Metallica’s Lars Ulrich’s Son Explains Why His Dad Didn’t Want To Teach Him Drums: ‘He Completely Steered Clear’

“He was like, ‘Go do it with your friends or get a drum teacher!'”

Taipei Houston drummer & guitarist Myles Ulrich explained why his dad Lars – who also happens to be the drummer for Metallica – avoided getting involved in his musical education.

Between Taipei Houston, OTTTO, Vended, Bastardane, and a few others, children of famous musicians starting their own bands has become somewhat of a trend lately.

For Myles and his brother Layne, the decision to wet their feet in their father’s industry of choice came almost accidentally. Having pursued music as a hobby in the past, the pandemic “felt like a real opportunity to dig deep and really focus and get into it,” explain the brothers in a new interview with Guitar World.

Even then, Lars’s involvement in his sons’ pursuits was minimal, just as it was when Myles and Layne were making their first steps in music. Myles said:

“Honestly, when I started, he completely steered clear. He was like, ‘Go do it with your friends or get a drum teacher!’ Not because he didn’t want to do it himself, but because he wanted us to find our own paths musically, which is really cool and that’s what we’ve tried to do. I don’t know if there’s a soundbite piece of advice he gave us. We both came into being interested in music our own way, listening to bands like Arctic Monkeys, stuff like that…”

Their philosophy also prevented their dad from influencing their musical tastes, as Layne recalls later in the interview:

“I properly started around 12 or 13. I was taking lessons when I was a lot younger, though that didn’t really go anywhere. My early teens is when I started to get properly interested and bass was my first instrument, or at least the first one I took seriously. It was a great window for me to get into more music.

“A lot of the stuff I started off playing was Arctic Monkeys and Rage Against The Machine, but also music like funk and soul. The bass was a great instrument for me to get into music and learn how to be creative on my own.”

Taipei Houston’s debut release “Once Bit Never Bored” is out now via C3 Records.