(Credits: Far Out / Kreepin Deth)
Tue 24 March 2026 1:00, UK
The journey that Metallica has gone on throughout their career wouldn’t have been possible if not for Lars Ulrich.
Although many have pointed out that he isn’t exactly one of the best drummers in the world whenever he performs, there were many pieces of the business aspect of their career that only exist because he was there to keep the brand alive. And while they were still a bunch of thrash metal hopefuls without a pot to piss in, they were about to get an education when they started setting their sights on becoming one of the biggest rock and roll bands in the world.
But, really, how would that even work? Master of Puppets was a great album, but given that there are no songs on that record that are below five minutes in length, it’s not like they were looking to break into the pop charts by any means. That was the world of pin-up stars, and the last thing they wanted to do was be associated with anything coming out of the glam metal scene at the time.
They had a much more grizzled approach to hard rock, but after And Justice For All, it was clear that they needed to switch things up. They had taken the more technical elements of thrash as far as they could have gone, and while the lack of bass left something to be desired in the final mix, it paled in comparison to what they could do live. They were a well-oiled machine whenever they got on the road, and when Bob Rock called them up saying that he wanted to produce their record, it was a match made in heaven.
Or at least that’s what it seemed like after the fact. In the moment, though, hooking up with someone like Rock was bound to be a little bit of a gamble. He knew how to make some of the best hard rock records of all time, but when you listen to his track record of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi albums, it doesn’t really scream heavy metal. But if the last few records were about getting every track to sound like a smack in the face, that was nothing compared to what Rock was going to do.
He had the habit of getting every band member playing the song in the room together, and the pressure is always on the drummer to get the perfect take. Nothing is going to work if the drums keep speeding up, and while Ulrich did find a way to tone things down, he did have more than a few issues with Rock’s methods after spending over a year trying to finesse songs like ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Sad But True’.
The record spoke for itself when it was finally released, but Ulrich remembered being absolutely furious with the producer once he walked out of the studio, saying, “I resented Bob Rock. I mean, me and Bob Rock did not speak for like the first year or something after that record. It was ugly. I’ve never made a record that was that difficult to make. When I finished making that record, I never wanted to see him again, and then something strange happened a year or two after that where we became friends. Then it was all cool and it’s been great since then.”
Given what showed up in the documentary footage from that time, though, it’s not like Ulrich didn’t have reason to be upset. Rock was known to push everyone to their limit to get the right track, and if he was being absolutely cutthroat with Kirk Hammett trying to get the solo to ‘The Unforgiven’, you can only imagine what happens when he’s put in a room with both James Hetfield and Ulrich deciding on which songs were cut out to be singles.
Ulrich did have a lot more to learn after The Black Album came out, but the fact that it managed to sound absolutely gigantic was a testament to how much they learned from what Rock had to offer. They weren’t looking to become just another metal band, and when the album blew up, they realised that they had made the kind of album that could go toe-to-toe with records like Dark Side of the Moon.
