Metallica's Lars Ulrich On Nasty Online Comments: "None Of That Really Means Anything To Me"
Lars Ulrich says he was affected by trolls and harsh criticism a long time ago, but these days he's "literally immune to it".
Despite being one of the biggest and most successful bands on the planet, even Metallica haven't escaped internet trolls and nasty comments in their time – but Lars Ulrich says that, these days, it really doesn't bother him anymore.
In a new interview with the band's own So What? fanzine (via ThePRP), the drummer reflected of how Metallica operated 20-30 years ago, remembering that they all used to "sit and fucking read every page of Kerrang! and every page of Circus Magazine" to see what they were saying about each other. Now, though, he says that he doesn't "really read what people say about Metallica" anymore. (Surely he still reads Kerrang! anyway though, eh? Hi, Lars!)
"I’ll say that occasionally, once every six months or something like that, it’s kind of fun to go through the trolling section just because of the ridiculousness of all of it, but it’s not something that I do regularly anymore," he continues. "Twenty years ago, it would’ve been, ‘Oh, my God, somebody said something bad,’ or, ‘That person said a nasty comment in the comments section,’ or whatever. Now, none of that really means anything to me."
Read this: 12 classic songs that happened by accident
Lars claims that he is "literally immune" to some of this stuff now, and even refers to recent interviews in which journalists (who are also fans of the band) tell him: 'When people say Lars Ulrich is a shitty drummer, I defend you.'
"Which is cool, but I’ve got to tell you, 20 years later, 30 years later, it just doesn’t register anymore," he says. "I am so comfortable with who I am, I’m so comfortable with who Metallica is, I’m so comfortable with our place in all of it.
"I’ve got an incredible wife, three great kids, my dad and Molly, incredible friends, and lots of cool acquaintances. It’s all good. I’ve got nothing left to prove, so it just doesn’t register anymore."
In an interview with Kerrang! last year, guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke of how he personally deals with criticism: "None of the critics are as bad as the critics in our heads," he said. "Really, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the fuck they say. If I’ve satisfied that critic in my head, then I’ve overcome my own hurdles."
Read this: Metallica vs. Napster: The lawsuit that redefined how we listen to music