Lars Ulrich revealed how much money Metallica spent on alcohol at shows in their earlier days in a new Chicago Tribune interview.
Q: What about the band’s relationship to beer?
Ulrich: When we started Metallica, we would drink anything we could get our hands on. There were financial constraints in the early days, so when I say “anything we could get our hands on,” it was really pretty much anything. There was a lot of beer especially in the early days. I know Greg is cringing when I say this, but if we had $5 we would drink Schlitz Malt Liquor and Mickey’s bigmouth — the stuff we believed had more alcohol so we could get drunk or silly. We’d drink the OG Coors in the yellow cans and when (stuff) was dire, there was white label from Safeway. It was extra cheap.
When we came to Europe in ’84, we’d go to the pubs in England and have 10 pints. We’d go around Germany and drink pilsner and in Holland we’d drink Grolsch or the OG Heineken.
Q: It sounds as if a lot of your beer education happened on tour.
Ulrich: Absolutely.
Q: What’s in the cooler backstage at Metallica shows these days?
Ulrich: Anything but Enter Night has officially been banned from the backstage cooler. It’s all about Enter Night these days. At the risk of making Greg cringe, before Enter Night, we’d have a few Mexican beers backstage and a few other suspicious things.
(Koch coughs loudly.)
Ulrich: Bad connection! Greg is choking on his phone. My life changed forever last June when I met Greg.
