Highlights from Reddit AMA with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich

“Yes. When Death Magnetic leaked 10 days early, one of the HQ guys was over at my house, drinking wine, and we played around with bit torrent and downloaded our own songs, which we figured we were somewhat entitled to do. The scariest part was how easy it was.”

What’s your favorite Megadeth song?

“‘My Last Words.’”

What is your personal favorite Metallica song?

“Whichever one I’m playing at the moment.”

If you could only choose one song from the setlist to play, what would it be? 

“If I could only choose one song, I’d probably choose ‘Frayed Ends [of Sanity].’”

What do you think of the state of heavy metal today? Do you think we will ever see another HUGE metal act the likes of Metallica/Maiden/Priest and such? Do you think metal will ever make a resurgence to the glory days of the 80’s?

“That’s a great question. I think it would be so awesome if there was a band that come along and shook it all up again. I just don’t know who. I think the coolest band for me in the last couple years is Baroness. I also love Norwegian band Kvelertak. But I just don’t know if any of these bands can take it to those heights unfortunately.”

When fans criticise Metallica in all their myriad ways, do you go “ooop, maybe they’ve got a point”, or, “ehhh they didn’t get in, soldier on”?

“It depends what the criticism is. There are such a wide range of criticisms thrown at you nowadays because the internet gives everyone an opinion, for better or worse. And some people just spew crap for whatever reason, which I don’t pay very much attention to. I’m also pretty thick-skinned by nature and actually have the ability to find it all a bit silly and laugh at most of it. But if someone’s got a fair critique, I’ll certainly pay attention.”

Rumor has it your vault has all kinds of collectible goodies, rarities, etc stored in it, haha. How much truth is there to all this? Are there soundboard recordings or proshots of any pre-LiveMet shows that haven’t been released? Can you give any information on stuff like the Presidio sessions, Dead Kennedy Rolls, or other such unreleased material? Perhaps songs like those on Beyond Magnetic, that didn’t happen to make it into the albums?

 “Yes, there’s tons of stuff in the vault that hasn’t been released, including soundboard tapes, full videos, lots of goodies to come your way, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

There’s a lot of Load, Reload, and St. Anger material that’s been untouched by the band (at least before recent shows) and in interviews. Do you and the guys think there are any songs from those eras that didn’t get enough love or appreciation?

“I think reinterpretation is a very interesting element of your back catalogue. I don’t think that you need to be tied to one particular version of a song. I’ve always thought it could be interesting to reinterpret St. Anger in a contemporary live situation. Also we started playing ‘Carpe Diem Baby’ live last year, which was fun, so lots of unplayed material from that era. There are lots of those songs that could work again in live settings. It doesn’t necessary need to be stadiums, it could be smaller shows or settings.”

Now that you have the rights to your own music, are you considering remastering some of the earlier albums?

“Yes, we are considering remastering some of the early records.”

I gotta say, the part of this that really jumped out at me was the concept of reinterpreting St. Anger live. Although that album stinks, I maintain that there are some decent riffs on there that could have made good songs. I don’t have a lot of faith in Metallica these days, but seeing if the band could take any of that material and actually make it listenable would at least pique my curiosity.

You can read the entire AMA here if you’re so inclined.

[via Metal Insider]