{"id":234959,"date":"2025-10-31T00:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T00:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234959\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T00:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T00:24:10","slug":"the-drummers-lars-ulrich-hailed-as-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234959\/","title":{"rendered":"The drummers Lars Ulrich hailed as “God”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lars<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music)<\/p>\n

Thu 30 October 2025 20:15, UK <\/p>\n

Before Metallica<\/a> had a fully formed sound, there were a handful of musicians and genres they looked to for guidance.<\/p>\n

Like many hard rock and metal leaders, the band emerged under the tutelage of punk and grunge, and frontman James Hetfield took a particular liking to those who had a specific kind of voice. He found himself gravitating towards those with powerful vocal chords, like Chris Cornell, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, and others.<\/p>\n

Hetfield and the others also felt empowered by the grunge scene\u2019s sonic and lyrical dichotomies, and how the vocals lead the emotional core, while the accompanying arrangements bolster the broader themes of the song. There was also an inherent darkness to it all, especially with bands like Soundgarden, that made Metallica\u2019s musicians feel closer to something, more connected with sounds they\u2019d already recognised in themselves.<\/p>\n

For Ulrich, it was a good drummer who was the start of everything. He, like Hetfield, was influenced by many of the major grunge and prog rock players that were already around, but within those, he saw the real backbone of the entire operation \u2013 the drummer. One was, of course, Led Zeppelin\u2019s otherworldly lightning bolt \u2013 John Bonham.<\/p>\n

Bonham led an entire surge of new percussionists, from Dave Grohl to Roger Taylor. He\u2019s been described by countless legends as the greatest drummer who ever lived, and managed to completely stun anybody who entered his path \u2013 Jimi Hendrix included. In fact, Hendrix said it best once when he went to Robert Plant to gush all over the magic of his band member, telling him, \u201cThat drummer of yours has a right foot like a pair of castanets!\u201d<\/p>\n

To Ulrich, it doesn\u2019t get better than Bonham. It\u2019s impossible. Discussing his favourite drummers in 2020 with Howard Stern, Ulrich named the usual suspects \u2013 Ian Paice, Phil Rudd \u2013 but said that none of them were a match for Bonham. \u201cYou mentioned \u2018When The Levee Breaks\u2019. I mean, that\u2019s classic Bonham. The drums are big, thunderous, ambient. He\u2019s a little bit behind on the snare. And it\u2019s got that groove. He\u2019s in the pocket,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also praised Neil Peart as the only one who might come a little close to Bonham\u2019s greatness. When it came down to it, however, he said Bonham was the pinnacle. \u201cYou can\u2019t play drums and not love Neil,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t not be appreciative and respectful. Between Neil and between John, no disrespect, but I\u2019ll have to go with John Bonham.\u201d <\/p>\n

He praised Peart before, back in 2014, telling Guitar Centre that the first time he met Peart<\/a>, it was over the phone, and he\u2019d been nervous because he felt like he was \u201cthe God of the Gods\u201d. He then recalled he spoke to Peart for \u201clike half an hour\u201d about Tama drums, and it was \u201cpretty amazing\u201d because it also led to him getting his signature kit that he kept for decades. <\/p>\n

In terms of lasting impact, however, Peart might be one of the Gods, but the leader of the entire operation is and will always be Bonham. Everything about his sound and approach \u2013 from the inherent groove to the heavier, more explosive appeal \u2013 gave people like Ulrich a framework to play with, a goal to shoot for even if it was impossible to actually reach.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music) Thu 30 October 2025 20:15, UK Before Metallica had a fully formed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,25705,71792,25229,128,99547,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-234959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-john-bonham","tag-lars-ulrich","tag-metallica","tag-music","tag-neil-peart","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}