Ulrich In Deep Purple?

Metallica drummer and art profiteer Lars Ulrich has offered to join Deep Purple if members of the pioneering heavy metal group reform to tour.

Singer David Coverdale, bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes and keyboardist Jon Lord have said they'd be up for a reunion, and they've apparently been in contact with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Drummer Ian Paice, the only Deep Purple founding member who's still performing with the latest incarnation of the group, could be a holdout.

That leaves the door open for Ulrich, who saw the Coverdale/Hughes/Lord/Blackmore/Paice version of the band at their first show in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1973 when he was nine. That lineup, referred to by Deep Purple fans as the Mark III edition of the group, released two albums in 1974: Burn and Stormbringer.

"I know there's talk about the fact that if they got Coverdale, Hughes, Lord and Blackmore together they would have four members who aren't in the current Deep Purple — then they just need a drummer. I'll volunteer myself for that," Ulrich told Classic Rock magazine.

"If they need a drummer, David Coverdale has my number."

Deep Purple formed in Hertford, England in 1968. They've sold more than 100 million albums worldwide and their hits include "Smoke On The Water" (one of three songs I figured out how to play on my bass in high school), "Highway Star," "Hush," "Space Truckin'," "Speed King" and "Woman From Tokyo."

Deep Purple were once listed by the Guinness Book Of World Records as the world's loudest band. There was no Deep Purple between 1976 and '84, but various lineups have kept the torch lit since then.

Ulrich performed "Smoke On The Water" with the best known of the Deep Purple frontmen, Ian Gillan, at a Gillan solo show in San Francisco in 2006. Here it is: