Most famous people are forced to deal with negative comments on the Internet. Rock stars are no exception and Lars Ulrich has certainly been taking a lot of heat in the last 10 years or so. During a conversation with Metallica‘s home fan club So What, the drummer talked about hate comments regarding his playing skills:
“20 or 30 years ago, we would all sit and fucking read every page of Kerrang and every page of Circus Magazine, see what so-and-so’s saying and what the other band members were saying, what James was saying about this and that. Now there’s just none of that. I also don’t really read what people say about Metallica.
I’ll say that occasionally, once every six months or something like that, it’s kind of fun to go through the trolling section just because of the ridiculousness of all of it, but it’s not something that I do regularly anymore. 20 years ago, it would’ve been, ‘Oh, my God, somebody said something bad,’ or, ‘That person said a nasty comment in the comments section,’ or whatever. Now, none of that really means anything to me. I’m literally immune to it.
photo by Melinda Oswandel
We just did a bunch of interviews, and sometimes, if I am being interviewed by a journalist who is also a fan, they’ll say, ‘When people say Lars Ulrich is a shitty drummer, I defend you.’ [That] is cool, but I’ve got to tell you, 20 years later, 30 years later, it just doesn’t register anymore.
I am so comfortable with who I am, I’m so comfortable with who Metallica is, I’m so comfortable with our place in all of it. I’ve got nothing left to prove, so it just doesn’t register anymore.”