Lars Ulrich

Lars Ulrich R[2] (/ˈʊlrɪk/; Danish: [ˈlɑːs ˈulˀʁek]; born 26 December 1963) is a Danish[3][4] musician best known as the drummer and co-founder of American heavy metal band Metallica. The son and grandson respectively of tennis players Torben and Einer Ulrich, he played tennis in his youth and moved to Los Angeles at age 16 to train professionally. However, rather than playing tennis, Ulrich began playing drums. After publishing an advertisement in The Recycler, Ulrich met James Hetfield and formed Metallica. Along with Hetfield, Ulrich has songwriting credits on almost all of the band’s songs, and the two of them are the only remaining original members of the band.

Ulrich was born into an upper-middle-class family[5] in Gentofte, Denmark;[5][6] the son of Lone (née Sylvester-Hvid) and tennis player Torben Ulrich.[7] His paternal grandfather was tennis player Einer Ulrich. His paternal grandmother, Ulla Meyer, was from a Jewish family; as a result, Ulrich’s grandfather was persecuted by the Nazis during World War II.[8] Saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Ulrich’s godfather, and he is a childhood friend of musician Neneh Cherry.[9]

In February 1973, 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, 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 Ulrich, inspiring the start of his music career.