Lars Ulrich

Lars Ulrich (born December 26, 1963) is the drummer and co-founder of Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper middle-class family. A tennis prodigy in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, C

Lars Ulrich (born December 26, 1963) is the drummer and co-founder of Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper middle-class family. A tennis prodigy in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age seventeen to pursue his training. After publishing an advertisement in a local Los Angeles newspaper called The Recycler, he met James Hetfield and created Metallica.

Lars' father, Torben Ulrich, who was an acclaimed tennis pro from the late 1940s into the early 1980s, was also a musician, playing jazz with such giants as Stan Getz and Miles Davis; another jazz legend, Dexter Gordon, was Ulrich's godfather. He had a jazz club in which Ulrich spent a lot of time as a child. In February 1973, Torben Ulrich obtained five passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert that was being held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. When it was discovered that one of the friends could not go, their ticket was handed over to the nine year-old Ulrich. The young Ulrich found himself mesmerized by the performance, buying the band's Fireball album the very next day. The concert and the album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring his entrance into the world of rock and roll and later on, heavy metal. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit at the age of thirteen, a Ludwig.