LARS ULRICH Explains METALLICA's Massive Commercial Success

January 3, 2018

METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich last year took part in the popular "Not My Job" segment as part of NPR's Peabody Award-winning show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" The question-and-answer session, which was taped last August in San Francisco, can be streamed below.

Asked what it was about METALLICA and its sound that helped it become one of the biggest hard rock bands of all time, Ulrich said: "We were really inspired by what was going on in Europe [in the early 1980s]. So we took those European influences and kind of had a new sound. And so when you say, why did we end up becoming more well-known or whatever? It was because we had a different sound than most of what was going on in California and in the States at the time."

Regarding how he came up with the name METALLICA for his band, Ulrich said: "Well, I came up here [to San Francisco], actually, in the spring of 1981 and ended up at a kegger over on Strawberry Hill. And I met a bunch of really cool San Francisco kids. One them was named Ron [Quintana]. And he told me he wanted to start his own fanzine, like a hard rock fanzine, where he wrote about all his favorite bands. And he wanted… he asked me whether he should call the fanzine Metallica or Metal Mania. So I suggested that he call it Metal Mania."

METALLICA took one of the five top slots on Pollstar's list of the top 20 worldwide tours of 2017. The band's "WorldWired" trek was the fifth-highest grossing tour, with 1.5 million tickets sold and $153 million earned.

METALLICA will head back to Europe in February and continue there through May, although the band is also expected to book another leg of North American gigs.

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame band is touring in support of its tenth studio album, "Hardwired... To Self-Destruct", which came out in November 2016.

Find more on Metallica
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).