SmartLess: "Lars Ulrich"

What do the oceans say to the beach?

Nothing.

It just waved.

Nice.

Okay.

That's pretty good.

Thanks.

You want one last one?

Yeah.

Yep, please.

Where do you learn to make a banana split?

I don't know.

Where?

Sunday school.

Oh, man.

That's good.

Welcome to Smartless, everybody.

Welcome, everyone.

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Smart.

Smart.

Smart, smart, smart.

Are we celebrating a life lost?

Yeah, we are.

And he was a tremendous artist

and just one of the funny things,

I just read this thing.

So I'm talking about going to this,

speaking to these students and the students said,

I'm about to shoot my student film.

What format should I shoot it in?

And he said, who gives a shit?

Is that true?

William said that?

True story.

Oh, maybe, maybe laughs.

He directed a scary movie that I can't watch today

because it's so scary.

Hey, Sean, I know we talk about this a lot,

but it's enough.

All right.

From me, from my mouth?

No, you being in New York.

I know, it's so dumb.

Can we have a date?

Now I'm sure this is gonna air past the date

because I feel like we're close.

How much longer?

Three weeks, 21 shows.

Sean, I got sent a picture yesterday

from somebody whom you do not know, my friend Elizabeth.

And she sent me a photo,

her partner sent a photo of her,

she didn't want to leave her seat and he took a photo

because she was at your show in the balcony

and she was so moved.

She was sat there for like 20 minutes,

like just reacting to it.

She was so moved by your performance.

That's so nice.

It's a true story.

Yeah, that was two nights ago.

I mean, that's so sweet.

Please tell her thank you.

And wait, two things though.

One is Scotty being stuck here, Jay, to your point,

treated me to a helicopter ride the other day, Will.

Yeah, hopefully he wasn't flying.

No, he was not flying it.

And we flew so close to,

because we haven't left or done anything in six months,

Lyric, apartment theater, apartment theater.

And so we flew around and the helicopter

came really close to the Statue of Liberty,

like really close.

It was unbelievable.

I'd never seen it that close.

So Scotty just said,

hey, let's go take a helicopter trip around the city.

Yeah, cause we haven't done anything.

Just to do something.

Just take a look.

That sounds great.

Yeah, have you ever done that?

No, I would love to.

Now, I'm a little, I'm not a huge fan of helicopters.

I love their mobility, their flexibility and all that stuff.

But, you know, there's zero glide potential in these things.

Oh yeah, it's the glide.

It's the glide, right?

What do you mean, what do you mean glide?

Well, I mean, it's sort of,

it's fool's comfort anyway to think, you know,

the plane has glide potential if the engines go to shit.

Well, that guy told me that.

The guy's like, cause I'm like, what's the plan?

He's like, oh no, if the engines-

That's how you started the trip?

We were in the air and I talked about it.

I shouldn't have, cause it freaked me out.

I mean, he goes, look, if the engines fail and they won't,

he goes, you just glide down to the bottom.

It's got like that potential.

So is he lying?

The helicopter does.

The helicopter?

What kind of helicopter were we on?

Did it have a bunch of wings on it?

Or a bunch of birds attached to it?

Have you ever seen a sack of potatoes dropped?

It just falls, man.

Yeah, I mean, there's some physics and yeah.

So anyway, I mean, listen,

I don't think that's how any of us,

none of our listeners, none of us,

that's not how we're going.

No, I know what you mean.

When the thing took off and you know wobbles,

when it takes off, left to right, left to right.

And it's like, it's pretty scary.

You're going to choke on a wonton one day.

And that's how you're going to go.

It's like, Scotty, I can get one more in here.

Give it to me.

And that'll be it for you.

Just the word wonton is so funny.

Are you kidding me?

That sounds pretty, he's going to choke on the fucking heel

of a loaf of wonder.

He's like, well, it's still bread.

I'll just have the heel, just load it up.

You ever make bread balls

where you take the center of the white bread

and you just, you ball it up or something?

Look at it, it's a bread meat ball.

I collect heels.

I just make heels.

All my sandwiches are from heels of loads of bread.

We ate tortillas, just a tortilla.

No shit.

Well, it's 9 a.m. so that makes sense.

Hey, listen.

What?

You never make bread balls.

Hey, you know, I love music.

I love music.

And I love all kinds of different music, man.

I always have.

I've always had,

I like to think that I have an eclectic taste

cause sometimes I think, well,

I'm just kind of a dinosaur, sort of 90s indie rock guy,

but I'm not.

I'm kind of all over the place.

I want to tell Paul Simon to go down to Africa

and do Graceland, right?

You're like, hey, have I explored these sounds?

But I've been into, you know,

we've had a lot of great musicians on the show

and I've been a friend of them all,

whether it's from sort of New Wave or, you know,

whatever to classic rock and roll to, you know,

I don't know, just everything, think about it.

And today's guest is such a representative

of an entire genre of music that they kind of inspired

so many musicians and not just of their genre,

but of all genres.

It's so rare when somebody from one genre

is able to inspire people across all different types of music.

You got Madonna, unbelievable.

This person, this person is,

he joined us from overseas, born in Denmark,

and then moved to the US and formed a band

that has sold nearly 120 million albums worldwide,

generating more than 15 billion streams.

He's from Denmark?

Yeah, I mean, nine Grammy Awards,

two American Music Awards, multiple MTV Movie Video Awards,

2009 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Just all over the place, they've done it all.

They've played with everybody.

This is none other than one of my all-time faves.

It's Lars Ulrich of Metallica.

Good lord.

No way.

Lars.

Let's see the high-tech reveal, see if I can do this.

Oh my God.

Oh my God, no way.

Hey there.

Also known as, hi, my name is Breadballs.

I like it.

Breadballs.

Breadballs.

Breadballs.

Breadballs.

Breadballs.

Oh my God.

Or otherwise known as Michael Cooper's best friend.

How's, how's Cooper?

Yes, that's right.

Michael Cooper, he's texting me as we're speaking

and he's texting you.

You know, now Michael Cooper's got one of these ailments

that I think affects a lot of people on texting.

Tell us who Michael is.

Michael Cooper's a guy I used to work with.

Sure.

And now he's working with fancier folks than me,

but he uses the send button as a period when he texts people.

