Lars Ulrich has expressed his desire to keep working with Metallica into the foreseeable future, saying he hopes they’ll continue for at least “20, 25 years”.
Over the last year, we’ve seen a number of big names in the musical business call it quits. While Elton John and KISS are on the farewell circuit, Neil Diamond cites health issues as his reason for slowing down, while Paul Simon recently wrapped up his final tour in New York.
However, on the heavier side of things, this year has seen thrash metal legends Slayer announce their plans to retire. While the band have been going strong for 37 years now, their contemporaries in Metallica don’t plan on slowing down any time soon.
Speaking to US radio station 93.3 WMMR Rocks! (via Blabbermouth), Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich says he doesn’t see the group calling it quits for quite some time.
“A lot of people are retiring, and we feel very energised and rejuvenated,” Ulrich explained. “I mean, we wanna go long. We hope we can get another 20, 25 years out of it.”
“I don’t know what it’s gonna look like, I don’t know what it’s gonna sound like, but that’s in our heads. So we’re not sitting there thinking retirement or this or that; we’re sort of more the opposite. So I would say, for us, everything we do is kind of a long game.”
“Back then, when you were 17, you only think of, like, the next five minutes. ‘Where is the next beer? Whoo!’ So that’s kind of different mentality nowadays.”
Likewise, Lars Ulrich also expressed his pleasure of seeing younger audiences at Metallica’s concerts.
“It’s crazy. It’s unbelievable,” Ulrich explained. “There’s more younger kids at our shows than I can ever remember. Half the audience is under 20. And it also feels more like it’s a 50-50 between boys and girls now, which obviously [wasn’t the case] 20, 30 years ago.”
“So it’s amazing how rock and roll and harder rock and what we’re doing just continues to appeal to… I don’t know if it’s a rite of passage, but it feels like it continues rather than regressing; it feels like it’s actually spreading. And half the people that are coming to our shows are seeing Metallica for the first time. It’s pretty awesome.”
While there’s no saying what the future holds for Metallica, there’s every chance we could see some of the band’s members head out on their own.
“I have so much material sitting around that’s obviously not Metallica stuff, and that pile gets bigger and bigger,” Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammet explained in regards to the possibility of a solo record. “One of these days when it feels right…”
“I still feel I have so much to give Metallica. When that feels more complete, maybe I’ll think about doing that other stuff.”
Of course, if you’re wondering when Metallica might return to Aussie shores, Lars Ulrich recently noted that Australia is definitely part of their upcoming plans.
“I mean obviously there’s an end [to the tour] at some point,” Ulrich explained to So What!’s Steffan Chirazi.
“We gotta just sit and look. There’s Japan. There’s Australia. There’s New Zealand. There’s a couple other pockets that obviously Metallica has a long and very cool relationship with, so we just gotta sit down and figure it out.”
“But to me the most important thing is, and this goes back to what we were talking about [the last time], the maintenance thing,” he continued. “We gotta go to Japan, we gotta go to Australia, we gotta go here, we gotta go there. That’s fine. As long as it’s done within the boundaries that exist.”
While we’re not sure when exactly Metallica will come back to Australia, we do know that 2019 will be your last chance to wave goodbye to Slayer, who are set to visit as part of the Download Festival.
Check out Metallica’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’:
