Speaking to Blender, Ulrich sounded much more educated on the issue than he gave himself credit for. "You gotta remember, when we put out '...And Justice for All,' people were going, 'What happened to these guys, this record? ... It sounds like it was recorded in a fuckin' garage on an eight-track.' And now '...And Justice for All' is sort of the seminal Metallica record that supposedly influenced a whole generation of death-metal bands."

As for the new record, Ulrich defended album producer Rick Rubin who allegedly "compressed" the record, sacrificing sound quality for the sake of loudness. "Me and James [Hetfield, Metallica frontman] made a deal that we would hang back a little and not get in the way of whatever Rick's vision was. That's not to put it on him - it's our record, I'll take the hit, but we wanted to roll with Rick's vision of how Metallica would sound."

Perhaps the most vocal opponent of file-sharing among other music-related technology advances, Ulrich had more to say about internet users. "Part of being in Metallica is that there's always somebody who's got a problem with something that you're doing: 'James Hetfield had something for breakfast that I don't like.' That's part of the ride," he explained.