As Lars Ulrich tells it, as a teenager he was far better at tennis than he was at drums. In the 70s, the young Dane’s dream was to become a professional tennis player just like his old man Torben. “Music was the passion, tennis was the day job,” he told Classic Rock’s Ben Mitchell.
He ended that decade by heading to a special centre in Florida to hone his skills, something that made him realise the tennis court was not where he wanted to spend his life. “I ended up playing tennis every day for six months,” he explained, “and that was probably what turned me off. Then we decided to move to a suburb south of LA called Newport Beach, which was pretty fucking horrible. It was really rich, conservative, pink Lacoste shirts.
