METALLICA's LARS ULRICH: "Me and Dave had kind of a friendship and cool thing going at that time"

In honor of the hugely-anticipated "Big Four" festival in Indio, California on April 23, Revolver magazine has put out the "Big Four" special collector's issue, chronicling the history of thrash metal's most legendary bands. The magazine is on newsstands now, as well as available here : http://secure.nps1.net/guitarworld/

While making the issue, Revolver talked to some of the "Big Four"'s most heralded musicians, including METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich. A few excerpts from the magazine follow below.









Revolver: Lars, how much attention did you pay MEGADETH early on?


Ulrich: I don't remember getting into that first record, but when "Peace Sells" came out in '86, it just blew me away. That was right up my alley. That literally became my favorite record for a long time. Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH mainman and former METALLICA guitarist] would come up and play San Francisco a lot. And I would always go find him, and we would drink and do lots of drugs and sit around. For those years, '84, '85, me and him got over our issues really quickly at that time.

I remember at the "...And Justice For All" tour, we played down in Irvine Meadows [near Los Angeles], and Dave came down and hung out at the last couple of shows at the "Justice" tour. This might have been '89, and we'd just hang out. I remember actually when we finished the "...And Justice For All" album in L.A., in the summer of '88, I went to some apartment and played it for him at 5 in the morning. We were sitting there, playing "Blackened" and a bunch of other stuff while we were busy keeping ourselves awake. Me and Dave had kind of a friendship and cool thing going at that time, up through most of the '80s.

It wasn't until both bands started getting bigger that this whole kind of thing started happening in the press, which was really kind of different than what we had going between us. There was almost like two relationships there. The press loved the whole MEGADETH-METALLICA [rivalry]. And I sort of think it got a life of its own. And in some way, you could argue that the thing press was doing, about setting our bands up, eventually started kind of transcending itself into our personal relationship and probably became a big part of the fact that over the '90s, it got a little frosty at times. You know what I mean?

Revolver: Lars, what was it like for you to be playing with Mustaine again?

Ulrich: It was great. Listen, I've always admired him. He's an incredibly talented musician. Playing with him, it's not awkward. It was one of those moments you want to slow down. It was cool to see it again when I looked at the DVD. You could tell there was just a good vibe. And I hope that people kind of relate to that.