26 Facts About Lars Ulrich

The son and grandson respectively of tennis players Torben and Einer Lars Ulrich, he played tennis in his youth and moved to Los Angeles at age 16 to train professionally.

Lars Ulrich was born on 26 December 1963 into an upper-middle-class family in Gentofte, Denmark; the son of Lone and tennis player Torben Lars Ulrich.

Saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Lars Ulrich's godfather, and he is a childhood friend of musician Neneh Cherry.

In February 1973, Lars Ulrich's father obtained passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tennis tournaments.

When one of the friends could not go, they gave their ticket to the nine-year-old Lars Ulrich, who was mesmerized by the performance and bought the band's album Fireball the next day.

The concert and album had a considerable impact on Lars Ulrich, inspiring the start of his music career.

Lars Ulrich originally intended to follow in his father's footsteps and play tennis, and he moved to Newport Beach, California, in the summer of 1980.

Lars Ulrich was excited about the band's style of music after purchasing their debut album Lightning to the Nations, and traveled from San Francisco to London to see the band perform live at the Woolwich Odeon.

Lars Ulrich remains a fan of Diamond Head and would later mix their album The Best of Diamond Head.

Later in 1981, Lars Ulrich met James Hetfield in Downey, California, and they formed the heavy metal band Metallica upon Lars Ulrich securing a spot in a compilation album of local metal bands named Metal Massacre.

Lars Ulrich got the band name from a friend, Ron Quintana, who was brainstorming names for a heavy metal fanzine he was creating, and Metallica was one of the options, the other being "Metal Mania".

Lars Ulrich encouraged him to choose Metal Mania, and used the name Metallica for himself.

Since the release of Metallica, Lars Ulrich adopted a less focused and simplified style of drumming, and reduced his kit from a 9-piece to a 7-piece.

Between 1998 and 2002, Lars Ulrich tried running a record label, the Music Company.

Lars Ulrich was a joint venture with Metallica accountant Tim Duffy.

Lars Ulrich has been an activist in support of expanding access to health care for US citizens, with his family working with the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic of San Francisco, California.

Lars Ulrich made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the film Get Him to the Greek, as the partner of the character Jackie Q In 2012, Ulrich was the focus of the documentary film Mission to Lars.

In 2017, Lars Ulrich began hosting a show on Apple Music called It's Electric, which has featured conversations with Joan Jett, Noel Gallagher, Dave Grohl and Jerry Cantrell.

Lars Ulrich said that he does not like the "ding" sound of the former and prefers the loudness of the latter.

Lars Ulrich consciously simplified his style in the 1990s to support the hard rock-oriented songwriting of Metallica's albums during that period.

Lars Ulrich restored some of his earlier thrash metal "signature" techniques for the band's 2008 album Death Magnetic, as well as their 2016 album Hardwired.

Lars Ulrich plays a Starclassic Maple series drum kit, with 10" and 12" rack toms, two 16" floor toms and two 22" bass drums.

Lars Ulrich married American fashion model Jessica Miller in 2015.

Lars Ulrich is a friend of Noel Gallagher and his former band Oasis and claimed Gallagher was his inspiration to give up cocaine in the 2000s.

In 2009, Lars Ulrich revealed he suffered from tinnitus due to many years of touring without the use of any auditory protection.

Lars Ulrich was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog on 26 May 2017 by Margrethe II.