That's a, yes, that's a 23 text showing up at one time

is a normal five minutes from Michael Cooper,

but they're all sent with love and kisses.

I love them.

And pictures of himself driving.

How many pictures of Michael Cooper

do you have of him driving?

Driving, showing off a watch or a new hairstyle

or a new set of glasses.

You know, I'm not on,

I didn't sign up for the Cooper fan letter.

I love them though.

As long as you have an iPhone

and a text message thread with him,

you're in that fan club.

I love them.

I just want to say one thing that,

and I'm sure you guys have heard this before,

but you don't need guests on your show.

Just the seven minute banter there before the reveal,

that's plenty.

It's all dumb.

I've taken some potential Metallica titles away from this.

I think bread balls is the one to beat.

Yeah.

I like zero glide potential a lot.

That sounds more like an album title.

That's a great hard rock title.

Yeah, I think zero, that's, you know.

That's like, well, they did it before.

It's called Led Zeppelin.

Yeah, right.

Zero glide potential.

Yeah, there's a lot of bad jokes in there

that we should shy away from.

And then the last thing I would say also, is it Madonna?

I like that one too.

She's the Marrier of all genres.

Dude, dude, Lars, thank you for doing this, man.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, it's so great to have you.

Right back at you.

And I had the good fortune of hanging out

just a couple of times with Lars a few years ago

through Mutual Friends.

That's right.

And I've always, and of course I didn't want to drill you

with it at the time and embarrass you.

I've always been such a fan of Metallica and your music

and one of the things that I did not know,

and I guess a lot of hardcore Metallica fans

did know this, was I didn't know that you actually

moved to the States just to play tennis.

I knew that you were a tennis player

and that you were a competitive tennis player,

but I didn't know that that was the whole purpose

of your move was to play tennis.

Is that true?

The whole purpose was to...

So my father, I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark

as you guys circled and...

And you were born there?

Born, yeah, born and raised in Copenhagen.

And my dad was a professional tennis player

and I come from a family of tennis players,

so his brother was one of the other greats in the country

and at one point the Danish Davis Cup team was,

my dad, his brother and the captain was their dad.

So it's a long line of famous tennis greats in Denmark

and I of course wanted to follow in their footsteps.

So when I finished school in 1979 in Denmark,

I ended up in Bradenton, Florida,

the first year of Nick Boletair's Tennis Academy.

No way.

And you moved because of tennis?

Is that why you moved?

Yes, absolutely.

Nick Boletair's Tennis Academy, which at the time,

by the way, was revolutionary.

It was like the real place where a lot of these famous

young tennis dedicated tennis players went, right?

It was like the first of its kind, am I right Lars?

And it was also a transitional time in tennis

where up till the mid 70s to the late 70s,

the best tennis players all over the world

were the ones that had the most talent.

But as it shifted in the late 70s,

the best tennis players ended up becoming the ones

that worked the hardest at it and played,

six, eight hours a day and doing drills

and worked in the weight room and all this type of stuff

that there was a seismic shift and the whole setup.

And I went the first year to Nick Boletair's

and then after that we moved out to Southern California,

we ended up in Newport Beach where I was gonna attend

Colonel Del Mar High School with my dad's friend,

the tennis great from Australia, Roy Emerson,

his son Anthony.

And so in Denmark, up through those years,

in my junior years, I was ranked in the top 10

consistently in the country.

And when I came out to Southern California

and went to Colonel Del Mar High School

as a junior in 11th grade, I did not, I did not,

this is true story, I did not make the fucking tennis team.

I was not one of the seven best players

at Colonel Del Mar High School.

Geez, wow.

The whole tennis dream and following in the Ulrich footsteps,

that came crashing down, no pun intended,

to the zero glide potential there,

but that came crashing down in one afternoon

and then rock and roll was hovering

in the trenches and took over.

But wait, so Lars, you make this,

I mean, and you sort of, you talk about it very openly

and the fact that, yeah, I knew that you had this,

come from this dynasty, this Danish,

tennis, dynastic family, and then you moved to,

you go to Nick Boletair and then you come to Southern

California, and like you say, in one afternoon,

like all of a sudden what, you try out,

they put out the list for the tennis team,

you're not on it and you're like, well,

there goes everything, like how is that?

I mean, you know, I've heard myself obviously

tell that story 9,000 times, so it gets shorter and shorter

and becomes more of a sound bite,

but it is pretty much what happened.

Music was always hovering and music was my escape away

from the discipline of tennis,

and I'd been playing both guitar and drums in Denmark

and you know, I was 17 at the time,

as you get a little older and you start drinking

a few beers and looking at the girls differently

and you know, blah, blah, blah, and things change,

and but I was, it pretty much came crashing down.

Did you teach yourself to play guitar and drums,

or were you doing it like through a...

In school in Denmark.

In school, what language do they speak in Denmark?

They speak Danish.

And do you, Sean, can I talk to you for a sec?

Sorry, Lars, just come over here for one sec.

So sorry, dude.

And do you still speak it?

Oh, Sean.

But your mic's going out.

You going over to the canyon?

There's only five million of us,

and we keep it loud and proud,

and I'm still a Danish citizen actually,

and still travel on my Danish passport.

Wow, that's so cool.

Now, so then you learn these two instruments in school,

it wasn't a music school, was it?

Or was it just a...

No, no, it was just Danish public school.

Pick an elective and band was one of them,

and you gravitated towards those two instruments.

Was that that simple?

Ish, yeah, yeah.

I mean, my dad's passion away from tennis was also music,

so I grew up in a very musically rich household.

There was a lot of, all the jazz greats

from Miles Davis to Coltrane to Charlie Parker

to Dexter Gordon, all these,

and a lot of Hendricks and Doors and Rolling Stones

playing out of my dad's music room all the time.

So there was a lot of music in the family

and in the household.

Was there a particular band or drummer or guitarist

that got you to want to jump into those two instruments,

or was it just...

When I was, I started going to concerts in Denmark early.

I was nine years old when I went to see Deep Purple,

and over the next couple of years,

like 74, 75, I saw bands like The Sweet and Slade

and Status Quo and Kiss came to Denmark in 76,

and then it started going into Thin Lizzy

and Rainbow and so on.

But Deep Purple was my first real music experience

and has always been the North Star for me.

