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Sat 10 October 2026 3:00, UK
Lars Ulrich has been nothing if not a fan of all great rock and roll music.
Even though much has been made of him not practising nearly as much as he should nowadays, looking through his history of working with Metallica, he never stopped being the same kid who wanted to prop up the bands that he loved and show people what heavy music was all about. His tastes did change as he ended up maturing, but even for a band that was all about the heaviest rock and roll ever made, Ulrich knew that there was a lot more out there than music descended from the likes of Black Sabbath.
No one else in the world would have been able to make the same kind of doomy riffs that Tony Iommi did, but the thrash scene was already a reaction to what was coming out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Although the band did come out around the same time that bands like Iron Maiden were starting to take over the world, it was bands like Diamond Head and Angel Witch that made Ulrich realise that he wanted to do music full-time and show people what that music could do.
But when combined with James Hetfield’s guitar, there was also a healthy dose of hard rock laced throughout their tunes as well. Hetfield was born and raised in some of the greatest rock and roll bands to come out of the 1970s, and even though no day went by that he wasn’t trying to make the heaviest riffs possible, there were a few times where he couldn’t help but throw in some worship from bands like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith whenever he got the chance.
Cliff Burton managed to open the band’s palette even further by exposing them to classical music, but Ulrich felt that they were ready to move on to bigger and better things after Master of Puppets. Trying to make a record with Burton by their side was bound to be rough, but for the first few sessions, Ulrich felt that they were going to be okay if they had someone like Mike Clink working with them.
Because as much as the band hated the glam rock lifestyle, Guns N’ Roses was the main outlier in the Los Angeles club scene. Ulrich had no problem yelling at Mötley Crüe on the street or throwing darts at a picture of Kip Winger, but when he heard what Mike Clink did on Appetite for Destruction, he heard the beginnings of something a lot heavier and yet more catchy than anything else out at the time.
The feeling of a band looking like a gang was back in fashion, and he knew that anything to come out of rock could be measured against that debut record, saying, “It’s one of the handful of greatest rock records ever recorded. Appetite is genre-less in a way, in that not only is it one of the best hard-rock records and metal records of all time, but it’s also just one of the best records of all time, and it obviously shaped a generation and was the blueprint for literally thousands of bands.”
Further reading: From The Vault
While Metallica’s stint with Clink didn’t end up working the same magic as he did with Guns, it’s not like he forgot about the allure of the band, either. Metallica’s joint tour with ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Band’ has gone down in legend at this point, but even if Axl Rose could have been a bit of a diva to work with, Ulrich could still respect the hustle if a band could make songs that sounded this good.
After all, all good rock and roll needs an element of danger to it, and while Metallica did get burned more than a little bit, that didn’t diminish Ulrich’s love for Appetite. Because, as much as people like to poke fun at Guns from time to time, no one else would ever look as cool as they did whenever they played ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ in front of an audience for the first time. This was a band with the wind at their sails, and they could have been one of the greatest bands of all time had they been able to stick together a little longer.
