Not many of us can claim to have had their introduction to rock music at such an early age. Lars Ulrich however, was luck enough to see one of the biggest rock bands in history performance live when he was just nine years old.
While in conversation with Classic Rock, the Metallica drummer discussed his lifelong love for Deep Purple, and reflected on seeing the legendary English rockers live alongside his father, former professional tennis player Torben Ulrich, on the grounds of a tennis tournament.
"There was a tennis tournament at the KB Hallen [in Copenhagen] that started on a Monday morning and Deep Purple played there the night before", he remembers. "For some reason they invited all the tennis players to come down to the concert.
"My dad [Torben Ulrich, former professional tennis player] invited me along. It was spring 1973 and Purple were promoting Who Do We Think We Are."
Recalling a few moments of the performance that stuck with him, Lars continues, "I remember Ritchie Blackmore throwing his guitar up into the lighting rig, rubbing it against the speaker cabinets and playing it with his ass.
"Jon Lord was waving the beast around, Ian Gillan was hidden behind a curtain of hair playing the bongos, Roger Glover was holding the beat down, while Ian Paice was sitting back there with his specs on doing his thing."
He adds: "I had never seen anything like it before. I was completely and utterly blown away. As you can imagine, it was the loudest, coolest thing I’d ever seen."
Speaking of the music he was a fan at the time, Lars says "I liked Slade, The Sweet, Status Quo. But Deep Purple were a whole different thing. They had a heaviness, energy and power. In my musical vocabulary, they were the extreme."
Elsewhere, when asked if he continued to followed Deep Purple into adulthood, the sticksman answers: "Of course! When they re-formed in 1985, we [Metallica] were on the Ride The Lightning tour, playing clubs in America with WASP and Armored Saint, and Hetfield and me flew down to St Louis to see them.
"After our tour was over we followed them around. Girlschool were supporting so we shacked up with them. We finally got the honour of playing with Purple in ’87 at the Monsters Of Rock festival in Germany. Having Metallica and Deep Purple on the same gig poster was a big deal for me."
