Lars Ulrich Biography

Lars Ulrich was born in Gentofte, Denmark to Torben Ulrich who was a professional tennis player and encouraged Ulrich to play the game. His grandfather Dexter Gordon was a saxophonist.

Thinking of following in his father’s footsteps, Ulrich almost prepared himself mentally to become a tennis player one day. At the age of 10, he went to a ‘Deep Purple’ concert with his father and later got himself a drum set.

When he was 16 years old, Ulrich and his family moved to Los Angeles. There he started working on his passion for music and sent out an ad in the newspaper saying, ‘looking for metal musicians to jam with’.

After 16-year-old Ulrich sent out the ad for jamming with metal musicians, James Hetfield got in touch with him and five months later ‘Metallica’ was formed. In 1983, the band released its first album ‘Kill ‘Em All’.

The band’s next album ‘Ride the Lightning’ was released in the following year and it started to gain some underground popularity but it was their third album ‘Master of Puppets’ in 1986 which made them commercially famous.

During the touring for ‘Master of Puppets’, the band had an accident in which they lost their bassist but the band continued to make music and released ‘…And Justice for All’ in 1988, to smash the Billboard’s Top 10.

Throughout the nineties, Ulrich was involved with the making of music with his band and released albums like, ‘Metallica (1991)’, ‘Load (1996)’, ‘Reload (1997)’, and ‘Garage Inc. (1998)’. All of these albums contributed to the success of Metallica.

In the late 1990s, he formed his own record label, ‘Music Company’ while he was still busy drumming for Metallica, and in the following years he began to show his anger against file sharing and the band sued ‘Napster’.

During the course of releasing ‘St. Anger (2003)’, and ‘Death Magnet (2008)’, Ulrich did a cameo in the movie ‘Get Him to Greek (2008)’ along with the famous English actor Russell Brand.

In the year 2012, Ulrich played a role in ‘Hemingway & Gellhorn’, an HBO movie, and also in the same year ‘Mission to Lars’ was released. It was a documentary on how a disabled man managed to meet Metallica. The following year, he starred in the American thriller concert film ‘Metallica: Through the Never’ directed by Nimród Antal. The film follows the exciting journey of Trip, the main protagonist, and also features Metallica’s concert videos.

In 2016, Metallica came out with their tenth studio album named ‘Hardwired... to Self-Destruct.’ The album was mostly well-received by critics and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 where it stayed for 6 consecutive weeks. That same year, Ulrich was also seen in the Babak Jalali-directed film ‘Radio Dreams.’

Metallica put out their eleventh album ‘72 Seasons’ in 2023. It garnered positive reviews from critics and peaked at number 2 on the US Billboard 200.

Ulrich’s most prominent work in his lifetime has been the founding of Metallica and playing drums for the band for nearly four decades. All his recognition as a musician has come with the popularity of his heavy metal American band.

Ulrich has been married twice - his first marriage was with Debbie Jones, an English woman whom he met on one of his tours in 1988. The marriage only worked for two years as Ulrich was always busy with Metallica.

He got married for the second time to a physician, Skylar Satenstein in 1997 but got divorced from her in 2004. The couple has two children together, Myles and Layne. Myles is a drummer for the band ‘My Missing Half’.

He dated Danish Actress Connie Nielsen from 2004-2012 and has a son with her named Bryce Thadeus Ulrich-Nielsen. In 2015, he married fashion model Jessica Miller.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 with his band Metallica and he was the first Danish musician to feature in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

When he was young, Ulrich was very interested in the British heavy metal band, ‘Diamond Head,’ and traveled from San Francisco to London to see their live performance.