What about drummers?

Who were the drummers that you were like?

Yes.

Ian Pace from Deep Purple,

the guy with the round glasses,

who was just insane driving Deep Purple.

I gravitated towards also Phil Rudd from AC DC,

who's obviously very different than Ian Pace,

but he was a huge, huge inspiration.

How did it go over with your family that was,

you say it was a big tennis family,

I'm assuming that there wasn't a lot of hard rock happening

in the car on the way back and forth to the courts.

How did they feel about that?

There was a lot of anything happening in the car

because I biked to school starting in second grade.

That big sort of career pivot for you

and lifestyle pivot for you, were they cool with that?

Yeah, my dad was very forgiving with all that.

Like I said before, his passion was music.

He actually wrote about jazz music

for some Danish publications.

And at that time, excuse me, in the 50s and 60s,

especially Copenhagen, but Stockholm to a degree

and obviously Paris were just the European havens

for American jazz music.

So many of the American jazz greats came to Europe,

spent a lot of time in Scandinavia.

People like Ben Webster lived in Copenhagen,

Dexter Gordon lived in Copenhagen,

John Chikai, but Copenhagen was very much a hotbed

for jazz music at the time.

Growing up to like kind of the Jason's point,

like where you, your parent,

because I was like, when we grew up in a super small house

and I was always playing piano, practice piano,

I drove everybody crazy because it was so tiny.

How in the world, like Jason and Will,

what if your kids just, I don't wanna play drums.

I throw them out.

I mean that going on in the house constantly.

We got the electric ones now

with the headset.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's true.

But no, we didn't have that back in the day, right Lars?

They didn't have those back in the day.

No, we, I had a room down in the basement

where I had a little music room where I had my records

and my record player and I got a drum kit,

a small piece together drum kit down

and I could bash away down in the basement

and do my thing down there without

pissing off too many of the rest of the house.

I can't imagine that going through the house all the time.

And it's great that you did it and everybody did it.

Now Lars, you know, us soft, you know, actors,

we fantasize about life on the, you know,

you're pretty soft too.

You hard rock, you know, traveling and touring

and having all that fun and what you look so good,

so healthy, so not like you've been on the road

in like arguably the biggest rock and roll band ever

for years and years and years.

Has the touring changed now in the past decade or so

such that you don't look like death warmed over it?

Like, how does it all work now?

You guys get to bed early.

It's now shakes instead of, another good title.

It's not 30 beers, it's just 15.

Yeah, it's a protein shake, right?

It's some mindfulness.

Yeah, you know, in the short answer is yes.

You know, we just played a couple of shows

out at MetLife Stadium on Friday and Sunday here in New York

where I'm checking in from

and we're on our way up to Montreal in a couple of days.

So right now we're playing every Friday and Sunday

for the rest of the summer.

We play two shows in each city.

So the travel is less and it's a weekend thing.

And it is, it's protein shakes, it's tofu,

it's vegetables.

If my 20 or 30 year old self was on this podcast

with you guys, he would be sitting going,

what the fuck are you talking about?

But, you know, 42 years in,

obviously you have to make these changes

and growing up in around tennis

and growing up around sports.

It's not that difficult for me to be rigid and disciplined.

I barely drink.

I haven't had a drink in three months.

I'll have a half a glass of champagne

and that's it occasionally, but other than that.

You're still playing tennis?

I still do play tennis.

Yeah, I love playing tennis and I love sports

and I love being engaged and I work out.

They have me chained to a peloton

most of the time when I'm not doing podcasts

or playing rock shows.

And so I do work out a lot.

But it is true about the protein shakes

and we're fortunate to have our great chef Simon

who travels with us and hands us all kinds of healthy

and it's healthy drinks and it's good.

Listen, we've lived it, lots of crazy fun.

I mean, also we started,

James and I met when I was 17, he was 18.

We started Metallica.

We put our first record out when I was 19

and we were touring the world 19 and 20.

So we started early.

It's just so amazing to me.

And you know, we got a lot of that fun stuff out of the way

and I can access a good part of those memories when I want

to some of them live really far back there behind doors

that are hard to open and probably shouldn't be opened.

But nowadays, I'm knocking on the door of 60 later this year

and the only way to play shows like we just did out

at MetLife Stadium here is to be in the best shape

you can be.

So all kidding aside and cliches,

yes it is obviously pretty different

than it was 20, 30 years ago.

And thankfully so because the victory now

is the perseverance and being able to still do it.

And that's kind of what motivates us.

Yeah, I bet it doesn't.

I bet you can't imagine.

I bet you were speaking about your younger selves.

I bet you're a 17 year old self

when you met James Hadfield and you guys formed Metallica.

Couldn't imagine that all these years later

you guys would still be fucking rocking out

and going and playing stadiums around the world.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

We just, we've been playing.

So I looked into it the other day.

So we've played out, it used to be called Giant Stadium.

Now you have to say MetLife so you don't,

because you get into a whole divisive conversation

between the giants and the Jets.

You don't wanna do that around here.

But we played, I just looked it up.

We've played Giant Stadium nine times

and we've had a obviously a relationship

with a greater New York tri-state area,

whatever you wanna call it for four plus decades.

The two shows we just played this weekend

were the two biggest shows we've ever played

in New York City.

So that, so that's not a, hey, look how great

big Metallica is or whatever.

That's about the music scene.

That's about post COVID people wanna come out

and live again.

That's about hard rock still.

But they're not coming out for everybody.

You deserve some credit for the longevity

and the relevance and the quality of the music

and your relationship with your fans

and all of that stuff.

Your mental health, right?

Cause if you guys were a disaster,

people would probably get turned off by you

if there was a bunch of infighting and all of that garbage.

So you've kept it all together.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

But I think a significant part of what drives us

to this day is that we're kind of 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 at some point

and do this for real one day.

And we will be right back.

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And now back to the show.

You know, I want to kind of get into a little bit

about you and James,

because you guys met at such a young age,

talking about like the, you know,

and that you seem to still have,

by virtue of what you just said,

you still have this like drive to like create something new

and you're still excited about that creative process.

What was it about that when you guys met

at such a young age with coming

from such different backgrounds?

Yeah.

What was the thing that clicked

for you guys creatively?

