![\"Lars](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Lars-Ulrich-Metallica-Drummer-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music)<\/p>\n
Sun 8 February 2026 16:16, UK <\/p>\n
For decades, Lars Ulrich<\/a> has been synonymous with the heavy metal genre. Although he may not have the most impressive pedigree behind the drum kit for Metallica, Ulrich\u2019s love of all things heavy has led to him making strides for every group he idolises, including delivering an impassioned speech for his idols Deep Purple at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Compared to every other heavy rock act that came before him, though, Ulrich thought that one band stands alone as the embodiment of the genre.<\/p>\n When Ulrich was still figuring out what music he liked, he moved to California from Denmark. Once he landed on American soil, though, he was getting a cultural shock when hearing the music coming out of England, becoming enamoured with the bands of the new wave of British heavy metal like Saxon and Diamond Head.<\/p>\n Looking to form a band, Ulrich called up various people in the hopes of finding someone interested in metal, only to be introduced to James Hetfield, who formed the basis of Metallica. Although heavy metal may have been alive and well when the duo were first jamming, the genre was still relatively new in the late 1970s. <\/p>\n In the wake of the British blues boom, many bands were looking to make songs that were heavier than what had come before. Using artists like Cream and Jimi Hendrix as a guide, bands like Led Zeppelin could be argued as the first genuine heavy metal outfit, playing songs at punishing volumes while still keeping a firm sense of melody.<\/p>\n Although Zeppelin may not have fit the metal mindset from skin to core, other psychedelic acts from America, like Blue Cheer and the MC5, were taking rock into darker directions as well. Compared to the hippy movements that were storming the charts daily, though, four men from Birmingham were about to turn the rock world on its head.<\/p>\n Inspired by the aesthetic of horror movies and a healthy dose of blues, Black Sabbath were responsible for ushering in the dark sound of heavy metal, complete with Tony Iommi\u2019s furious guitar riffs and Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s terrifying howl. While Ulrich had firmly entrenched himself in the sounds of Judas Priest in his early years, he knew that nothing defined heavy metal better than Sabbath.<\/p>\n When inducting them into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ulrich praised Sabbath for pioneering the dark music that brought metal to the masses, saying, \u201cI not only acknowledge but scream from every fucking rooftop that Black Sabbath is and always will be synonymous with the term heavy metal. No matter how you fucking slice and dice it, the words \u2018Black Sabbath\u2019 hover in the shadows fighting for pole position. On any given day, the heavy metal genre may as well be titled \u2018music derivative of Black Sabbath\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n Although Metallica may have cranked up the tempo of Sabbath songs to punk proportions when making their masterpieces, their riffs are still descendants of what Sabbath has done. Throughout songs like \u2018For Whom the Bell Tolls\u2019, the guitar tone Hetfield dialled in <\/a>has taken a few cues from Iommi<\/a>, down to the main guitar lick baring a resemblance to the song \u2018Fairies Wear Boots\u2019. As Ulrich wisely confirmed, though, any metal band worth its salt that isn\u2019t cribbing notes from Sabbath probably isn\u2019t doing the genre justice.<\/p>\n What was Lars Ulrich\u2019s favourite Black Sabbath album?<\/p>\n \u201cI know for a lot of Black Sabbath people, it\u2019s Paranoid or Master of Reality. To me, the fucking one-two punch of \u2018Hole in the Sky\u2019 and then \u2018Symptom of the Universe,\u2019 [on Sabotage] that\u2019s where it peaked for me, and then the deeper tracks: \u2018Megalomania\u2019 is, like, a journey of just fundamental heavy metal. Side A, if you look at vinyl, is probably the strongest 20 minutes of Black Sabbath,\u201d explained Ulrich when speaking to Rolling Stone<\/a> about his ultimate heavy metal records. \u201cAnd then \u2018Symptom of the Universe\u2019 \u2013 the simplicity in the riff, the down-picking, the chug \u2013 it\u2019s obviously the blueprint for the core of what hard rock and metal ended up sounding like \u2026 up through the \u201980s and \u201990s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe first Sabbath record I got was the one before this one, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,\u201d he continued. \u201cI got it for Christmas in \u201973 when it came out. It was all scary. \u2018Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,\u2019 the song, when it goes into that second part, \u2018Where can you run to?\/What more have we done?\/ \u2026 Sabbath, bloody sabbath\/Nothing more to do.\u2019 Fuck. Scary, crazy shit. This record had a little bit more of what I would call an uptempo energy than some of the other albums, so that\u2019s probably also part of the reason that it\u2019s my favourite. Obviously, their sound got a little more advanced as it went on. There\u2019s a simplicity to some of the earlier records, that I\u2019m appreciative of, but sonically, Sabotage is the best-sounding record.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music) Sun 8 February 2026 16:16, UK For decades, Lars Ulrich has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2775,96,71792,25229,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-415314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-black-sabbath","tag-entertainment","tag-lars-ulrich","tag-metallica","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415314","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=415314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lars](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Lars-Ulrich-Metallica-2008-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Lars Ulrich powering away behind the kit. (Credits: Far Out \/ Kreepin Deth)<\/p>\n