Kip Winger On What Separates James Hetfield From Lars Ulrich

In a recent interview with Appetite for Distortion, Kip Winger opened up about the difference between James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich while recalling a Metallica video from the past.

As everyone recalls, in the video of ‘Nothing Else Matters,’ there was a scene in which Lars Ulrich threw darts at Kip Winger’s poster. In the latest episode of the podcast, Winger shared his opinion about the setting and revealed that Ulrich did not apologize to him.

Winger stated that James Hetfield called him to apologize about a year and a half ago. According to him, Hetfield’s apology was quite sincere, and he thought he could be friends with him. Winger also revealed that he and Hetfield have been texting each other since then. However, he pointed out that he did not think Ulrich would call him to convey his apologies.

Kip added to his words that everybody was very young when this “dartboard” incident happened. He mentioned that although they thought it was funny, it was not enjoyable for him to see this scene. However, he did not want to dwell on the subject too much.

The bassist said the following talking about Lars Ulrich’s dart scene:

“He’s never apologized, but James Hetfield called me about a year and a half ago and apologized for the incident. James was really cool. James is the kind of guy I can totally be friends with. And he was very sincere; it wasn’t like he just called to apologize and then blow me off. He’s actually texted me a few times; we text every now and then. I don’t think Lars would ever call me to apologize.”

He continued:

“I think everybody was just young kids, and they were thinking it was funny. To me, it’s not funny to slag off a fellow musician. But who knows? They were just doing what they were doing. I don’t know. I can’t answer that.”

Although Ulrich has not apologized to Winger personally, he indicated during the 2020 interview with Howard Stern Show that he was unhappy with what he did. The drummer said he apologized for this incident in all his interviews and had no personal problems with Kip Winger. On the other side, it seems that Winger would be really appreciated an in-person apology from Ulrich.