Off the Charts: Metallica

From heavy metal to heavy litigation

By Newt Briggs

It's always been easy to hate Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. The son of Danish tennis champion Torben Ulrich, Lars was the byproduct of country club opulence--a lifestyle notoriously at odds with the blue-collar aesthetic of heavy metal. In fact, if it weren't for his fortuitous partnership with frontman James Hetfield, Ulrich's musical ambitions would have likely gone the way of Manowar and Hanoi Rocks.

Unlike Ulrich, Hetfield--a sometime-delinquent and full-time drunk--was the mirror image of the heavy metal audience. A hulking poster boy for working-class rage, Hetfield was the reason that metalheads instantly fell in love with Metallica. Ulrich may have been the band's mouthpiece, but Hetfield was its guts--a fact that made it all the more disturbing when he chopped off his hair and started suing everyone within arm's reach. Once the cornerstone of the power metal community, Metallica was immediately derided as "Metallicash" and "Selloutica," and although its 2003 album St. Anger rose to the top of the Billboard charts, it did so at the cost of alienating much of its fan base.

CEASE AND DESIST: During the last decade, Metallica may not have been the hardest-working group in heavy metal, but its legal team definitely vied for the crown. Besides having 300,000 users barred from the now-defunct online file-sharing service Napster, the band's lawyers also brought suit against Victoria's Secret (for its Metallica lip pencil), Neiman-Marcus (for marketing a Metallica perfume) and MHT Luxury Alloys (for producing an after-market rim called "The Metallica").

CLASS ACTION: In response to Metallica's litigious bent, Canadian musician and web designer Erik Ashley concocted a fake MTV.com story that claimed the band was suing him for trademark infringement over the use of the chords E and F. The hoax, which relied on careful forgeries of the MTV and Metallica websites, spread like wildfire across news outlets and message boards and even made the news on National Public Radio.

TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT: Although Metallica has yet to register any specific chord progressions, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office currently lists trademarks on Metallica-brand snowshoes, coasters, Christmas tree ornaments, golf club covers and "toilet water."

BAR EXAM: By 1985, the members of Metallica had become such stumbling lushes that the band earned the alternate moniker "Alcoholica." Reportedly, Hetfield was the biggest souse of the bunch, drinking a bottle of Jagermeister and washing it down with Smirnoff vodka on a near-nightly basis.

NEGLIGENCE: In 1992, while still a zealous devotee of the sauce, Hetfield was set on fire by a 3,200-degree special-effects flame at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. At the hospital, doctors sawed a ring off his left hand and treated him for second- and third-degree burns on his arms. Although the booze helped dull the pain, doctors suggested the high concentration of alcohol in his blood might also have served as an accelerant.

CHANGE OF VENUE: For the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, Metallica was scheduled to perform atop the Rio, but the band scrapped its set when a harp was blown off the roof and fell 40 stories to the ground.

SLANDER: In the wake of Metallica's Napster wrangling, Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx opined: "I still think Metallica have turned into a bunch of fucking corporate pigs. You sold out to your record company and lawyers with this lawsuit. In fact, you sold out years ago. Suck my dick."

HEARSAY: Lars Ulrich to Melody Maker on underwear: "I haven't worn underpants for the last 15 years, but about nine months ago I decided I was never going to wear jeans again. Because I'm not circumcised, unlike most Americans, there'd be a considerable amount of urine splashed over my non-jean pants caused by my excessive consumption of alcohol. So my wife suggested I wear underwear so I wouldn't piss in my nice expensive designer-label pants all the time."