Yeah, because before you answered that,

just to piggyback on that,

I think it's fascinating what Will just said

that at such a young age,

you found somebody else that wanted to take it

as serious as you did.

What are the odds of that?

Yeah.

You know?

And every time people ask me that question,

I always have to throw in that the energy of the universe

is a big part of it because, you know,

like you're saying, the two of us finding each other,

you know, what we had in common,

there were so many things we didn't have in common,

but what we had in common was that we were both

sort of loners, we were both,

we weren't like outcasts in that sense

or like the awkward weirdos,

but we were loners and we were misfits

and we were disenfranchised in a way

that we just lived in our own worlds

and listened to old music.

When I ended up at Carole Del Mar High School in 1980,

trust me, there was nobody else

wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt.

And so it was a pretty,

it was a pretty isolated existence.

And so what James and I ended up doing was

we were the brothers that neither of us, you know, never had.

And we started writing songs together

and just creating the world for ourselves

that we wanted to inhabit.

And at that time, there was never anything about,

you know, goals or success

or we're gonna be, you know, famous

or this is gonna translate into something,

you know, with the mainstream success

that there was none of that because at that time,

the music that we were into

and the things that were turning us off

were so edgy and so isolated away

from mainstream acceptance

that that was never even the cards.

But, you know, what's interesting about that, Lars,

is that you guys were making like, you know,

whatever you wanna call it, hard rock, heavy metal,

you guys were making like music

that was really driving it

and it was not necessarily mainstream.

And then I think about,

I think probably what three or four records in,

by the time you guys made Metallica,

which is a lot of people called the Black album,

by the time you guys made Metallica,

you really broke through to the mainstream.

You had a few hits that were kind of like leading up to it,

but then the Black album really broke through.

And in a lot of ways, I thought, I thought before,

I was like, is it that everybody else's tastes changed

or that you guys kind of,

you guys prepared everybody to listen to this music.

Like you guys kind of got them

into this hard rock in a way.

I don't know.

I think you have to put the record companies in there

when you answer that question.

So the record companies at that time

were the gateway to everything.

So the record companies,

it's like the analogy I've said many times

is that you walk into a restaurant

and you can have anything that you want

in the restaurant as long as it's on the menu.

And so the record companies were the purveyors of the menu.

And so the record companies were only signing things

that they thought would appeal to a large group of people.

But hovering over in the left field

were all these people like ourselves

that wanted something that would more substantial,

a little harder, a little edgier,

something that they could relate to lyrically

that wasn't about this make-believe world

and this fantasy that rock stars

were supposedly inhabiting at the time.

But people like themselves with real world problems

and anxieties and issues just like ourselves.

And so slowly over the 80s,

as more and more kids understood

that there were music out there for them,

like the type of stuff that we were doing,

they started moving further and further left.

They started moving the mainstream further and further out

to where bands like ourselves were hovering.

And there was that seismic shift then towards the late 80s

when all of a sudden the mainstream realized

that there were other options

that they had been fed over the years.

Right, and you guys were like you said lyrically,

Sean, and I don't know, Lars, if you heard me

before you came on, I quoted your song, One.

And I said, take my brothers, I pray for death.

Or God, please take me.

I did, yes.

Yeah, and like that-

I didn't write that one down as a potential, but-

I had the other ones.

Well, you already have that song.

That song already exists as a hit.

It's still hard to beat bread balls.

But that song is like, I mean, you think about it,

you guys, that song specifically is about a guy

who's basically in a coma, right?

He's kind of paralyzed, or what's the deal with that?

Like, nobody was writing songs about that in heaven.

We spent a lot of time,

we spent a lot of time sort of wondering

what different mental states.

And so at one point we were talking about

what would it be like if you couldn't speak, see, or hear,

and you had no arms or legs,

but you were just a living conscious.

What would that feel like?

What would go on inside you

if you were just a living conscious?

And then we found out about Dalton Trumbo's

story of Johnny Goddus' gun.

And then we wrote a song around that

and then realized that there was actually a movie

with Jason Robards that came out,

I think, what, late 60s, early 70s,

and that became our first video.

And that was four albums in,

and at that time we had never made any videos for MTV,

and we were sort of the anti-MTV band,

but we finally felt that we had an idea

that was worthy of making a video.

And do you guys remember something called Dial MTV?

Back in the day.

And so the first day that that video premiered

and was eligible for Dial MTV,

it premiered at number one,

and it stayed at number one

for like the next couple of months.

And that was a significant, I think a wake-up call

to a lot of the industry,

then realizing that there was something else out there

than, I don't want to mention names,

but that was out there at that time

that was generating a lot of the attention.

Something more than Frankie goes to Hollywood with the lasers.

Where'd it go, JB?

I mean, we're all dancing all around it.

Do you miss videos at all?

We still make videos.

We made for our new album.

Now it's actually the opposite.

For the last two records we've put out,

we've made videos for every song on them

because if you now,

so many people hear albums on YouTube,

so you want to have a video that you've made yourself

for every song on your album,

rather than having somebody else make them.

So we've made videos for every song in the last album

that just came out a few months ago.

I remember a long, long time ago,

I don't remember the year, but...

Just guess.

Is this when your dad left?

This is when your dad left.

Is this the year your dad left?

When my dad left?

Yeah, it was 1975.

No.

Do you have a question for my dad, Lars?

I'm going to drive and just light up the rear,

pause attraction and go.

No, I have a question.

You know, just like Metallica may turn professional one day,

I think I should do this for this whole time.

I should do it for this whole time.

No, I remember when I'm hearing about you

doing a concert in Antarctica, right?

That's right.

And you were the only band

who's played on all seven continents.

That's right, yeah.

And it was sort of by chance,

it was not something that we set out to do.

Well, I don't think one would, but yeah.

No, but it's not like you sit there and go,

hey, what should we do this year?

Let's play all seven continents.

We were playing in Latin America,

we were playing in Europe,

we were playing in North America.

We had shows in, you know, in Africa and Asia

and all of a sudden it was like,

whoa, there's a thing happening here.

And we got an offer from, I believe it was Coca-Cola.

It was a soft drink in Brazil

who said that they were putting together a competition.

And the prize was to travel to Antarctica and hang out.

And they wanted to know if we would come down

and play for this group of soft drinkers.

Was it cold?

