We are fueling the fire on the eternal debate about Lars Ulrich. Is he an over-estimated useless, or is he a great drummer? Sakis Nikas and George Terzakis take sides for and against the Dane. Enjoy.
Three reasons why Lars kicks ass
1. Without Lars, Metallica wouldn’t exist. Simple as that and no need to dwell further on that. If Lars didn’t have the persistence, the vision and the youthful insanity, we wouldn’t EVER see the greatest American heavy metal band of all times. Need to say anything more…?
2. He is a huge heavy metal fan and this is more than obvious in almost all the Metallica shows. The set list is written and defined by him almost at the last minute, the impromptu jam at the encore is almost a tradition in every ‘Tallica concert and it starts most of the times from a drum beat from Lars. Plus he is ultra cool with the fans. Did I mention that he is a great connoisseur of N.W.O.B.H.M and heavy metal in general?
3. Yes, he is not technically the best drummer in the world. He will be the first to admit it. So fuckin’ what? The thing is that once you listen to his drums, you instantly recognize that it’s him! Production, style…I don’t know. You know that it’s Lars on the drums. Do you know many drummers that have their own unmistakable drumming sound? And admit it…you have air-drummed at some point during “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “Sad But True”. Right?
Bonus Reason For Japan (without Obi): At some point, we have to show respect to all those great musicians that permanently marked and left their mark on any genre of music. In the ruthless time and age of social media, everything is being torn apart for the ephemeral “shocking” impression and the vain “like”. Lars not only is worthy of everyone’s respect but he has earned through the years. Lars = Metallica
Sakis Nikas
Three reasons why Lars sucks
1) Because he does. Right, I have to justify that. First of all, I have to say that I don’t judge him as a composer. He has done miracles there. Not as the musician he used to be, but as the musician he is now. He has admitted that he never focused on skill or ability. He never spent hours to study or practice, in general he doesn’t try to be better in any way. He just wants to built the ideal rhythm around the riffs of James Hetfield. I can agree there, but when a big part of your songs is thrash metal, you have to try and play them as well.
2) Every musician, besides exercising with his instrument, he constantly searches and tries to find the best possible equipment to enrich his collection. Lars on the other hand, doesn’t. You look at his drum kit and it bring tears to your eyes. Even if you don’t have a single idea about drums (like me), you understand that something is going wrong here as he uses something that it might looks like the first kit his grandmother gave me him as a present on the age of thirteen. Just look at the top drummers of this music and you will see the big difference. A bigger and better set gives you plenty of space to lay out all your skill.
3) The most important of all. His live performance. Predictable with uninspired fills. He often looses the tempo or changes it with absolutely no meaning, he enters late in the songs, he gets too tired when playing the fast ones and makes a lot of mistakes. Seeing concerts from a certain tour, you can spot differences between same songs in different nights. This is either a completely progressive style of play or something…I’d rather not say. And the strangest of all is that Metallica is such a mighty band with amazing songs, that many people don’t even notice all of these and just want to see them perform on stage.
George Terzakis
