be attributed to Lars’ drumming). Because, as I say, I have a lot of room to lay down. I might not be able to be as free as possible on some stuff. Because when I get loose everything goes a little wobbly!”

He continued:

“But I’m able to show Lars some drum stuff and he’s able to show me riff stuff, you know? I’m a frustrated drummer and he’s a frustrated singer-guitarist! So it’s really great that we’re able to accept each other’s dreams that way and see it as a positive thing, not just, ‘Get outta my territory!'” James Hetfield said in an interview with Music Radar in 2009.

Since then, Hetfield believes that Ulrich has improved and is playing better than he ever was. When asked in an interview with Metallica Report in 2024, if he thought Lars’ was playing some of the best gigs in more than a decade, he said: “I’d say this tour in general, the last two years, we’ve been building up to it. Absolutely. Absolutely playing great. I hope he’s having fun and (is) not too worried about his playing, ’cause he would let his emotions just take him. Now he’s a little more concerned about the click track and playing along with it, being solid.

“But, yeah, I think as a group, we are all playing really, really great, really tight. And it doesn’t scare me, but I don’t mind fucking things up. It’s fun. There’s still mistakes — or not mistakes, but there’s still unique moments that happen, and it’s good. We don’t want to be that frickin’ polished machine up there at all. So no matter how practiced, no matter how good we think we’re doing, there’s still stuff that happens,” James Hetfield said.

When they first met James Hetfield thought he was a terrible drummer

James and Lars met each other in the early ’80s and developed a strong friendship, introducing each other to different bands, with Hetfield showing him many American groups he liked and Lars introducing him to European ones. However, when they played together, the guitarist and singer thought he was terrible on drums.

“It was in high-school. I was with a friend of mine Hugh Tanner. We played guitar together, and we were the next ‘guitar duo, dude.’ We were looking for a drummer, and Lars answered. I guess it was an ad in a paper; you would just go straight look for an ‘H’ and ‘Heavy Metal.’ ‘Okay, there’s us again… Oh, there’s another guy, Lars. Who’s this guy?’.

He continued:

“So I called him up, we got an audition, and he was terrible (Laughs). But his spirit and his motivation were spectacular. We said, ‘You’re not what we’re looking for.’ But then about six months later, that’s when he called me, saying, ‘Hey remember me?’ Yeah, you’re the guy with that multi-colored drum kit and the cymbal kit falling over,’ (Laughs). ‘Well, I got a place on a record now.’ This guy Slagel was putting together Metal Blade Records.

“Metal Blade Records has really been an amazing service for every metal band on this planet. He was starting this label, it was a compilation (called ‘Metal Massacre’) of all the different bands in LA. And Lars didn’t have a band, but he had a spot on there because he had such vigor and such knowledge of music and metal. So he said, ‘I got a spot,’ and we said, ‘Okay, come on over, let’s make this work.’ The song was ‘Hit the lights,’ and it was okay,” James Hetfield told Terry L. Karges in 2020.

Curiously, according to Hetfield it was only during the past years that Lars Ulrich started to rehearse with the band, something he didn’t do before. “An interesting fact: Lars never rehearsed ever until, I don’t know. I’d say maybe four or five years ago, he started really getting into rehearsing. And now he’ll rehearse four days for a two-hour set, which is what he needs to do, which is awesome,” he told Metallica Report.

Over the years, there has been some criticism from Thrash Metal fans who compare him with other drummers from the Big Four, who were members of Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer, such as Charlie Benante, Nick Menza and Dave Lombardo. But Lars already said that he doesn’t care anymore for reviews or what people say on the internet.

“Unlike years ago, I basically don’t read any of the interviews that the other guys do. 20 or 30 years ago, we would all sit and fucking read every page of Kerrang! and every page of Circus magazine, see what so-and-so’s saying. What the other band members were saying, what James was saying about this and that. Now there’s just none of that. I also don’t really read what people say about Metallica.”

“I’ll say that occasionally, once every six months or something like that, it’s kind of fun to go through the trolling section just because of the ridiculousness of all of it. But it’s not something that I do regularly anymore. 20 years ago. It would’ve been, ‘Oh, my God, somebody said something bad,’ or, ‘That person said a nasty comment in the comments section,’ or whatever. Now, none of that really means anything to me,” he said in an interview with So What!.