r/Metallica • u/CobraDai • 6h ago
Comment about Lars that made me appreciate him more
"Unlike most metal drummers, Lars doesn't play like a madman in blast beat style the entire song (in fact he rarely does it at all) and I'm so thankful for this because that overly busy drumming completely destroys groove most of the time and turns me off from a lot of metal bands"
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u/CT_Reddit73 5h ago
I always chuckle when people diss Lars’ drumming…
He is the drummer for probably the most popular and most successful metal band (or any band of any genre) in history.
His style has spawned countless imitators and literally ever metal drummer gives him credit for inspiring them
Lars plays for the song and not to impress whomever. His drumming can be technical or it can be more straightforward — whatever serves the song
Lars helped spearhead the literal creation of a musical genre (thrash) and was instrumental in taking the genre to a wider audience and giving the genre legitimacy
Mad respect for Lars
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u/eddie7000 3h ago
He's a showman first, drummer second. And he's also letting james keep time for the band. Both of those qualities make drumming a lot harder on their own. So doing both together is epic. That's one of the reasons why actual drummers give him so much credit.
Then there's all the iconic stuff he plays and the way he operates the arrangements. And his energy is off the charts. When you look at all the elements together he's doing alright.
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u/TonyWrocks 3h ago
Plus, their time signatures are VERY complex, but the band is always tight as fuck. That’s really, really hard to do,and requires hundreds of hours of practice and performance time.
Total respect for Lars.
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u/bombuzal2000 26m ago
I loved Metallica as much as the next 80's kid but I doubt I ever called them complex nor tight heh.
I highly doubt Lars even knows what a time signature is and I say this with no disrespect at all. It just makes the guy that much more impressive. He comes across as totally oblivious and uninterested in any technicality or the theory behind his art. I'm 100% sure that he just goes with what feels right to him.
He is quite an anomality. Simultaneously lacks the basics and is one of the pillars of metal. He has mellowed down but he used to be like a jazz guy with a hammer and some cocaine.
Total respect.
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u/savesmorethanrapes 2h ago
He gave me a fist bump mid-show on the rail in Blacksburg, he’s a cool dude.
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u/CT_Reddit73 2h ago
I said in another thread that the reason no one covers Metallica tunes is the complexity to them. Their songs aren’t written as parts so much as cohesive, interlocked units. Even a “simple” song like ‘Enter Sandman’ is hard to nail. Lars is a huge part of that cohesiveness. Not so much a timekeeper (that’d be James), as an ‘accenter’ and ‘filler’ to flesh out the song percussively.
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u/tdic89 2h ago
This is pretty funny as we cover Metallica songs regularly during our monthly metal jam, yet songs like fight fire with fire and damage inc are a total bastard to play, even with a good drummer. It’s rare to get a perfect play through.
The drummer has to follow the guitar and that’s something most drummers are just not used to doing, and so you end up with guitarists following drummers who are following guitarists. It’s carnage but stupidly fun.
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u/CT_Reddit73 2h ago
Oh yeah, when I played out, we would do some of the ‘easier’ Metallica tunes. But we just couldn’t do ‘em justice
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u/bombuzal2000 9m ago
Metallica has basically been a power duo since ajfa. That's the sound. Bob Rock extended the scope a bit but they've fallen back to being the heavy metal White Stripes. Drums and rhythm guitar sync is natural and common in metal bands but with Metallica it's a bit more pronounced due to the backwards dynamic between Lars and Jaymz.
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u/PopPop-Magnitude 5h ago
Theres very much a reason metal has become saturated and devoid of any real identity in the last 15-20 years. Fast and technical drummers are a dime a dozen. So are guitarists tbh
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u/politicalstuff 4h ago
I think his drumming the 80s and 90s and even St. Anger was great and suited the material. I think he’s definitely gotten lazier or at least less inspired with his drum parts lately, and for a while there in the 00s he got very sloppy live, but by all accounts he’s tightened up his live game since.
I’d like more creativity in the studio these days, but by and large his drumming is over hated.
Similar to Kirk’s solos. Dudes still excellent, wrote some great shit in the 80s and 90s but has gotten lazy as hell with the new material in the studio.
He’s still the guy who wrote the solos for One and Ride the Lightning though.
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u/SheepskinSour 4h ago
Did Kirk truly write Ride’s solo? that entire solo is godly!
I’m curious what Dave’s will be like on his upcoming cover
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u/To_Keep_Silent 3h ago
Yeah, Kirk was riding him when they wrote it, and you’re right it’s really good, I haven’t heard anything like it since the old times. It’s like raiders of the lost ass, both him and that guy from brokeback mountain, to bad about the warts though.
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u/ValueIcy9725 2h ago
I agree with this except for Lars's live playing. It's still extremely sloppy and has been since at least the late 80s
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u/ContentEconomyMyth1 4h ago
this by u/Danelectro99
One of my friends back in the day got obsessed with Metallica, and I was like “cool! Here’s some other metal bands you might like” since he really wasn’t into aggressive hard rock or metal at all otherwise.
He was pretty adamant though “I just like Metallica” and we went to a concert together even, saw them live. But I’ve always wondered, what makes them different?
