Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong calls Lars Ulrich an “unorthodox” but “great” drummer

Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has described Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich as an “unorthodox” but “great” drummer.

• READ MORE: Green Day – ‘Saviors’ review: their best work since ‘American Idiot’

The frontman, who last week released new Green Day album ‘Saviors‘, defended the Metallica drummer from the hate that is often directed towards his playing abilities.

“Lars has a really unorthodox way of playing,” Armstrong said during a recent interview with The Howard Stern Show.

“I think he’s a really creative drummer. I think as far as the metal drummers of his genre, even up until now, people that were influenced by Metallica, I think there is something very studious about the way other people play.”

He continued: “But I think that the way that him and James Hetfield play together is so just in lock step. His drum fills are completely unique to the way Lars plays. I really dig the way Lars plays. He’s a great drummer.”

Green Day drummer Tré Cool agreed, describing his energy as “infectious”, adding: “He’s like a heavy metal muppet.”

Ulrich himself has defended his own drumming skills in the past, including standing behind the much-maligned sound of his snare drum on the band’s 2003 album ‘St Anger’.

“It’s been slapped around a little bit. But the snare thing, it was like a super-impulsive, momentary… We were working on a riff. [James] Hetfield was playing a riff in the control room,” he said. “And I ran up. I was, like, ‘I need to put a beat behind that.’ I ran into the tracking room and sat down and played a couple of beats over this riff to not lose the energy of the moment, and I forgot to turn the snare on.

Back in August, Dave Lombardo spoke out against the criticism Ulrich often receives, claiming he “admonishes” those who “talk shit about him”.

In other Green Day news, the band gave their recent single ‘One-Eyed Bastard’ its live debut at their intimate album launch gig in New York City last week.