Well, it was, so it was December,

which is their June, which is their high summer.

And it wasn't as cold and it wasn't as frigid

and it wasn't as sort of otherworldly

as you would expect it to be.

Yeah, because I was gonna say,

how do your hands work?

But we were down there for a couple, four, five days.

We stayed on an icebreaker

and we stayed with all the contest winners

and all our crew were all on this icebreaker together,

which was super fun.

And then we played on a Chilean research base

and we played in a tent.

And do you guys know what Silent Disco is?

What do you use it?

So every, yeah, exactly.

Everybody had headphones on.

So I think there were like maybe 300 people there in total.

Everybody had headphones on so they could hear the music.

And so it didn't disturb the environment.

It didn't disturb the penguins.

It didn't disturb the other endangered species

of animals that were there.

And so we left, no, there was not even noise pollution.

It's weird.

Last summer I was in New York

and I saw these kids late night

and they're all on the steps of this church

at like midnight on a Friday night

and everybody's moving and nobody's saying a word.

And I realized they've all got headphones on.

They're all jamming and they're all dancing to the song

but you can't hear it.

It's fucking weird.

So the only thing you can hear in the room

are the lead vocals and the drums.

Other than that, all the amplified instruments

are going through the headphones.

So it was definitely a mind fuck to be down there.

A lot of fun and to answer your question,

it wasn't as crazy cold or as fucked up

as you would imagine it to be.

But it was cool.

I wanna go back to James just for one second.

Just talk about collaboration

and sort of sharing power and creativity

and not just with him,

but with the rest of the band mates.

I mean, you guys have been together

and so successful and so harmonious,

no pun intended for so long.

Is there a secret sauce to that?

I'm sure there's some good leadership involved.

Yeah, I would say probably the word compromise.

Sure.

You gotta learn to compromise.

You gotta learn to know when to lead

and you gotta learn when to step back.

James and I have been obviously in the band

since the beginning and I guess we steer

most of the creative conversations

and we take turns steering.

And I think compromise is the key thing.

And if you wanna be in a band in your 50s and 60s

and really wanna be in a band,

you've gotta learn to sort of work with the environment

of sort of how to deal with everybody's personal needs.

The reason that there is millions of bands

of people in their teens and 20s

and fewer bands of people in their 50s and 60s,

as you know, when people get older,

they just don't wanna deal with other people's shit

and you don't wanna compromise

and you don't wanna, hey, I've got a,

my son's graduation is the week of Lollapalooza.

Oh, well, I guess we can't play Lollapalooza or whatever.

So there's a lot of those types of conversations

that take place and we have a thing in our band

where everybody gets a chance to black dates out

and put X's in a calendar and that can't be challenged.

We're very supportive of each other's personal space

and we put more resources and time

into sort of the whole thing functioning as a band

than we ever have before and I'm not gonna bullshit you.

I mean, that doesn't get any easier as you get older.

Now, most of the kids are grown up and off to college

or in their 20s.

So there's less concerns about getting home

but we, I mean, 10 years ago,

we would tour in two-week increments.

We would go on the road for two weeks,

go home for two weeks, go on the road for two weeks,

go home for two weeks.

So we wouldn't miss being with our kids

and all that stuff.

I was gonna ask you about that, about family.

I mean, you guys must have had some very supportive

and flexible families throughout all this.

Yeah, but we've also steered it in the direction

of trying to keep all that as together as possible.

I'm sure it's the same with you guys,

but in our world, it takes a few years

before you realize that you actually have a say

in some of this and so when you start out,

you just get handed a schedule here.

And when you're 22 years old,

hey, I just wanna play as many gigs as possible

and travel as much and be as drunk as possible

and get into all kinds of crazy shenanigans.

But then you realize later, hang on a second,

I can actually say, I only wanna be on the road

for three months and then I wanna spend three months at home

or so as you go along and become more successful,

you realize that you have a say in this stuff.

Well, we're lucky because we started doing,

certainly we started doing this thing in our fifties.

And as we've done it and we've talked about,

maybe we went on, we did a short tour a couple of years ago

and we're talking about doing another one,

but everything that we do,

we always do with the understanding

that like everybody's got stuff

and if somebody's got stuff,

we never challenge it in that same way either

because we know what life's like and it's kids

and it's thing and it's,

Sean's been doing his play for six months

and like that's important.

So we've gotta honor that

and that's the thing that you gotta do.

I forgot to ask,

because I've always wanted to know this.

Favorite color?

Who came up with, no, I was gonna,

I know Sean was voting.

Has he ever forgot a line on stage?

I know that Sean was leading up.

Favorite advertiser on the chin chin menu.

No, no, no.

What was, what's your favorite?

Dipping sauce for the-

Who came up with Metallica?

No, Metallica, where'd that come from?

Dumpling dipping sauce.

The name?

Yeah, man.

Ron Quintana.

Ron Quintana was a friend of mine in San Francisco.

Up in San Francisco,

there was a little bit of a different music scene

than in LA where we started

and we started playing up in San Francisco early

and we had some friends up there and so on,

but one of the guys up there, Ron Quintana,

he, back then, pre-Internet,

all this stuff,

if you wanted information about your favorite bands,

you had to write to pen pals or,

and everybody that was really into music at the time

made their own fan scenes, as they were called.

So it was eight pages, stable together down at King Co's

about whatever their favorite French-heavy metal band

that five people had heard of was into.

And so Ron Quintana wanted to start a little fan magazine

and he asked me one day

whether he should call it Metal Mania

or whether he should call it Metallica.

And I told him to call it Metal Mania.

Because we're taking Metallica.

I'll hang on to the Metallica for you.

And so I've been forgiven that,

thankfully a long time ago

and Ron is still a good friend.

What's going on?

It's a fucking, it's a rad name, Metallica.

It feels good on my tongue.

So Lars, this is the standard, John.

Hey, John.

Sorry to subject you to my dumb question here,

but I asked, but these are my favorite answers.

God, again, Lars, we're so, so good at trying.

Name the city to play in.

Isn't it cold playing without your top on?

Oh.

Sure.

I want to know.

Why is your hat always backwards?

Oh, what's going on?

You don't want to see what lives under here, trust me.

Oh, what doesn't live under there?