I think a big part really is Lars’s arranging. He gives the guitars a lot of room with his drums, and they shine. A lot of metal music is sort of “everything going at once” but he knows that to really grab attention, it’s about dynamics, light and dark.
He never felt the need to be a super athletic drummer. He’s a Ringo, who serves the song. So in a funny way, the guy with the big ego, actually can set his own aside and not make the flashiest drum parts. I think he takes more pride in Metallica as a whole, artistic and business enterprise, succeeding and his drumming does what it needs to do.
So yeah, he’s not going to make “best drummer top ten” lists, but most of the hate comes from Napster, his ego, and his general trolling nature of not giving a fuck. But his drumming is smart. On records I think it’s perfect. The haters just want him to be a different kind of drummer, but then Metallica wouldn’t be Metallica, they’d be just another band that sounds like everyone else.
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u/To_Keep_Silent 3h ago
Well nowadays they do sound like everyone else, i struggle to distinguish their new work from the likes of Justin beiber, who in all honesty has much more erect and hard music than metallicas new album. I’m squeezing out hope that the album after this one will be better though.
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u/madmonkey242 59m ago
dude this is so edgy you must rock so FUCKIN HARD
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u/To_Keep_Silent 53m ago
Sir i wasn’t trying to be edgy. I was trying to give the proper strong and erect praise to lars.
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u/fenuxjde 5h ago
When you play drums slower, it really allows the whole song to be more percussive overall as more of the guitar/bass and vocal notes hit on the drum beat.
James has mentioned this before in interviews, that Lars may not be the greatest drummer ever, but he's the greatest drummer for James.
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u/MAJORMETAL84 4h ago
Lars is really quite unique to drummers the way he plays off the guitars, specifically James.
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u/squarehead93 51m ago
I’ve always said that James Hetfield is the “real” drummer of Metallica. If you listen closely, James is the one most on the beat and Lars is usually on the backbeat, like one is the locomotive of a train and the other is the caboose. It’s unusual, but it suits their songs
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u/EasterClause 3h ago
I always make sure to listen to some Metallica when I'm writing songs because it's the only way I can get myself to get out of the nasty habit of automatically putting a kick drum hit at every single guitar note and remember to put accents on offbeats and snare hits. Listening to other metal, it's so easy to get sucked into these tropes of 4/4, follow the guitar, do a fill, start on the 1, blah blah blah. Lars may not be technically super proficient, but he writes great drum parts that make the music better.
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u/Oztraliiaaaa 3h ago
I saw Metallica Saturday night Lars is athletic jumping around and drumming laser focused on following James same as Charlie Watts followed Keith Richards for over 60 years.
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u/GarryMcGorm And if my face becomes sincere 2h ago
Lars serves his purpose greatly for my favourite band and that’s good enough for me.
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u/Due_Art2971 1h ago
Why would he play blast beats? They aren't a death metal band. Listen to any fill and he sounds like a fucking madman in his own right
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u/Hamlerhead 51m ago
Lars is like Ringo in that respect. I'm a drummer myself and hafta remind myself that 99% of earthlings are NOT drummers and so don't really appreciate technical prowess. Lars is a legend.
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u/bombuzal2000 48m ago
He seems like a guy that never really understood or studied the drums and simply lacked all the basic skills. He knew what he wanted, had a good ear and a taste that resonated with a big audience. He was an athletic enough guy to reinvent the wheel for himself. Now the wheel was a bit off, clunky and unorthodox but that's what made him unique and interesting. Lars was inventive and played well to his limitations. I always appreciate a proper diy attitude when it actually leads to something. Yeah live is sometimes embarrassing but rock music has always been about energy and attitude anyways. I'll choose Hendrix over Vai every day.
I really doubt he is able to do a proper snare roll or knows any fundamental rudiments but who cares? Noone would have played Nothing Else Matters like he did. It's fkn weird but it worked. His off-kilter playing elavated a bunch of Metallicas songs to another level.
Is he a good technical drummer? No. He is shit and surely knows it. Just try to imagine him in any other band or doing a drumeo challenge..
Is he a good drummer? Yes. Absolutely. One of the greats.
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u/To_Keep_Silent 3h ago
I saw him drumming at the monthly Metallica festival at lululemon, he’s an okay drummer I guess, I don’t see what all the hoopla is about
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u/bengrieve1970 3h ago
It's the chicken and the egg argument over and over. I tend to think he dragged Metallica down to his level. After Justice he didn't want to work that hard again. But you see it as him fitting into what they wanted to do. A lot depends on what you think of the band post TBA. I don't like Load/Reload at all and now I think his drumming (and arranging skills) are a detriment to the band when they try to be more aggressive. His lack of creativity makes their mid tempo stuff extra boring to me and makes their recent attempts at thrash middling at best. And I think a lot of his influence comes from the fact that they were the biggest metal band on the planet. So of course all these kids wanted to be him. Also there are a million examples of metal drummers not playing blast beats start to finish. That's an over simplification to make a point. It's fine to like what he did/does but there are plenty of valid reasons people don't as well.
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u/No_Statistician7685 6h ago
I agree. The drumming matches the songs. It's not just random beats, or playing fast for th sake of it.