In a new interview with 92Y in New York City, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich was asked if there is anything he would have done differently in Metallica’s legal dispute against Napster.
“To answer your question directly, I think we would have educated ourselves better about what the other side were thinking and what the real issues were,” Ulrich said. “‘Cause you’ve gotta remember, this started out as a street fight. This wasn’t about the future of music, this wasn’t about the music business, this had absolutely nothing to do with money. This was a back-alley street fight.
“Cliff [Burnstein, Metallica co-manager] calls one day and says… We were working on a song for this Tom Cruise film, ‘Mission Impossible II’, called ‘I Disappear’, and we recorded it in between some touring commitments, and it was gonna be held back till the next summer. And so one day I got a call from Cliff saying ‘I Disappear’ is being played on 20 radio stations across America, and we’re, like, ‘How the fuck is this possible?’ And he said there’s something called Napster where people can go and share. And we’re, like, ‘How the hell did they get ‘I Disappear’? It lives in our vault somewhere.’ And so we traced it back to this company Napster, and as you did in those days, it was, like, ‘Well, let’s go fuck with Napster then.’ So just like these five bright lights on me, and I can’t actually see any of you guys, all of a sudden, we were caught in these lights and we’re standing out in the middle going, ‘Oops.’ I guess Napster means a lot to a lot of people, and so we were caught a little bit off guard with that, and then we sort of had to figure out how we were gonna play it.”
Lars went on to say that Metallica was “totally pro bootlegging” around the time Napster was launched. “You could show up at a Metallica gig, you could buy a ticket, you could bring in your own recording devices and you could stand on a platform and record Metallica shows,” he said. “You could bootleg them and we were totally encouraging of this. We were all tape traders, and we were totally pro all this stuff. But the thing that blew our minds about Napster was we couldn’t wrap our heads around, ‘Why did nobody from Napster call and go, ‘Are you okay with us doing this?’ Because then it was a conversation. But they did this without checking in with us. And that was the part that we couldn’t understand, that was where I think we could have educated ourselves better about how all of this worked and what it meant to people, because all of a sudden, we were standing out there going… And then we were caught in a shitstorm and people were, like, ‘Metallica, they’re really greedy and money hungry,’ and it had nothing — nothing — to do with money whatsoever. It was just about, ‘Wait a minute! If we’re gonna give away our music, which we don’t mind doing, maybe we should do it, or maybe somebody should ask our permission.’ That was it. And then that back-alley streetfight went public and worldwide and then we were completely caught off guard.”
“That was a dare,” Ulrich said during the 92Y interview about driving a truckload of names of Napster users. “Because what [Napster] said… They were very smart and they really were very smart. And Sean Parker and I are best friends and we’ve had all this out, and I’ve complimented him and we rekindled our relationship. But they were so fucking smart. They said, ‘We don’t know who these people are that are downloading your songs.’ And we went, ‘We don’t believe that. And we believe that we can find those names.’ And they go, ‘Okay. Who are they?’ And we went, ‘Here are the names.’ I showed up at Napster and started pulling 335,000 names out of a pickup truck. ‘Here are the people. If you can’t find them, we can give ’em to you.’ And so that was… maybe not the smartest PR move of all time, but at least we won the argument.”
The drummer added: “Listen, as they say, that and a quarter will get me on the bus, but it seemed like a really good idea at the time. So, there you go.”
