“Yo! You made me look like an idiot in front of my buddies!” Biohazard guitarist recalls time he put Metallica’s Lars Ulrich “in check”
Biohazard guitarist Billy Graziadei has opened up about the time he put Metallica’s Lars Ulrich “in check”, and how the encounter eventually led to an unexpected opportunity for his band.
Speaking to 96.7 KCAL-FM, Graziadei recounts how Ulrich had unknowingly snubbed him at a New York club in front of his friends, which prompted him to confront the Metallica drummer on the spot.
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“I’m outside talking to the security dudes and the owners, and we’re all young kids; they’re buddies of mine,” Graziadei recalls. “So, Lars walks up. He’s got maybe an entourage of 10 people. One of the owners says, ‘Hey, you know Lars. Can you introduce us?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ So Lars walks by, and I’m like, ‘Yo, what’s up, bro?’ And he looks at me, kind of nods his head and says, ‘Yeah, hi,’ and walks right past me.”
“So as New Yorkers, my buddies were busting my balls. They’re, like, ‘You don’t know him.’ I’m, like, ‘I do know. And he fucking knows me.’”
Determined to set things straight, Graziadei pushed through the crowd and sat down next to Ulrich: “I’m, like, ‘Yo. What the fuck? You know who I am.’ I said, ‘You made me look like an idiot in front of my buddies. You know me. Billy from Biohazard.’”
“He goes, ‘Oh, I didn’t recognize your hair.’ I’m, like, ‘It’s always blonde, dude. That’s my thing.’ It’s like Dimebag with his red beard,” says the guitarist.
Little did he know that this exchange would lead to something significant for Biohazard.
“The next morning I get a call from my manager, Scott Koenig, rest in peace. He said to me, ‘Hey, I heard you bumped into Lars last night.’ And I’m, like, ‘Oh, here he goes. He’s gonna bust my balls.’ And so I started telling the story,” Graziadei continues. “He interrupts me and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know what happened or what you said or how you handled it, but they wanna take you on tour.’”
“And I pretty much dropped the phone, and I was, like, ‘Yo, what?’ I picked the phone up. ‘They wanna take us on tour? Fucking Metallica?’”
Looking back on the experience, Graziadei stresses the importance of respect in all interactions: “You wanna treat people always with respect, no matter who you are,” he says. “I don’t care if you’re the garbage man or the president, you’re cool with me, you get my respect, and that’s it. But you’ve always gotta stand up for yourself. And I think Lars just respected the fact that I wasn’t afraid to tell him, ‘Yo…’ I had to put him in check — in a respectful way.”
The post “Yo! You made me look like an idiot in front of my buddies!” Biohazard guitarist recalls time he put Metallica’s Lars Ulrich “in check” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
