I'm probably the biggest Metallica fan here on Sherdog. Been a member of their fan club since 2001, seen them 8 times and also got to meet the band back in 2009. But seeing Some Kind Of Monster when it was first released back in 2004 ended up making me not like Lars Ulrich much anymore. He came off as a massive egotistical asshole for the whole Jason leaving part and then that of James and his rehab schedule cutting into the bands time. I can sort of understand having Phil Towle come in, I mean his clients included Tom Morello, STP, Tennessee Titans and others so he had to been an asset to help the crumbling band not fall apart. What I do like about SKOM is how they handled the Newsted departure by allowing Jason to participate and tell his side of the story. Also par Lars "HE LEFT THE FUCKING BAND!". I remember another incident in the film when they are auditioning bass players to replace Jason and Lars said and I might be a bit off "If Cliff came in today and auditioned I don't know if he'd even get the job", way to shit on Cliff like he wasn't a good bassist or anything.
Of all the band members Lars is the only one I have an unfavorable opinion of in regards to certain aspects of his demeanor and playing ability. I mean just look at the songs the band has released from their upcoming album Hardwired, while the drumming isn't that sophisticated, fast or eccentric it does sound pretty good for both songs. The problem is both songs are not played like the studio version live. The parts that had prominent double bass either had no double bass at all or minimal bass. Many people say its because of his age and I laugh because there are rock and metal drummers like Danny Carey, Charlie Benante, Dave Lombardo and Dennis Ritchie of Macabre who all are around Lars' age and haven't lost a step and have even gotten better with age. It just annoys the fuck out of me that Lars admits now that he only ever plays the drums when he is warming up before gigs and recording an album. I mean everyone else in the band enjoys learning new things about their instruments, practicing new techniques and so on but not Lars. Makes me wonder if Lars thinks the drums are a job now mostly and he lost some of the passion he once had for the instrument. Just remember folks in the mid 80's Dave Lombardo offered to teach Lars the proper fundamentals of drumming and also to work on his stamina but Lars declined saying he didn't need help. Also one last thing about Ulrich back in 1986 while the band was on tour supporting Master of Puppets all three other band members, James, Kirk and Cliff were going to fire Lars once the tour ended over how he was managing the band and his playing. That came to a screeching halt when Cliff died in the bus accident on Sept 27th, 86. I will say this though when I met him back in 2009 he was very nice, gracious and put me at ease when I started to get nervous. We both spoke a bit about our favorite painters.
The one thing that really intrigued me in the film was the fact that I found out that James wasn't just an alcoholic but he had become addicted to Opioid pain medication. I myself at the time was just at the beginning of the slow spiral into heavy opiate addiction and to realize one of musical hero's has been through the same addiction and was able to conquer it gave me hope I could it as well. Granted this 2003 and I didn't fully get clean from heroin in early 2009. I even thanked Hetfield for being honest about his drug and alcohol addiction overcoming it and that it gave me hope that if someone like you can overcome it than someone like myself can as well. He said thank you and that its stuff like this is why he gets up in the morning and still immensely enjoys playing and producing music.