I want to know the craziest tour story,

like fan weirdness,

something that went wrong on stage or during a set

or like you got to have something that just was like,

oh God, the worst one of all was blank.

Well, we're very lucky.

I'll answer both.

We're very lucky in that we have an incredible group

of people that follow us pretty much wherever we go.

We actually started selling tickets to them.

On the last tour, we have something called the Black Ticket.

So you can buy now a ticket that gets you

into all the shows on a tour.

Wow.

So there's hundreds, if not thousands of people,

we'll go out and play for six, eight weeks in Europe or whatever.

And it's, we see all the same faces down front.

No way.

So passionate.

From all over, from Latin America, from Asia, from Europe.

So we have the Black Tickets.

What's that Black Ticket run in Lars?

Yeah.

The Black Ticket.

Well, I know people, if you're interested, Jason,

and you want to come out, it runs,

it's got to be some kind of a break on it, right?

800, that's, what?

Oh, there's a big break.

Yeah, there's a big break on it.

That's nothing.

For all those shows.

We try to be as fan-friendly as possible.

It's like a ski patch.

How much did he say?

How much did he say?

800 bucks, you can see all the shows

in the entire tour.

Fucking way.

Now, they don't get to jump on the plane.

They don't get to jump on the plane, no, but...

I'm going to buy it for all of us.

Fuck, Lars, I'm going to get you one too.

You know what though?

I wish I'd had that.

You know, I saw you guys.

So, Lars, I saw you and Guns N' Roses in September of 1992

at Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

It was one of the fucking great concerts

that I've ever been to in a man.

It was unfucking real.

I was 22 and you guys rocked it out.

And I have such a vivid memory of you.

God, I don't even watch.

It was basically every song you guys played

and everybody in unison rocking out.

I've never seen anything like it before or since

in the way the dedication and the sort of the rhythmic unison.

It's very, very, very passionate.

It's religious.

Yeah, just stuff that your eyeballs have seen

from your position.

You get to see the whole band in front of you

and then all of the people in the crowd.

Dude, I'm telling you, it's bizarre.

It was fucking images you have in your head,

must be incredible.

But also now, I'll circle back to the question

that Shani was asking earlier

and I'll give you a variation

on what you just said about seeing all the people

in front of me.

So, you talk about malfunctions.

The first one that always comes to mind

because it left a deep, deep scar,

you were talking about the Black Album Will

and so we were touring on the Black Album

which was our most successful record up till then.

And we had been in America for maybe a year, year and a half.

We'd done the Guns N' Roses tour

and we were starting in Europe a few months later

and we were playing in London and at that time,

and obviously still, London is just press and business

and peers and publicity and all the people

from all the record companies and all the publicists

and everybody from all of Europe are there.

It's London and at that time, it's all music magazines

and weeklies like The Enemy and Karang and blah, blah, blah.

And so we're playing in the round, which we still do

and I have a drum kit on either side of the stage

and halfway through the set, I'm supposed to run over

and then the other drum kit,

I'm supposed to sit on the other drum kit

because it lifts out of the stage

and then I play the other half of the show over on the other side.

We could probably guess what happened.

So this is the first big show of this European tour.

Everybody in our universe is there

and so the drum kit is under the stage, I'm on the drum kit

and it won't fucking lift up out of the stage.

So my view is not 20,000 crazy people in Wembley Arena

where it was, it's all the nuts and bolts and the steel

and the 12 roadies that are down under the stage

with like crowbars and screwdrivers and hammers

or whatever they're doing to try to get this thing

to lift up out of the stage.

I ended up playing like a song and a half underground

under the stage submerged, just sitting there

and as Metallica was supposed to have all these articles

written about the triumphant return back to Europe

after three years after being the biggest rock band

in America and all the whole story was just

about Larissa's fucking drums

that didn't want to lift out of the stage.

Welcome back to Europe, thank you very much.

That's great, I love that.

That is so great.

So what did you finish the rest on the other drum set?

The rest of the show on the other?

Eventually with enough crowbars and determination

that the drums ended up on stage where they belonged.

It's good.

We'll be right back.

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And back to the show.

Are you excited by anybody right now

that you're comfortable saying that that has sort of

the same kind of early ambition that you guys had

to sort of be a little left or a little right

of what is being embraced, you know,

that sort of real mainstream.

You guys are really courageous

by kind of pushing the envelope.

Is there somebody in music right now

that you're excited about their courage?

I mean, there's a lot of great people in garages

and in bedrooms all over obviously making records

on their computers now that don't need to go into studios

and do the whole spiel that everybody had to do 20,

30 years ago, they don't have to rely on record companies.

I think an artist like Billie Eilish, you know,

what her and her brother did a couple of years ago

with those first records that were made at home

on the computers is crazy cool.

And it's sort of epitomizes, you know,

the shift of you need a record contract

and you need half a million bucks

to go into a proper studio and make a record now.

And, you know, they made those first couple of records

just at home on their computers.

And that to me sort of is indicative

of the possibilities now that the technology,

you know, the four of us could make a record

for the rest of the afternoon and put it out tomorrow.

Let's do it.

Jesus, why are we not doing this?

Why are we not doing this already?

Why are we not doing this right fucking now, Lars?

Do we want to break the internet or not?

What are we doing?

Well, speak a little bit more about that,

about the record industry and stuff,

not to get sort of in the weeds about all that,

but, you know, obviously there's been a big change

in the record industry where streaming, et cetera.

Yeah, and you're not really selling albums

as much as more of kind of all a cart kind of songs

that are downloaded on streamers.

And then the bands really make their money,

correct me if I'm wrong, from touring now.

And so I'm assuming that the bands,

if they want to make money,

they got to be on the road more.

Are you guys on the road more?

You guys don't need to make money,

but how are you feeling about the way

the business is sort of balanced right now

as far as being out versus selling albums,

staying home, and the ratio of that?

Well, obviously it's changed quite a bit.

And in your guys' industry,

some of the same things that we were dealing

with 20 years ago are happening.

You know, I mean, big picture,

and I know this may sound like a little bit of a cop out,

I'm just happy that fucking anybody cares

about what we're doing and shows up to see us play

and still stream or buy or steal our records or whatever.

It, the engagement in self,

I think is the triumph and the victory.

Obviously it's way, way harder

for a lot of the younger bands nowadays

because they don't get the support

of the record companies for basic things,

just like, you know, gear and tour support.

