Metallica legend Lars Ulrich has said that his excitement and passion for his sons’ band Taipei Houston has caused him to sometimes give “too much constructive criticism”.
During an appearance on the Rock 95.5 radio station, Ulrich spoke about Taipei Houston and his involvement with the band.
“Well, obviously, I’m proud. I’m happy that they’re doing well. What they’re creating is cool,” he said.
The drummer continued, “At the same time, we have a very, I think, open and transparent relationship, and certainly a couple of times along the way I’ve expressed that maybe things could be better; I don’t know if that’s the right word. So it’s not just, ‘Oh my God! You guys are great.’ And so [I’ve given them constructive criticism] maybe even to a fault — maybe too much constructive criticism. So I don’t know exactly where you land on that.”
Taipei Houston was formed during the pandemic and is a duo that consists of two of Ulrich’s sons, Layne on bass guitar and Myles on drums. The pair released their first single, ‘As the Sun Sets’ last week. They made their live debut last year at Alex’s Bar in Anaheim, California, play at the popular American festival Lollapalooza over the weekend and are signed on to perform at the Reading and Leeds festival this month.
In an interview for the Metallica website, Layne and Myles spoke about how Taipei Houston formed.
“Layne and me ended up in New York going to school, and that was the first time in a while we’d lived in the same city,” explained Myles. “We started playing together a bit, but it didn’t really materialize into anything. Then, when the pandemic hit, and we were back in California quarantined in the house together with a setup in the basement, it was like, ‘Now we gotta do this thing.”
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“We were at my dad’s house, like, for the majority of that,” Layne added. “That’s when it started to materialize more, and Myles started playing a lot of guitar during that period and writing a lot. He does all the guitar in the songs. So it was a whole year of trying to develop as quickly as possible. I had never sung before, never put vocals on songs, so getting it all right, beginning to end, was a long process.”
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