It’s been a year already since we heard about Scott Ian’s story about Metallica considering firing their charismatic drummer Lars Ulrich back in the ’80s. That was hearsay, of course, with Ian apparently hearing of it from Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, then a member of the band. However, in a recent interview on Albany classic rock station WPYX, guitarist Kirk Hammett confirmed that there was a point where the rest of the band actually considered booting the band’s mouthpiece. Hammett told the station that early on, he annoyed the rest of the band enough for them to briefly consider it:
“You know, that was just an old thing, you know. I think at one point or another, we were pissed off at Lars, around maybe 1985 or something. We were unhappy and we might have grumbled something to someone. And then that person might have picked up on it and made it something a lot bigger than it actually was… To be completely honest, [Lars] has a lot of drive, and that’s a part of the reason why I love the man. His drive and his motivation is just so intense, you know.
The band probably grumbled about it to more than one person, since that’s how things work. That being said, it’s hard to imagine Metallica without Lars, and we’re sure the band’s happy they were able to patch things up before Master of Puppets.
[Transcription via]
