Lars' father, Torben Ulrich, who was an acclaimed tennis pro from the late 1970s into the early 1980s, was also a musician, playing jazz with giants such as Stan Getz and Miles Davis; legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Ulrich's godfather. In February 1973, Torben Ulrich obtained five passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert that was being held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. When it was discovered that one of the friends could not go, their ticket was handed over to the nine year-old Lars. The young Ulrich found himself mesmerized by the performance, buying the band's Fireball album the very next day. The concert and the album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring his entrance into the world of rock and roll and later on, heavy metal. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit from his grandmother at the age of thirteen, a Ludwig. Lars' original goal and reason for moving to America was to play tennis, but the plan was later changed when he formed Metallica.
Later on in life, in 1981, Lars discovered a British heavy metal band called Diamond Head. He was so excited about their style of music after getting hold of their 1980 debut Lightning to the Nations that he traveled all the way from San Francisco to London in order to see the band perform live at the Woolwich Odeon. However, the young Lars had not planned the trip out particularly well and was left without anywhere to stay after the gig. However, he managed to meet the band backstage and explain the lengths he had taken to see them. The band warmed to him and lead guitarist Brian Tatler let him stay with him in Birmingham, where Lars spent the next few weeks touring with the band. Lars still remains a big fan of the band and even helped mix their Best Of album.
In the same year Lars met James Hetfield in Downey, California and formed the thrash metal band Metallica. He got the name "Metallica" from a friend who was thinking up names for a heavy metal magazine he was starting up, and Metallica was one of the options. Lars encouraged him to pick a different name, and kept the name Metallica for himself. He became known as a pioneer of fast thrash drum beats, featured on many of Metallica's early songs, such as "Metal Militia" from Kill 'Em All, "Fight Fire With Fire" from Ride the Lightning, "Dyers Eve" from ...And Justice for All, and "Battery" from Master of Puppets. He has since been considerably influential due to both the popularity of his band, as well as his various drum techniques, such as the double bass in the song "One" (...And Justice for All) and the opening of "Enter Sandman" (Metallica / "The Black Album"). Since the release of Metallica, Ulrich adopted a stripped-down style of drumming, and severely reduced the size of his drumset.
Napster controversy
In April 2000, Ulrich became a vocal opponent of Napster and file sharing as Metallica sued the company for copyright infringement and racketeering. In July 2000, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee after Metallica's entire catalogue was found to be freely available for download on the service. The case was settled out-of-court, resulting in more than 300,000 Napster users being banned from the service. Due to his high profile role in Napster's legal troubles and subsequent demise, Ulrich faced significant criticism and ridicule from users of the service. Since the Napster ordeal, Ulrich was quoted by LAUNCHcast as having some regrets:
| “ | I wish that I was more...you know, I felt kind of ambushed by the whole thing because I didn't really know enough about what we were getting ourselves into when we jumped. [...] We didn't know enough about the kind of grassroots thing, and what had been going on the last couple of months in the country as this whole new phenomenon was going on. We were just so stuck in our controlling ways of wanting to control everything that had to do with METALLICA. So we were caught off guard and we had a little bit of a rougher landing on that one than on other times than when we just blindly leap. But you know, I'm still proud of the fact that we did leap... and I took a lot of hits and it was difficult. | ” |
Lars has since been quite regretful of the entire scandal, and as revealed in an interview with Eddie Trunk on VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show" and posted on Blabbermouth.net on March 3, 2009, he pirated Metallica's ninth studio album "Death Magnetic" shortly after it was leaked on the internet.
Personal life
Ulrich has been married twice. His first marriage was in 1988 to Debbie Jones, a British woman whom he had met on tour, but they were divorced in 1990, because of Ulrich's constant absence due to touring and then recording The Black Album.
His second marriage was to Skylar Satenstein, an emergency medicine physician, whom he was married to from 1997 up until 2004. They had two sons, Myles (b. August 5, 1998) and Layne (b. May 6, 2001). Satenstein was the inspiration for "Skylar", the love interest for Will Hunting (Matt Damon) in the movie Good Will Hunting, as Satenstein and Damon dated when they were both in college. Ulrich and Satenstein officially divorced in March 2004.
Ulrich has been dating Danish actress Connie Nielsen since late 2003, early 2004 and the couple had their first child, Bryce Thadeus Ulrich-Nielsen, born in San Francisco on May 21, 2007.Nielsen also has another son named Sebastian (b. 1990).
Ulrich is also a noted collector of art. His father, who owned a jazz club, was also very fond of art and paintings, so Ulrich grew up surrounded by art and music, and both have always been a part of his life. After founding Metallica, he started to visit museums and art galleries during the band's long periods on the road.
In an interview from 2002 Ulrich said: "I felt I could lose myself in art and get away from the music world. It became this great hiding place." In 2008, in an interview with Stereo Warning, he said: "We had art all over the house when I was growing up. It's been a passion of mine for 20-25 years. It's one area where I can go and be myself. It's not about being in Metallica or being the drummer in a rock band. I'm accepted for who I am in the art circles. I love going into artist spaces and galleries and auction houses. It's great because it has absolutely nothing to do with Metallica. It's my place of sanctuary."
In popular culture
Ulrich's involvement in the conflict with Napster was parodied in "Christian Rock Hard", an episode of the satirical animated TV series South Park. In the episode, the children are taught not to download illegally because multi-millionaires like Ulrich now have to wait a little longer to buy extravagant things (also, when Kyle has his "weekly epiphany" and proclaims that bands should be about music, the artists react with "we're just about the money," with Ulrich nodding). Another such reference is in the Weird Al Yankovic song "Don't Download This Song".
He was also mentioned in the Family Guy episode FOX-y Lady, where it is revealed that Ulrich is, in fact, Fred Savage in disguise.
Lars is featured, along with the other Metallica members, in the film The Darwin Awards. He portrays himself at a concert when two of the film's characters get killed in a freak accident as the band performs on stage.
Lars also appears with his band Metallica, in The Simpsons episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer".
