Lars Ulrich was born on December 26th of 1963 in Denmark. He is best known as the drummer for the heavy metal band Metallica and for the battle he waged against the file sharing service Napster in 2000.

Ulrich founded Metallica in 1981 when he ran a newspaper ad as a drummer looking for other musicians to “jam” with. Rhythm guitarist/singer James Hetfield responded and Ulrich selected him. A second newspaper ad brought in lead guitarist Dave Mustaine. The band then recruited Cliff Burton to play bass. By 1983 their line-up (Ulrich, Hetfield, Mustaine, & Burton) was set.

They then kicked Mustaine out of the band for alcohol/drug abuse issues and replaced him with Kirk Hammett. Mustaine has said that much of Hammett’s early guitar work with Metallica was based on the guitar parts he wrote before being kicked out of the band. Mustaine went on to form the band Megadeth.

Metallica released their debut album Kill ‘Em All on July 29, 1983. It only reached #120 on the Billboard charts (and it didn’t reach that peak until 1988, long after it had been released) but it has gone on to be certified as 3x Platinum in the US (over 3 million units shipped.) Dave Mustaine received co-writing credits on 4 of the 10 songs on the album. There were initially only 1500 copies of the album printed.

Metallica went on to have more and more commercial success with each album up through the band’s fifth studio album: 1991′s self titled release which is most well known as The Black Album. It was Metallica’s first #1 album in the US (and in many other countries around the world.) It’s been certified 15X platinum in the US.

Their four studio albums since then have all reached #1 in the US as well but they have sold successively less copies. 2003′s St. Anger is only certified at 2X platinum (compared to the 15X of The Black Album.)

Their most recent album is 2008′s Death Magnetic which went to #1 in the US, UK, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Neterhlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada, & Germany. It reached #3 in Japan. St. Anger is actually the only Metallica album to reach #1 in Japan (how is that for some music TRIVIA?!)

The band’s drummer (Ulrich), rhythm guitarist/vocalist (Hetfield), and lead guitarist (Hammett) have remained the same since 1983 but they have switched bassists a few times. Cliff Burton died in 1986 when the band’s tour bus overturned in Sweden. He was replaced with James Newsted who was with the band from 1986 through 2001. Robert Trujillo has been the band’s bassist since 2003.

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