According to Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, legendary metallers Metallica planned to fire their ill-famed drummer Lars Ulrich 28 years ago…
Ulrich is still around, but has been met with many controversies throughout his career. The biggest one being the Napster feud where he spearheaded a campaign against illegal downloading by suing the Napster company, and of course the ongoing fan criticism of Ulrich being the ‘worst drummer in metal history’.
Scott Ian of Anthrax has revealed in his new book that Metallica planned to fire the drummer in 1986 after the tour which late bassist Cliff Burton was tragically killed on, although the circumstances changed when the aforementioned death took place.
Speaking to a radio station in Colorado, Ian responded to interest in the story he revealed in his autobiography, ‘I’m the Man: The Story of the Guy From Anthrax‘:
“A lot of people have been asking me about this, and that story’s actually been out there for a long time.
“I’m not outing this; that would never be my intention. My book’s not like an exposé; it’s not that kind of a book.
“But yeah, the story was that they had made a plan that they were gonna make a change and get a new drummer. We were all kind of blown away by that, because it was the four of them. It was just, like, ‘Wow! Really?’ And they were, like, ‘Yeah. When we finish this tour, we’re gonna find a new drummer.’
“What could I do? Just as a guy who was friends with all of them, you feel, ‘That’s a bummer for Lars. That sucks.’ And at the same time, you hope that your friends can continue on and do what they wanna do with themselves.
“Obviously, history turned out differently for Metallica and they went on to become, arguably, one of the biggest bands on the planet. So I’m just glad it all… obviously it all worked out for my friends. [It was a] horrible tragedy that Cliff was killed in that bus accident.”
“All I could say about that whole thing was we were a bunch of kids, man… We were a bunch of kids that met very early on in our careers, and a couple of years later, we were out together in Europe on tour. We were all in our early 20s and just really celebrating life and the fact that things were actually happening for our bands. And there was a bus accident. And it really put things in their proper place after that. The priorities quickly fell into place. It was just a thing I still can’t really wrap my head around.”
“I honestly think it wouldn’t have happened. ‘Cause, believe me, I’ve thought about it quite a bit over the years. I honestly think that the tour would have finished and I think cooler heads would have prevailed, maybe, and I don’t think the change would have taken place. That’s what I believe.”
It’s hard to see Metallica without Ulrich in their career despite the fact he has had his fair share of conflict in Metallica’s career, but it could have been different as these rumours have gained some traction. Ulrich is still the drummer of Metallica though and will likely be to he simply can’t play anymore, but who do you think Metallica would have tapped to take over the drums should they have fired Ulrich? An interesting thought, and how different do you think Metallica would be today?
