With Metallica’s 40th anniversary approaching, Lars Ulrich hopes band is “just getting started”

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesMetallica will celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary next year, and Lars Ulrich is hoping to go another 40 after that.

In an interview with whiskey distiller Rob Dietrich, who worked with the metal legends on their signature Blackened American Whiskey, Ulrich was asked about the upcoming 40th anniversary, and how he feels about it.

“It always feels like we’re just getting started,” Ulrich responded. “Forty f***ing years! Yeah, it’s crazy. We’re in 2020 here, so I guess next year is the 40th anniversary.”

Reflecting on the last few years touring behind the latest Metallica album, 2016’s Hardwired…to Self-Destruct, Ulrich feels that the band members have continued to grow closer to their fans, and he hopes to continue to do that as Metallica officially hits the four-decade mark.

“It’s just amazing how it feels like it’s getting more and more intense and more and more intimate,” Ulrich said. “[We’re] always working on trying to break down that barrier between the band and the fans and trying to make us all one.”

“It just feels like we’re connecting at a more intimate level than we ever have before,” he added. “So, like I said, hopefully we’re just getting started.”

Ulrich and James Hetfield co-founded Metallica in 1981. They would eventually recruit bassist Cliff Burton in 1982, while guitarist Kirk Hammett joined in 1983 in place of future Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine.

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