So there is very much of a different thing.

It's, I just, you know, talent, good songwriting,

eventually we'll find a home with a larger group of people

and whether you do it from your bedroom

or through a record company or whatever.

You know, I believe that everybody will be heard

eventually if they're talented, but it is tough.

It's tough for a lot of the younger bands out there

and for a lot of the bands that, you know,

20 years ago could make a living playing clubs or theaters

or having a harder time now

because they don't sell as many records

and you really have to be out there and pushing it.

Do you feel like when you go and you make a record,

like your new record 72 Seasons

that you guys made that came out this year

and that you're touring,

I think you're touring this year on, right?

This is on the new record.

When you make that new record,

when you guys have conversations about it coming out,

like are you guys like,

or I don't know, the record company or whoever,

it's such a different approach

because you're not going to the record stores,

it's not sending out vinyl

or it's not sending out CDs or it's not sending out.

It's like load up the streamer.

Does that play it all into it?

I mean, the key thing, you know, as an artist,

I think when you write songs

and it's the same with you guys,

you want to start a conversation,

you want people to engage,

you want people to hear your music,

how they hear it, I guess, eventually become second tier

and you understand that it's a changed model

than it was 25 years ago or 50 years ago or whatever.

I think that in our band, we just love writing songs

and we love making records,

we love the creative process

and there are a lot of bands that have been around

as long as we have that simply don't want

to make records anymore

because it either doesn't work for them

or the business model of it doesn't work for them

and I can't speak for everybody else.

We love writing songs.

Being creative is a significant part of who we are

and it gives us a chance to, you know,

what makes us stay functioning

is that we go from writing to recording to playing gigs

to writing to home.

We're always changing up what we're doing

so we never get stuck in the sameness over and over

and so we're not always on the road,

we're not always in the studio,

we're not always taking our kids to school or whatever,

we're not always doing the same thing

so you have to kind of keep just breaking it up

and changing what you're doing

and so obviously I understand

that we're exceptionally fortunate

but our success gives us the opportunity

to sort of do all that

and but we would be if somebody said

you can't write or make records anymore,

we would probably stop what we're doing

because it's such an essential part

of just our existence as people.

Sure, and I love that, by the way,

I love that you didn't say exceptionally lucky,

you said it fortunate because you're not lucky,

it wasn't luck that you guys got here,

you guys are talented but you do recognize the folks.

You also, we're at minute 1590, as I said, storyteller.

I know, it's true, it's true, he's not a storyteller.

Musicians, I'm sorry, I have a list of words

you're not to say on podcasts, that's number seven.

Lars, if we got a hold of your personal music device,

whatever it is that you use when you're like working out

on when you're cycling or whatever, doing whatever,

what's on there, what do you listen, what gets you going,

what do you like to listen to?

Currently, I don't mean of all time necessarily.

It's very varied, obviously.

I'll still circle those deep purple records

from 50 years ago that I...

Is there a genre you're not a fan of?

No, I mean, I listen to everything from rock music

to jazz music to reggae to pop to hip hop, R&B.

I think the easiest way to answer is,

and forgive me again if this sounds like a cop-up,

but there really are only two kinds of music.

There's great music and less great music,

and so in hard rock, there's great music

and less great music, just like in pop or reggae.

Couple days ago, driving back from rehearsals

out at MetLife Stadium,

we were listening to...

We were listening to Bronski Beat, remember?

Yes, sure.

Run away, turn away, run away, turn away.

Yeah, we were listening to...

We love Bronski Beat, yeah.

I was pumping some Bronski Beat and some...

It's morning.

Jimmy Somerville.

Yeah, Jimmy Somerville.

Love him. Beatboy, beatboy.

Hit that perfect beatboy.

No way.

We were listening to The Happy Mondays.

We were listening to Stone Rose.

Tristan Mellon, man, you know you speak so...

Oh, Stone Rose of Fools, go.

I love Stone Rose.

Yeah, listen to that.

So, it's a lot of varied stuff all the time.

Dude, Lars, we're in the same, we're in the same.

What about listening to a full album?

And like, since...

Yeah, does anybody do that?

Yeah, people don't really buy albums as much as they used to.

They're sort of pulling down kind of a single song here,

Alucard there, whereas like Pink Floyd the Wall comes to mind,

where there's a whole through line, a thread, a continuity,

a thematic that goes throughout the whole album

because bands knew that people would potentially

buy an entire album instead of a single.

You're saying that there's telling a story?

You're saying that they're telling a story?

I'm all around it, but I'm not gonna say it.

You were so close to it, dude.

But like, do you think that that will ever kind of happen again?

Where there's like a rock opera that's kind of...

Ooh, like Tommy?

Yeah, something that's probably not...

Not in the classic sense that you're saying it.

I mean, there's a great band who we've had play with us

the last couple of years called Greta Van Fleet.

Oh, I love that. Those guys are great.

And they still write longer songs.

They appeal to a very young audience,

and they still do like crazy long guitar solos.

They're really, really great songwriters.

They're very dramatic. They're very theatrical, those kids, man.

Yes, but super cool.

We've had them with us playing a special guest

for the last couple of years to a lot of shows.

But I don't think that...

Yeah, but let me tell you something.

To Jason's idea is good because here's the thing.

In Hamilton, the musical Hamilton, it's rapping.

Everybody raps.

It's like, what? A musical that rap?

People would be floored if you guys used your music

or created new music with your sound.

It's never been done.

Hard rock, do a musical.

What about a musical, Lars?

That's what I'm saying.

Come on. Let's make some news right now.

I love the reaction on his face.

No, I can see his face. That's it, yeah.

Guys, we've got it.

There it is.

Hey, listen.

Hey, Lars, let me ask you this before...

Is that what we're looking for here, an exclusive?

Is that what we're doing?

No, we're not getting into musicals.

Sean, for once, just one guest.

Just leave him out of musicals.

Yes, stop getting everyone on the board, Sean.

Nobody wants to fucking...

Nobody likes musicals, okay?

Lars doesn't like cats.

I know.

He doesn't...

Listen, I saw Hamilton.

I saw OG Hamilton, OG, OG,

and was as blown away as everybody else

and subsequently saw it, what, four times,

and think that Lynn is one of the most talented people

on this planet, hands down.

