One wouldn't ordinarily expect a simple concert date to be cause for consternation, but Metallica's presence on the bill at this year's Glastonbury Festival has caused quite a stir in the U.K. Still, if Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is tired of being asked why his merry band of metal legends is invading one of Britain's less metal-friendly events, he's doing a good job of covering it up.

Ulrich shrugged it all off during a recent interview, suggesting that the whole thing was due to nothing more than "a tradition with British music journalism, a need to categorize." And while British journalists are far from alone on that front, he continued to make a reasonable argument, adding, "It’s like, Metallica at Glastonbury, what's the soundbite? 'Here comes the big bad heavy metal band to our precious little festival.' I don't think it’s genuinely like that...but there obviously are people who snub their nose a little bit at hard rock, and look at hard rock as inferior or lower-class, some sort of lower music form or something, and [think] that the people who listen to hard rock are less educated."

And as he went on to point out, it isn't like this is Metallica's first attempt to bridge musical boundaries -- or the first time someone's raised eyebrows by playing this particular festival. "We basically have played every country in the world's version of Glastonbury...and nobody bats an eye. It's sort of what we do. Though obviously, having played Reading and Leeds many times, I understand and appreciate that Glastonbury is a different British institution," he continued. "Not only did everybody survive when Jay-Z showed up a few years ago but they even enjoyed it. I see no reason why the same shouldn’t happen when Metallica takes the stage."

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