With over 41 years and 11 studio albums under their belts as a band, it’s an understatement to say that metal icons Metallica have been an enduring act. Yet despite this notable longevity, myriad record sales, nine Grammy awards, five Billboard Music awards, and legions of fans (young and old) since they first arrived on the scene in 1981, Metallica still isn’t content to rest on their accolades.
Metallica drummer and co-founder Lars Ulrich elaborated on this sentiment in a recent sit-down with the SmartLess podcast on Spotify.
“I think a significant part of what drives us to this day,” Ulrich explained, “is that we’re kinda led by the mantra of, our best days are still ahead of us, and our favorite record is the one we haven’t made yet, and that we actually may turn professional and do this for real one day.”
Ulrich also divulged on what drew he and fellow co-founder and lead singer James Hetfield together before the band was able to achieve such incredible success.
“There were so many things that we didn’t have in common,” Ulrich said, “but what we had in common was that we were both loners… and we were misfits, and we were disenfranchised in a way that we just lived in our own worlds and listened to our own music… it was a pretty isolated existence. And so what James and I ended doing was, we were the brothers that neither of us ever had, and we started writing songs together and just creating the world for ourselves that we wanted to inhabit. At that time, there was never anything about goals, or success, or ‘we’re gonna be famous’.”
When asked in a recent interview with the LA Times how much Metallica has left in the tank, the 59-year-old Ulrich responded, “I think mentally we could do this for another 20 years. It’s more about the shoulders and the necks and the throats and the fingers and the wrists – the physicality of it – whether we can just stay healthy. That is a bit of a crapshoot.”
What do you think of the outlook of Lars Ulrich on Metallica’s future? Would you like to see Metallica play for another 20 years?
