Every summer since 1959, national Swedish radio channel P1 has aired the daily one-man show "Sommar i P3". For ninety minutes, a well-known Swede host gets to talk without interruption about whatever he or she likes, as well as choose all the music for the program. When this year's fifty-eight "Sommar i P3" hosts were announced, there was a big surprise on the list — METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich. For the first time ever, Sweden's most prestigious radio show has invited a foreign summer host that will speak English during his 90-minute-long program. "After 35 years in the U.S., I feel more comfortable speaking English," Lars Ulrich said in a statement. "But I still speak Danish and a little bit of Swedish. Systembolaget, Sportspegeln and Kungliga Tennishallen, for instance. I thought I'd talk about life, work and the music that got me on the right track." Ulrich's insistence on doing "Sommar i P1" in English presented the radio channel with a problem. Out of fear of excluding older listeners that don't understand English, P1 has decided to air Ulrich's show at midnight on June 24. It will be made available as a podcast at 1 p.m. CET on June 25. Explaining this one-of-a-kind arrangement, Bibi Rödöö, head of programming, told Aftonbladet: "It's not as if we offer people to do 'Sommar i P3' in English. Lars Ulrich is Danish, he comes from Gentofte outside of Copenhagen, he speaks Danish, but he himself thought that he speaks Danish like they did in the '60s and that he lacked the vocabulary. He's thinking and living in English and has done so for many years, so he felt that it wouldn’t turn out well in Danish. Therefore we ended up in a 'What do we do now?' situation. He's one of the world's most famous musicians in a band that everyone loves, and who rarely gives interviews, but he was set on being a summer host, so we thought we'd have to make some kind of alternative arrangement. And [METALLICA] has a huge audience."
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