Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has admitted Lou Reed found it hard to cope with the negative response which greeted the 2011 collaborative album ‘Lulu‘.
The album, inspired by the German playwright Frank Wedekind, was released in October last year, and received some fierce criticism from sections of the media. In a particularly scathing 1/10 review, Pitchfork described the album as ‘audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result’.
And now, in an interview with the US radio station DC101, Ulrich has revealed that while he was able to let the criticism wash over him, it was a different story for Lou Reed.
“Obviously, it’s fantastic in 2012 that the internet gives everybody access to voicing their opinions, and I think it’s an incredible medium to communicate and to bring the world closer,” he said.
“But obviously, as an artist, or somebody who is creating something, you’ve gotta be careful how deep you dive into what everybody’s talking about, because it could really screw with your mind. I’ve always been in a place where I’m pretty thick-skinned, so it doesn’t bug me that much.”
“It was difficult for Lou Reed because he takes everything very personally. And I think he was very surprised. We told him all along: ‘Listen, there are some very, very, very hardcore metal fans out there that like everything pre-packaged in a particular little box that looks like this, and the minute that you slightly veer outside of that, then they have a hernia.’ And that’s fine – I’m fine with that.”