LARS ULRICH

'Lars Ulrich' (born December 26 1963) is the drummer and co-founder of Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper middle-class family. A tennis prodigy in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age seventeen to pursue his training, but instead of playing tennis, he ended up as a drummer. After publishing an advertisement in a local Los Angeles newspaper called ''The Recycler'', he met James Hetfield and created Metallica.

Contents

Biography

Napster controversy

Personal life

Equipment

Trivia

References

Books

Notes

External links

Biography

Lars's father, Torben Ulrich, who was an acclaimed tennis pro from the late 1940s into the early 1980s, was also a musician, playing jazz with such giants as Stan Getz and Miles Davis; legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon is Ulrich's godfather. In February 1973, Torben Ulrich obtained five passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert that was being held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. When it was discovered that one of the friends could not go, their ticket was handed over to the nine year-old Lars. The young Ulrich found himself mesmerized by the performance, buying the band's ''Fireball'' album the very next day. The concert and the album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring his entrance into the world of rock and roll and later on, heavy metal. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit at the age of thirteen, a ''Ludwig''.
In 1981, Ulrich met James Hetfield in Downey, California and formed the thrash metal band Metallica. Ulrich's early work with Metallica led him to be dubbed as one of the thrash metal scene's drumming greats. He became known for his pioneering fast thrash drum beats and techniques featuring on many of Metallica's early songs, such as "Metal Militia" (from ''Kill 'Em All''), "Fight Fire with Fire" (''Ride the Lightning''), "Dyers Eve" (''...And Justice for All''), and "Battery" (''Master of Puppets''). He has since been considerably influential due to both the popularity of his band and his interesting drum techniques and styles such as the machine-gun double bass in the song "One" (''...And Justice for All'') and the pounding opening of "Enter Sandman" (''Metallica'').

Napster controversy

In 2000, Ulrich faced criticism^[1] when he was one of the first artists to take direct action against Napster. In July 2000, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee after Metallica's entire catalogue was found to be freely available for download on the service. There was mass outcry from Napster users. No one ended up getting sued for copyright infringement, and the case was settled out-of-court, resulting in more than 300,000 Napster users being banned from the service.[1] Criticism for this and other events still exists today.

Personal life

Ulrich has been married twice. His first marriage, to Debbie, an English woman, ended around 1990 during the making of ''Metallica'' also known as "The Black Album". In March 2004, Ulrich separated from Skylar Satenstein (an emergency medicine physician), to whom he was previously married for seven years and had two sons, Myles (b. August 5, 1998) and Layne (b. May 6, 2001).
Ulrich is dating Danish actress Connie Nielsen and they had their first child, Bryce Thadeus Ulrich-Nielsen, born in San Francisco on May 21 2007.^[2] Nielsen also has another son named Sebastian (b. 1991).

Equipment

Main articles: Lars Ulrich's equipment

Ulrich is an endorser of Tama drums, Zildjian cymbals and Remo drumheads. He is rarely, if ever, seen without these brands onstage. He has, however, been known to use a mixture of brands when recording in the studio, including Ludwig drums, Gretsch drums and Sabian cymbals. Ulrich was an endorsee of Calato Regal Tip drumsticks, but changed to Easton Ahead in 1994. Tama Drums has produced two signature snare drums,
the bell brass snare drum and one which is diamond plated. Both snare drums measure 6.5x14 and provide powerful attack and tons of low end sound.

Trivia

★ In 2005 a band called Beatallica (a band that mixed lyrics and riffs from The Beatles and Metallica) received a cease-and-desist order from Sony (who hold a lot of the rights to the music of the Beatles). In support of Beatallica, Ulrich asked Metallica's attorney, Peter Paterno, to help Beatallica. Since then beatallica.com has been online.

★ For many years Ulrich has been an avid scuba diver, to the extent that he has been known to read scuba diving magazines during solo breaks between songs while touring.

★ Ulrich played the drums with Mercyful Fate for the re-recording of the song "Return of the Vampire" on ''In the Shadows''.

★ On Linkin Park's live CD/DVD ''Live in Texas'', during "From the Inside", Ulrich appears on stage wearing pink bunny ears and Hulk Hands and proceeds to mess with the band for a few brief seconds. In the ending credits on the DVD, he is credited as the "Green-Fisted Bunnyman".

★ His name is mentioned in "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2006 single "Don't Download This Song", in reference to Ulrich's anti-Napster stance.

★ Johnny Crass also made a few mentions of Ulrich in the song "Internet Sandman", a parody of Metallica's song "Enter Sandman".

★ Ulrich is a huge fan of popular British rock band Oasis and has become acquainted with them over the years. In November 2006, Canadian music magazine ''Exclaim!'' published an interview with Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher. Gallagher makes several references to Ulrich and is quoted as saying, "Lars Ulrich? Although he’s a fookin’ geezer and I do love him, he’s a strange character. A strange, strange man."^[3]

★ Lars recently played the drums at the Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy Tour 2006 for a one-off appearance on one of their closing songs, playing "Out Ta Get Me".^[4]

★ Ulrich was featured in an episode of ''South Park'' in which the children are taught not to download illegally because millionaires like Ulrich do not get paid. Ulrich is seen crying because he had to wait a few extra months before he was able to afford a gold plated inflatable bar-fridge.

★ Lars was mentioned in an episode of ''My Name Is Earl'' in which Earl and Joy went to a Metallica concert for their honeymoon, which Earl was supposed to go to with another woman. Joy says during the brief scene, "Lars signed my baby-bump," and proceeds to show it to Earl's girlfriend, whom he was originally supposed to go to the concert with. Lars's actual signature is used when Joy has her pregnant belly signed.

★ In 2001 Lars appeared on an episode of ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' and won 32,000 dollars for his charity foundation^[5]

★ In the movie ''The Prince and Me'', Lars is quickly referenced for his birth in Denmark.

★ Lars did a voice for a cartoon dragon in an episode of the Disney Channel show Dave the Barbarian

★ Lars and Metallica were in a episode of ''The Simpsons'' where they needed a lift to a live concert.

★ Dronesters Sunn O))) include Lars in the name of their song "FWTBT" off their Flight of the Behemoth album, which lengthens out to "FWTBT (I Dream Of Lars Ulrich Being Thrown Through The Bus Window Instead Of My Master Mystikall Cliff Burton)", a cover of the song For Whom the Bell Tolls from Metallica's ''Ride the Lightning'' album.

★ In the 169th issue of Metal Hammer, Lars Ulrich discusses Metallica's ninth studio album and their Wembley Stadium gig (From Live Earth and Sick of the Studio '07).

References

Books

# , Steffan Chirazi and Metallica, , , Broadway, 2004, ISBN 0767918819

Notes

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIuR5TNyL8Y&mode=related&search=
2. METALLICA Drummer LARS ULRICH, Girlfriend CONNIE NIELSEN Expecting
3. http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=22&csid1=5833
4. http://web.gunsnroses.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061217&content_id=a1&vkey=news&fext=.jsp
5. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-C4raj_VfJI

External links

★ Lars Ulrich's Biography on Metallica.com

★ Lars Ulrich's St Anger Tour Setup

★ Lars Ulrich's Load/ReLoad/Garage Inc./S&M Tour Setup

★ Napster bans more than 300,000 for downloading Metallica

★ Lars' kit setup