Lars Ulrich

Years of activity: 1981 — present Instruments: Drums, percussion Genres: heavy metal, thrash metal, hard rock, speed metal Teams: Metallica Labels: Warner Music Group

Lars Ulrich was born into a very wealthy family of professional tennis player Torben Ulrich. Since early childhood, he traveled all over the world because of his family's dedication to tennis. His father instilled in him a love of music: in addition to his passion for tennis, Torben Ulrich was a talented musician. In February 1973, Torben got five tickets to the Deep Purple concert at the Copenhagen Stadium for his friends, but when it turned out that one of them would not be able to come, the ticket went to nine-year-old Lars. The young Ulrich was hypnotized by the concert and the next day purchased their Fireball album, later he began collecting discs of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, etc. However, his father wanted his son to become a tennis player, for which Lars Ulrich's entire education was focused on sports. This led to the fact that Lars became one of the best Danish tennis players in the youth category, and having reached his prime, he occupied places between 10 and 15 in the ranking. However, the passion for music turned out to be stronger.

Lars' first drum kit was bought by his grandmother for a decade. Lars immediately wanted to start playing with a band, but his father advised him to be patient: "Try to take some instrument lessons first," to which Lars replied: "I can learn in 10 days. I live for it."

Lars Ulrich completely immersed himself in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), he listened to bands such as Iron Maiden, Saxon, Trespass, Diamond Head and others.

In 1979, his father enrolled him in the tennis Academy in Florida (USA), which Lars considered a "tennis prison". The following year, the family moved from Denmark to New Port Beach near Los Angeles. This is where his passion for heavy metal manifested itself. Lars buys a new drum kit, which in fact was also "scrap metal". Subsequently, James Hatfield called this installation the "Muppet drum kit", drawing an ironic parallel with the installation of the Beast Drummer from the puppet "Muppet Show", popular at that time.

It was difficult for Lars to choose between a career as a professional tennis player and music. However, after traveling to Europe, he meets the music of his beloved Diamond Head again and spends some time with the band. Due to the fact that Lars' trip from Los Angeles to London was not well planned, he had nowhere to stay after the concert. However, he managed to go backstage and meet the band, where he told them what a journey he had come to hear them. The band treated the young Ulrich warmly, and guitarist Brian Tatler allowed him to stay with them in Birmingham, where Lars spent the next few weeks touring with the band. Lars is still a big fan of the band and even helped them put together their album "The Best of". In Denmark, he meets local heavy metal bands. After returning to Los Angeles, he decides on a choice: music.

These days, he meets the guitarist of the Anvil Chorus band, Kurdt Vanderhoof, from San Francisco, who convinced him to join the band, but Lars wanted to stay in Los Angeles.

In the same year, Lars meets James Hatfield in Downey, California and they form the band Metallica. He became known as a pioneer of the fast thrash metal rhythms found in many Metallica songs, such as "Metal Militia" from Kill 'Em All, "Fight Fire With Fire" from Ride the Lightning, "Dyers Eve" from ...And Justice for All, and "Battery" from Master of Puppets.

In April 2000, Ulrich became an opponent of Napster and file sharing, while Metallica accused Napster in court of copyright infringement and extortion. In July 2000, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee after all Metallica songs were discovered in the public domain. The case was settled out of court, resulting in more than 300,000 Napster users being banned. Due to his active involvement in Napster's problems with the law and in its subsequent collapse, Ulrich was subjected to considerable criticism and ridicule from users of the service.

Lars is the most criticized member of Metallica. Metallica fans often pay attention to flaws in his playing, noting the imperfection of technique, as well as the style generally characteristic of beginners. So, a Metallica rehearsal video appeared on YouTube, titled as the Worst Drummer Ever — Lars Ulrich, which can be translated as "The worst drummer of all time — Lars Ulrich." Based on the results of the voting conducted by the portal thetoptens.com Ulrich took the first place among the most overrated drummers in the world. Dave Lombardo from the thrash metal band Slayer also publicly suggested that Lars play together to teach the latter a few lessons.