Metallica have released a lot of songs in their career… but which one does drummer Lars Ulrich hold up in the highest regard?
After recently pondering how both Master Of Puppets and One are songs that represent Metallica best, Lars Ulrich has now revealed what his personal, all-time favourite track by the band is – and it might not come as a huge surprise to those who enjoy air-drumming along to it (read: everyone).
Speaking to GQ about his 'firsts' in life and the band's career, Lars is asked about the first Metallica song that comes to mind as his favourite, to which he responds, “Sad But True.”
He continues of The Black Album classic: “I just love playing that song. I play it a little differently each time. I love the tempo and giving it a different interpretation every time I play it.”
Read this: Obey your maestro: Metallica, Cliff Burton, and metal’s classical heart
Elsewhere in the interview, Lars discusses the song that he wishes he'd written: Diamond Head's It's Electric.
“When I heard that song I think I subsequently ended up playing it, like, 9,000 times for the next month,” he reveals. “If there was ever a song that made me want to be in a band, that was it. I wasn’t in a band at the time – I was still fussing around with tennis, although that was going down the drain quickly – and that song was like, 'Holy hell, if I could just play that song or be in some sort of set-up where I could live my life playing a song like that, that’s what I want to do.'”
Speaking to Kerrang! recently, the drummer enthused how Metallica are still taking risks in their career even four decades later – and their new live album S&M2 is another example of that.
“Doing projects like this makes it fun to be in Metallica,” he said. “There’s always a moment where you sit and wonder if it might not work, but that’s kind of part of the dare. And you can’t help yourself – you have to fuckin’ look at it and turn over those rocks and see what happens. We’re just so curious and I’m very proud of the fact that we always respect that curiosity and protect it from ourselves or talking ourselves out of it. All these things help us as musicians and makes Metallica more interesting to us and to other people also. But you never really know, but you learn to trust along the way.
“It inspires you to keep going, it inspires you to continue to want to connect and create music. Doing all these things – movies, S&M, whiskey, doing this, doing a collaboration with someone – this all just fuels you to stay creatively connected and inspired and just want to be in a band. All these deviations from the path forward are super fun, and it makes you come to a more traditional Metallica thing like writing and recording an album with new spunk and recharged batteries.”
Anyway, let's give Lars' favourite Metallica track a spin below:
Read this: The 20 greatest Metallica songs – ranked
