Metallica finally laugh at NapsterJuly 15, 2010
NAPSTER has been a dark digital cloud hanging over Metallica for 10 years. Now, drummer Lars Ulrich can finally laugh about it.
ALL it took was one sentence for Russell Brand to confront the elephant in the cinema.
It's in the midst of Get Him to the Greek, where Brand plays chemically enhanced rocker Aldous Snow.
His wife, played by Rose Byrne, is having an affair with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who makes a fairly effortless cameo playing himself.
After a bit of argy-bargy post some hanky-panky, Brand as Snow hits Ulrich, as Ulrich, where it hurts by stating, Why don't you go and sue Napster you Danish twat?
Napster has been a dark digital cloud hanging over Metallica, and in particular Ulrich, for 10 years.
Napster was an online music filesharing site that became the face of the illegal downloading world that has crippled the music industry since.
Back in 2000 when their lawyers found an early version of one of their as-yet-unreleased songs traded on Napster, as well as their entire back catalogue, Metallica swung into action.
Ulrich handed over the names of more than 300,000 Napster users breaching Metallica's copyrights by downloading and trading their songs for free.
Soon Metallica, who had always been seen as the band of the people, were the bad guys the out-of-touch multimillionaire musicians using their expensive lawyers to sue the very fans who'd helped make them rich.
"This is not about Metallica and its fans, this is about Metallica and Napster," Ulrich said at the time.
The backlash was intense, from fans and media. Indeed when the band almost self-combusted in 2001 (painstakingly captured on the Some Kind of Monster documentary) many felt the Napster experience nearly killed the group.
However in 2010, Ulrich has found the funny side of Napster greenlighting the Russell Brand joke.
"It's part of the legacy, for better or worse," he says.
"The best thing you can do is try to make people understand you're at a point where you're comfortable getting a few laughs out of it. It wasn't a lot of fun 10 years ago . . .
"I'm not going to bulls--- you, it was a very difficult time.
"It's something that still makes me a little uneasy. It was a mindf--- how we got caught up in that whole thing."
Ulrich admits the band were caught off guard by the then little- known downloading phenomenon ("We certainly underestimated people's perceptions of the whole thing), but distances himself from a recent quote saying they have been proven right with their Napster stanceeven with the negative impact file sharing has had on all sectors of the music industry.
"As you see the demise of all these models that have existed for decades, I don' t find any glory patting ourselves on the back saying, 'Look, we were right'," Ulrich says.
"Other people say that. I try not to say a lot about it. I don't find glory in any of it. It's part of the demise of so much.
"Certainly not so much for us but so many other people have lost their jobs and their ability to depend on music for an income, for their livelihood.
"Other bands have difficulties getting going because of lack of money for gear or recording.
"Record companies are signing fewer bands and putting less money into them."
Ulrich, he wants you to know, is not anti-internet.
"We're responsible for about 10 per cent of Apple's profits each year our house is a Steve Jobs shrine in full effect," he says.
However he is old-school and prefers to buy CDs Them Crooked Vultures, the Dead Weather, Slash, Kasabian and the Stones are his most recent purchases.
One item that remains gathering dust in his collection is the Some Kind of Monster DVD.
The movie captures the fractured recording of the St Anger album, singer James Hetfields stint in rehab and the hiring of cardigan-wearing therapist and performance enhancement coach Phil Towle.
The film has become a modern-day Spinal Tapeven if only in a what not to do fashion for other bands.
"Every time I see Noel Gallagher he quotes lines from that movie back to me," Ulrich laughs.
"That thing has taken on a life of its own. I had to live that s--- for three f---ing years!
"The whole thing was a mindf---.
"I am aware a lot of other musicians seem to have lived a lot of those moments. They weren't necessarily stupid enough to film them like we were and share them with the rest of the world."
Ulrich admits he's proud the band survived the whole torturous process.
"The internal dynamic in this band is so radically different now, it's difficult to relate to that film now. It has a thirdperson vibe. If I see a clip of it or think about it it's more like something that happened to someone else."
Fast-forward to July 2010 and Metallica are 24 months into a world tour that will end in Melbourne on November 21.
Things have changed. They now tour in two-week pods ("We have a thing about going home and hanging out with our kids and not missing out on them growing up") and keep fit on the road.
"We still have a few late nights, but they're late nights more than early mornings," Ulrich says.
"A few glasses of wine or a few too many glasses of wine, but it never gets so next-level we end up in a gutter somewhere."
Their audiences, Ulrich says, are getting younger and younger.
Having a hit video game, their own dedicated Guitar Hero, hasn't hurt.
"It's pretty cool to have your own video game when you have a couple of kids who are eight and 11, that helps in the Cool Dad factor," Ulrich says.
"I've sat and played Guitar Hero Metallica with my kids, that doesn't suck. Any time you get to give yourself more hair and make yourself a little buffer and take away one or two of the chins that's always good."
Their appeal to a new generation (In places like Oslo half the audience are 10 and younger, Ulrich says) goes deeper.
A lot of kids are getting turned on to our stuff by their parents who grew up with us.
"Somehow the music from the 80s Metallica and Megadeth and Slayer and 70s stuff like Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple and Black Sabbath they seem to have a relevance to kids these days. They seem to connect with it.
"Look back to the 90s, the rap rock, nu metal and grunge.
"A lot of that stuff had more commercial elements to it. I'm generalising here. Obviously Nirvana were a great band, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jamsensationalbut all the stuff in the wake of that had more of a product vibe to it. For every Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit there were 100 clones.
"A lot of hard-rock stuff from the 80s and 70s has sustained and survived in the same way a lot of the stuff from the 90s has been disregarded."
The band have just shared a stage with guitarist Dave Mustaine, booted out of Metallica in 1983 for alcohol and drug abuse he went on to form Megadeth.
Former bassist Jason Newstead also rejoined the band on stage when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.
Ulrich is relieved there's now no bad blood with their former bandmates.
"We've been through too much. That's what survives; all the s--- talking falls to the wayside. It has no real legs. It becomes momentary. The experiences you've had making music will last forever."
Next year is Metallica's 30th anniversary. There'll be no greatest hits (Those albums are horses - They always have questionable undertones, Ulrich says) and after 30 months on the road fans shouldn't expect a follow-up to 2008's Death Magnetic any time soon.
There is a good vibe in the band now, everyone's having fun and getting along, Ulrich says.
"Things are real easy and borderline pleasant, I know that doesn't sound very rock and roll, but it would surprise me if it'd be a year before we start making a new album.
"I think we'll have three to six months of lying down.
"There's a good chance the turnaround would be less than it's been on previous cycles."I've heard myself say that in interviews before . . ."
And as for celebrating their third decade?
"Thirty years is a pretty major achievement for a band like us who've burned the candle at about three ends over the years.
"The fact we're still somewhat functioning and not only able to put sentences together but play music is obviously some kind of achievement that should be celebrated.
"I'm not sure if that should be done in public or with a quiet prayer at home. I'm sure something will come up.
"Something always comes up. We're not very good at sitting at home.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/music/metallica-finally-laugh-at-napster/story-e6frexl9-1225891728695
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