Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich discussed the band being called ‘money hungry’ in a new Sonar FM interview (transcribed by Ultimate-Guitar):
“After all the Napster stuff, the preconception that Metallica is greedy and cares about money and is money-hungry and money-driven or whatever. That’s a very big misconception.”
The drummer added: “Also, [the misconception] that Metallica doesn’t care about technology. That’s completely wrong. I have 37 Apple products just in my carry-on bag.”
Ulrich told Zane Lowe in November regarding Napster: “The argument, at least initially when it started – wasn’t about whether it should be free or not. In our opinion, the argument was on whose choice it should be whether it should be free or not.
“That should be our choice – if we wanna give it away, we’ll give it away. If we wanna charge for it, we’ll charge for it. If we wanna make people stand on their heads and spin around in circles, we’ll do that.
“But that should be our choice and that choice was taken away from us by a company that assumed that we were OK with handing over that choice. So our whole thing back in the day was – it’s not about whether it should be free or not, it’s about who makes that decision. Is it the artist who makes that decision or somebody else?”