I went back later that night

and just Googled then YouTube as much as I could.

That clip where he's in the White House,

like five, six years earlier, did you guys see that clip?

So Hamilton came out in, what, 16?

This is, what, 09?

He was in the White House and was telling Obama

and the rest of the gather there

that he was working on a musical about Alexander Hamilton.

Yeah, that's incredible.

And everybody was just laughing.

Yeah.

And then he did the first five minutes of it afterwards

that he got standing ovation.

He's a genius, Lynn's a genius.

Fucking, have you never seen that clip, Jason?

No, I'm gonna check it out.

Oh, it's great.

It's just a piano and him rapping.

Oh, that's correct.

Or something like that.

It's really fucking crazy.

Yeah, he's a megatonic.

He's a megatonic.

And guess what?

I'll tell you what, let's meet, I'll meet you halfway.

Okay.

I'll meet you halfway.

My sense is this is going well.

So when Metallica has some musical news,

you guys can break it.

Yes.

Lovely.

I love this.

I love this.

If you'll have me back even just for five minutes

and we can make it an exclusive.

You're the fourth host.

You're the fourth Beatle.

Lars, I want you, when we go on tour,

if we go on tour, we're talking about going overseas.

If we go on tour again.

We'd love for Metallica to open for us.

To open with us.

Simultaneously, we open for us.

He's four-leaded to a man.

Wow.

We can get into, I read about William Friedkin

also this morning or yesterday.

And I understand the no mentioning of the great films

that he made and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And I did read about the...

So people know it's because of the strike.

We can't mention them.

Just a Tracy note.

Yeah.

No, I'm right there with you.

Lars, listen, he was another genius too.

And I, again, I don't want to embarrass you,

but you're a genius man.

You've made so much great music for so long.

Such a fan.

And you're a nice guy.

Such a great dude.

That's the big deal.

You're so patient.

You don't have to be in your art.

You have such a great vibe and you're such a great dude.

And it was such a pleasure meeting you all those years ago

and having you on here and talking to you, man.

And just...

Yeah, I feel like I've known you.

Continued success, dude.

Well, thank you.

Just get back out of here.

We'll go hang out with Coop.

Let's do it.

He's going to cover himself back up again.

I'm sitting up in my publicist's office here

in down in Tribeca and I walked in

and was handed this piece of paper.

I go, wow, this is high tech.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No limits here.

We are at the top of the heap over here.

It's marvelous.

Thank you for saying yes to this, buddy.

Thanks for being your pick, Will.

I enjoyed the time a couple of years ago in France

and it's great to see you guys.

So nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too.

And good luck on the rest of the tour.

When we have musical news, we'll break it with you guys.

I love it.

You're the first.

Thank you, Lars.

Thanks, Lars.

Thanks, buddy.

See you soon.

Bye.

Wow.

That was a great cat, Willie.

Yeah.

You know what's interesting about him is,

you know, I wasn't one to run out and buy Metallica.

Obviously, I like their songs and know a lot of them

and was a fan of them growing up too.

But it's rare that the drummer is as famous as the band.

That's true.

Who else?

Phil Collins.

Phil Collins.

But he was also his...

Yeah, but Lars and James started the band, right?

So they formed it together.

So you had the guitarist and drummer form of the band.

It's like Wham.

Yeah.

I guess, I guess, boy, we should have asked him that.

First connection there.

Which one would Andrew Ridgely be?

He would be Lars.

Let's get Lars back on the floor.

And by the way, let's get James on here real quick too.

You know what I mean?

James, that makes you George.

I guess.

No, he was very, very cool.

He's so cool.

He's such a cool dude and he does have such a great vibe

and he's so, I don't know.

I just love the way you can really access

all everything when you ask him a question

and he can really access it

and he's so sort of concise and he's so quick and...

I like that he's open to sharing anything.

Yeah, I love that.

That's the key to keeping a little group together

is just don't be a dick, okay?

100%.

You see me looking at you, Sean and Will?

You know, he's looking in the mirror.

You're looking in the mirror.

No, I'm not looking at my square.

Yeah, you're looking at your square.

It's just a big dick.

Let's go see.

I can't believe we missed them at Giant or MetLife,

whatever.

I think it's a great idea if they open for us.

But maybe we should just wait till they come a little closer.

If you ask Metallica.

It's so great.

No, he was offering.

I'm pretty sure he was offering to open for us.

Yeah, let's wait until they get a little closer

to Los Angeles.

I know, but they are,

because they're on tour for their record 72 seasons

and it would be great to go.

We should definitely go see them in Los Angeles.

That'd be so fine.

That'd be fine.

I would love to see them.

I'm gonna go see Tay Tay tomorrow night.

Are you?

I think that's what,

isn't that what kids are calling her?

Tay Tay Swiftie?

Yeah.

Are you going to Tay Tay tomorrow?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are?

Yeah, yeah.

Are you taking Franny and MAPE?

No, no, just solo.

Wow, just a one.

Just a one.

It's gonna be in the parking lot with a little sign.

Single.

Single, single.

Anyone got a single?

No, it will be a full family.

Thanks.

You should do a video of yourself.

Amanda too.

Alone.

She's part of the family,

and we're all gonna go,

and apparently-

Self-driver Uber.

No, it'll be self-driving.

You know, I don't drink anymore,

so I'm self-driving.

No, I know, but I know how,

you know, we're getting to the state.

Where is it, Sofie?

It's at Sofie, yeah.

And apparently you gotta pick an album

to sort of dress as,

and I don't know my album.

Name one of her albums, one.

Name one of her albums, one.

I couldn't, I couldn't.

I'm gonna go ahead and see what I'm wearing right now.

That's what it'll be tomorrow night.

Oh, you know what I refer to that?

Is the fuck it.

The fuck it, yeah.

Yeah, the fuck it.

You got a lot of fuck it.

Wasn't George Costanz's,

that if you wear sweats,

you're telling the world you've given up?

I mean...

It's a declaration.

I guess so.

There it is, Sean has given up.

Oh, look at Sean.

Look, I have something to say.

If Metallica can't open for us

at every single leg of our tour,

if we tour again,

they should just do at least,

at one of them or two of them,

just do a fly.

Bye.

Bye.

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

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