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At the end of last year, Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich, worked on an incredibly unusual record for him. He hammered his kit for two days, generating militaristic rattles and great tribal rhythms. While he was playing, he watched images of Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac mining money on the walls of a drug dealer 's mansion and tumbling down the beaches in pickup truck. by being shot. A few weeks later, he heard his drumming incorporated into the score of the movie that recently became Netflix's Triple border. Aside from a punctual guest on the drums of Mercyful Fate, a heavy metal boogeymen, and some jams with other bands, this is the first time Ulrich has recorded outside of Metallica.
"I have no interest in playing with anyone other than Metallica," Ulrich says. Rolling stone. "But sometimes, when it's possible to do something that just came out of the wheelhouse, for me, I guess, subconsciously, I still think:" If I do it, it will be an experience that will be interesting and then , I have another point of view to give to Metallica. "
He got involved with Triple border – a film about five ex-soldiers trying to steal a Colombian drug dealer – last fall, when director JC Chandor unexpectedly called him to play drums on the soundtrack of the film. They met in 2013 after the screening of Chandor's All is lost at the mill valley film festival. Ulrich was curious about the film and asked the director a question during the public Q & A session. "When I met him after the screening, he recognized my voice," Ulrich said. "It turned out that he knew Metallica very well and we kept in touch." Chandor told him that the composer Rich Vreeland, who works under the name of Disasterpeace, was working on the score, but that he thought that Ulrich's play "would help, embellish, increase or add another layer" , according to the drummer.
"I think the word he kept used was" thunder, "says Ulrich. "I think your drums have that thunder, and I'd like to add thunderous drums to the score. "
"For the score, I wrote a lot of rhythmic music, but we occasionally needed a strong, steady pulse to better stick things," says Vreeland. Rolling stone.
Chandor sent an ongoing montage of the film and Ulrich liked what he saw. "I have to admit that I can be a little snobbish of film, and the action movies are not really my cup of tea," he says. "But this film had a depth, and some of what I would call" unconventional layers, "such as dialogue. A different creative energy was crossing her. I started talking to Rich and I knew it would be different. That's why I wanted to do it. For me, repeating what I did with Metallica or whatever would not be so interesting. "
Shortly before Christmas, he hid in the studio at Metallica's headquarters and worked on the stages. Greg Fidelman, who produced the latest Metallica album, Wired … to self-destructSara Killion and Kent Matcke, who recorded this album, designed it. Vreeland came one day and Ulrich – who was finally credited for "Featured Score Percussion" – only worked with his studio team. Both days, Ulrich developed patterns and rhythms to play as well as the dynamics of the composition. "It was hard and sweeter and somehow imagining there was a thunder button to make things stronger or softer," he says. "It was awesome."
"When J.C. suggested collaboration between us, it was definitely a puzzle," says Vreeland. "I did not really know what to expect from having never met before, but J.C. talked a lot about him and we got along very well. I flew to the Metallica headquarters and threw out some ideas while eating protein pancakes. But I especially wanted to let Lars and his producer Greg do their work. "
At the time, Ulrich was working with a score that Vreeland had created himself and, once completed, he collaborated with orchestral musicians to complete the rest at LA's Capitol Studios studios "I was more concerned about the rhythmic element only by the melodic element, "says Ulrich. "I was playing more at the rhythm of the stage."
The drummer did not buy military martial albums for fear of badyzing or intellectualizing the music, but instead trusted his instinct. "J.C. just asked for weight and thunder, "says Ulrich. "So, I took those words and took them for inspiration. Then you sit with your eyes closed and try to create the sound of thunder on your battery. It's a bit abstract.
"I only stayed in the studio with Lars for a few hours, because we had to record in the middle of the critical time to score, but it was a really fun and surreal day," says Vreeland. "Metallica HQ is an extraordinary place, at once a studio, a meeting place and a museum. Seeing the rafters full of banners handmade by fans from all over the world was really impressive. The amount of love and positivity they brought to the world with their music is incredibly cool and I'm really grateful to have met and worked with Lars. "
Ulrich used his standard kit for most recordings and moved toms or experimented with things like mallets. "Obviously, I'm not going to start playing Metallica songs with mallets, so we've chosen different sounds," says Ulrich. "We were discussing whether we should import timpani, but now you can take a tom tom and get it through a processor. It starts to sound like a kettledrum. Sometimes I added a tom or two and changed the size of the drums a little. "
"You sit with your eyes closed and try to create thunder on your drums. It's a bit abstract.
While experimenting, he found himself playing with all his physiognomy. "When I'm in the studio and follow up, I try to put as much as possible my tiny Danish frame," he says. "The drums can obviously be an incredibly physical instrument, where the delicate elements are completely stripped of the sand, it's sometimes fun to go crazy. I have a saying about it: "Looks like you're throwing the drum kit up a staircase." Sometimes you just have to ride with that and get a bading crazy and extra primal. "
Ulrich's philosophy about music in movies is that it should improve a scene so you do not even notice it. "When I saw the film a second and a fourth time, I began to understand the subtleties of what Rich was doing with the score and its true brilliance," says Ulrich. "About eight years ago, I had quite a few [acting] participate in a movie with Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman called Hemingway and Gellhorn and when you do something like that, you get away, you do not know bading shit. It's like eight years ago, as I watched it with music and thought, shit.
When he watched the finished movie with the added score, he always found himself in the plot. (Spoilers to come.) While Affleck, Isaac and the other members of their team face problems such as a helicopter crash, curious villagers, a steep slope that removes a mule, while he was attempting to carry the money until the escape, he discovered himself rooting for them. "When they fled the money [in the end]I thought, "Brother, you have suffered so much and now you are going to leave the money?" Says Ulrich. "Then in the end, when [Isaac] get the coordinates [to the money’s location] it was obviously a happy moment. Everything is pretty well resolved. "(During this scene, the Metallica film Puppeteer "Orion" plays on the soundtrack.)
Ulrich is grateful for all the experience and especially for Vreeland for allowing him to play the soundtrack. "It must be said that Rich was completely without ego, which is an excellent quality," says Ulrich. "The director will sit down and tell the guy the score:" Some drummer from a hard-rock band will make his debut in the disc. "Some guys may not be as good at it Collaboration requires a lot of self-confidence, ability and work."
Now that he has made a point, Ulrich hopes to do it again. Maybe next time, if the movie was right, he would even want to create his own composition. "I started thinking about what could be a day of making a score for a movie only from drums and rhythm instruments," he says. "He would have no score, no melodic instrument, but only rhythms, pulsations and rhythms. You can browse many places to manipulate the sound. It would be great fun.
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