Sonar FM recently asked Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich to name the single biggest misconception people have about the group.
His answer? Let’s just say the band’s battles with Napster back in 2000 still loom large in Metallica land.
“After all the Napster stuff, the preconception that Metallica is greedy and cares about money and is money-hungry and money-driven or whatever—that’s a very big misconception,” Ulrich replied. “Also, that Metallica doesn't care about technology. That’s completely wrong. I have 37 Apple products just in my carry-on bag!”
As some fans may recall, back in 2000, Metallica took file-sharing site Napster to court for copyright infringement, racketeering and unlawful use of digital audio interface devices. Metallica won the case, leading other artists to file suit against the company.
You can view Ulrich’s interview with Sonar FM below.
The drummer touched on the subject of file sharing last November. In an interview with Zane Lowe, he explained that Metallica’s argument with Napster was over who gets to choose when music is shared free of charge.
“The argument, at least initially when it started, wasn’t about whether it should be free or not,” Ulrich said. “In our opinion, the argument was on whose choice it should be whether it should be free or not.
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“That should be our choice. If we wanna give it away, we’ll give it away. If we wanna charge for it, we’ll charge for it. If we wanna make people stand on their heads and spin around in circles, we’ll do that. But that should be our choice, and that choice was taken away from us by a company that assumed that we were okay with handing over that choice.”
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Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.
