Lars Ulrich on Metallica « Death Magnetic », Rick Rubin, Robert Trujillo's role and « St. Anger »

Archive #39 goes back to 2008 when Metallica released their ninth record « Death Magnetic ».
The Four Horsemen were doing one of their usual summer tour vacations in Europe and with « Death Magnetic » release date fixed just 2 month afterwards, the band was starting to do promotion for it.
I sat down with drummer Lars Ulrich in a wonderful hotel in Milan, Italy in the month of July 2008 to discuss « Death Magnetic » although I wasn’t able to hear one single note from the record at this specific time as it wasn’t mixed and mastered yet.
Could have been a bummer, I was also expecting very limited time, but when Lars saw he had « only » 20 minutes scheduled with every journalists, he said to the publicist : « fuck that, I want at least 45 minutes with each and I want to reschedule the phoner interviews and do face-to-face instead » which in all my career was the first and only time I saw an artist asking for more when doing interviews (and coming from such a successful one, it makes you think when you see some mid-level bands moan about it) !
Lars was obviously really motivated by « Death Magnetic » and very talkative so it wasn’t hard at all to talk about a record I hadn’t heard at the time.
We also talked about some other topics such as producers Rick Rubin and Bob Rock, Robert Trujillo’s role in Metallica and how he compares to Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted, the « Some Kind Of Monster » movie, controversial « St. Anger » and « Load » records and the new fire the band felt live since playing the whole « Master Of Puppets » album in 2006.
Full article (in french) was featured on Rock Hard France magazine (Rock Hard is currently having financial issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic, you can support the magazine here : www.leetchi.co...)
#LarsUlrich #Metallica #DeathMagnetic #JamesHetfield #KirkHammett #RobertTrujillo #Load #StAnger #SomeKindOfMonster #RickRubin #BobRock #MasterOfPuppets #CliffBurton #JasonNewsted

[@theartofpablo0110]

Brilliant interview.
Lars gives an excellent explanation on how Rick Rubin works as a producer, he describes the differences between Cliff, Jason, and Rob as bass players, and explains how Metallica operates as a massive touring organization.
Say what you want about him, but Lars is a very intelligent and interesting person and a true visionary.

[@alexroyster182]

Fuck ya man! Real cool you got Lars for 32 minutes. He's always been the go to guy for interviews especially in the 80s. Newsted was also the go to guy. I really miss that late 80s early 90s lineup.

[@heavy-music]

Actually got him for something like 45 minutes (I edited the interview here) which was very surprising. I was expecting 20 minutes max, and that was what was scheduled, but he said "fuck that, I want at least 45 minutes with each one".

[@manicmurph]

I miss that like up too. Gotta love Jason and when he tells Metallica stories you feel like you're right there with him experiencing it.

[@multiestonian]

Great interview, i love listening to Lars. He is always well spoken and knows what he is talking about.

[@Lektuerekurs]

thanks fot the upload!

[@heavy-music]

Thank you for listening !

[@willardwayne3]

Death Magnetic is a bad ass album!

[@manicmurph]

Man Lars really goes out of his way to make the journalists happy and give good interviews also changing the set list Everytime they go somewhere to give them a different show each time is cool. I grew up with this band and hopefully I'll be able to meet them one day. They aren't as accessible as some other bands I think the only way is to be in the fan club and win a drawing or something.

[@TheMetalMag]

nice

[@thn91506]

Should listen to 2 Live Crew and Master for inspiration