TAIPEI HOUSTON Feat. LARS ULRICH's Sons: Why We Decided To Stay A Two-Piece

TAIPEI HOUSTON, the new band featuring Myles and Layne Ulrich, sons of METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich, played at last month's BottleRock Napa Valley music festival at the Napa Valley Expo in Northern California. Video of the group's performance can be seen below.

23-year-old Myles, who plays drums, has spent time at Berklee College Of Music, while 21-year-old Layne, who plays bass and sings, studied at NYU.

Asked what got him into singing, Layne told Concert Pipeline (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I was always really interested in singing. I mean, my main thing [was] literally just singing along to the radio as a kid and just listening to stuff. And I always felt very into that but I'd never been a singer or anything like that. And then when we were first starting out with our project, we were always anticipating getting a singer, and then when we realized it was just gonna be the two of us, it was, like, 'All right. Now we've gotta get this going, get some singing going.' So through kind of a long process, finding that, it was really cool."

Regarding the decision to make TAIPEI HOUSTON a two-piece, Myles said: "We wrote the majority of an album which we've now finished. And we're kind of figuring out how to play it all live because we just recorded all of it. And because we both play so much guitar and all the instruments, it was, like, 'Why don't we just scale it back and make it a crazy two-piece thing instead of trying to find more people that you jell with and that the vibe is right? Why don't we just keep it simple and weird?'"

Added Layne: "'Cause also that way we can hit the ground running. You've gotta find people you like, you've gotta get them into the stuff, you've gotta teach them it. That way, literally, just coming straight from us having written all of it together, we can just hit the ground running like that."

TAIPEI HOUSTON played its first show last September at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, California.

Since joining Instagram in August, TAIPEI HOUSTON has already amassed more than 14,000 followers.

Back in April 2020, Lars posted a video of Myles and Layne's blistering take on THE BEATLES classic "Eleanor Rigby". At the time, he described their rendition to Rolling Stone as "this insane, three-minute BLUE CHEER, crazy, garage-rock version of 'Eleanor Rigby'.

"Obviously, there's been some incredible versions of 'Eleanor Rigby' along the way, but I'm pretty sure there’s never been one that had this kind of sound, this kind of feel, this kind of energy and madness to it," he said. "I was, like, 'You know what, boys? You done me proud.'"

Lars had Myles and Layne with former wife Skylar Satenstein. He also has another son, 15-year-old Bryce, with "Gladiator" actress Connie Nielsen.

Lars and model Jessica Miller got engaged in July 2013 and married two years later. It is the third marriage for Lars, who was previously married to Debbie Jones and Satenstein.

Lars isn't the only member of METALLICA whose offspring have followed in their footsteps. Castor Hetfield, the son of METALLICA frontman James Hetfield, plays drums for BASTARDANE, while Tye Trujillo, the son of METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo, plays bass in OTTTO.