Why isn’t Metallica as good at improvising as Deep Purple? Lars Ulrich responds

Lars Ulrichdrummer of metallicapraised the deep purple and explained why his band can’t improvise like other rock legends in an interview with BBC (via Ultimate Classic Rock).

“Most bands in 2023, including the one you’re talking to, don’t change songs that much from night to night. But if you take a song like ‘child in time,’ listen to disc versions Made in Japan and compared to the alternate takes from the previous and next night, it’s insane how different they are,” Ulrich stated.

He added that the improvisation means that the same track can run between eight and 11 minutes: “The musicians are just playing, seeing where the music can take them.”

For the metallicathe drummer believes that improvisations don’t work so well: “It’s great when the music leaves your head and inhabits your body, but there are some songs from metallica what we need to keep thinking about. As ‘blackened,’ for example, you need to remember all restarts and time changes.”

How long will Metallica last?

This topic came up during an interview with Revolverpublished last Wednesday, 5, and Lars was asked about the future of the band: “It’s not something we talk about a lot, no. I think most of the energy and resources go into trying to stay healthy, cohesive, functioning ,” he stated.

Obviously, there’s a point where maybe it doesn’t work anymore on some level, when we can’t play’Battery,’ ‘Master of Puppets‘ or songs like that. I know there are some people in the comments section who think that point has already been reached. [Risos] But the only thing I can say is that it hasn’t happened yet, knock on wood. I hope it doesn’t happen for a while.