Lars Ulrich admitted he doesn't listen much to his own band and revealed the Metallica song he never wants to hear again.

The drummer often says he prefers to look toward the future in his career, and he discussed that thinking in a new interview with Vulture.

“There’s a song called ‘Eye of the Beholder’ on the Justice album,” Ulrich said. “Wherever I hear that song, it sounds kind of like — I guess we don’t want to be super-disrespectful to it — but it sounds really forced. It sounds like you put a square peg in a round hole. It sounds like it’s got two different tempos. There’s kind of a 4/4 feel in the intro and on the verses, and then I think the choruses are more like in a waltz tempo. It literally sounds like two different worlds rubbing up against each other. It sounds very awkward to me. I’m not a huge fan of that song.”

He continued: “[T]o me, we did the best we could each moment. So of course, sometimes you sit down and go, ‘Huh?’ or, ‘That could have been better’ … It goes back to that whole thing about the past is the past, and I don’t spend a long time back there. And there’s not really much I can do about it … honestly, I don’t listen to them. I don’t listen to a lot of Metallica music. Part of it is because I’m sort of overly analytical … When you hear your favorite band — like if I listened to Rage Against the Machine or something, I just fucking let myself go. But when Metallica comes on it’s like, ‘Huh?’”

Listen to Metallica's "Eye of the Beholder"

Ulrich reflected that, while there are many things he’d change about his previous output, he’d never felt that way at the time. “I’m proud of the fact that if nothing else, all these records represent the vision of the moment,” he said. “We were protective of that vision and we fulfilled it. Then 10 or 20 years later, you can kind of sit back and go, Huh?’ or, ‘What were we thinking? What was that about? Why did we make that choice?’"

He added: “I would say I spend more time in the future, maybe even to a fault, not enough time in the present and definitely the least amount of time in the past. I even have a standard answer when people go, ‘What’s your favorite Metallica?’ Before they finish that question, I would say, ‘The next one.’ If I’m not more excited about the next one, what’s the point of making it?”

 

Metallica Lineup Changes: A Complete Guide

More From Q 105.7