Listen to Metallica's Lars Ulrich read a special Xmas story, The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas

By Paul Brannigan
( Metal Hammer )
published

"From high in the sky, Santa looked down below, to houses all cosy, and covered in snow..."

Metallica
(Image credit: Jeff Yeager/Metallica/Getty Images))

Back in December 2016, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley's show, to gift listeners an unusual Christmas treat, a reading of a seasonal children's story, The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas.

The book, written by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter from English pop-rock boy band McFly, was published in 2012, and concerns, in Fletcher's words, "a boy who gets a dinosaur for Christmas which goes on an unstoppable festive eating rampage until Christmas is gone."

"The only way to get Christmas back," Fletcher revealed, "is for the dinosaur to poop it out."

Introducing the segment on her radio show, Whiley, formerly a Radio 1 DJ and the talent booker responsible for iconic performances from Nirvana, L7, Faith No More, Sepultura and more on Channel 4's The Word, explained that she used to read The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas to her daughter Coco and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone buying a Christmas present for a young child. She revealed that she'd asked Lars Ulrich a couple of years earlier if he might be up for reading the story to listeners and he'd replied, "Absolutely, with pleasure."

So, if everyone is sitting comfortably, over to Mr Ulrich, for a Christmas tale like no other...

The Danish drummer clearly enjoyed reading to the nation, for the following December he returned as a guest on Whiley's radio show to read Julia Donaldson's Stick Man.

Sadly, the audio of Ulrich reading that "cozy Christmas story" is currently unavailable. Maybe next year... 

Happy Christmas.

Paul Brannigan
Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.