Welcome to the next instalment of Upcoming Talent. This time let us introduce you to Las Vegas locals Von Boldt. Their specialist subject is something we all need in our lives..: horror movie, heavy metal rock 'n' roll!! New on the scene but already getting label interest, we caught up with songwriter/vocalist/guitarist/all ‘round nice guy and dog sitter extraordinaire James Von Boldt to tell us all about the band...
Scene Point Blank: Hello and a huge welcome to Von Boldt! Thanks so much for joining us, please start off by telling us exactly who Von Boldt are, when you started and where you are from.
Von Boldt: Von Boldt: I'm Von Boldt. I'm from New Jersey originally but I grew up in Las Vegas. I'm the songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist in the band. We have Carlos Silva on drums. He's played with fuckin' everyone. He's a great jazz drummer and played with some of the all time greats from Quincy Jones, Blue Man Group, George Porter Jnr, Galactic and Vince Neil to name a few. Our bass player goes by Z. He's also an incredible producer here in Vegas, he does everything from drum 'n bass to EDM. Darren Trentacoste is also on guitar and is mixing our album. He's my partner at the Emmy and Grammy winning recording studio and production company that we own here in Vegas. We do everything from making sound effects and music for slot machines to indie/horror movies. We do marketing, commercials, billboards and TV shows... all that stuff. He has also toured with bands like The Verve Pipe and, in the past, was the entertainment director at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Then we have Lisa Foiles as our lead back up vocalist. She's really cool, very talented, and a great writer. She's actually writing some incredible screenplays right now. Small bit of background on Lisa, she was an actor in Nickelodeon’s "All That" TV show and appeared in a couple of other popular sitcoms, as well as a personality in the video game scene.
Scene Point Blank: Listening to your recent EP, The Night Stalker Demos, it feels and sounds like you are well established as a band. Have you played together under a different name or is this your first band together?
Von Boldt: So before Von Boldt the band came about I started writing the music as The Night Stalker back in the day. Then I met Darren and we partnered up at a studio with another very talented fellow named John McClain, who's not in the band (Von Boldt) but did play harmonica on one of The Night Stalker songs. Somewhere in there I was actually gonna re-record all the songs with an actual band and take The Night Stalker to the stage because at the time it was just me and Z making it at the house and putting it out on the internet. Z was producing all the records with me. We did 3 EPs and he did all of them with me. He produced and mixed them...he's incredible. So that was all we were really doing at the time, then Darren told me that he would swallow his pride and be in a band named Von Boldt and that we should just do it with my name. I was writing all the songs anyway, so it makes sense to use my name.
Scene Point Blank: Reading the words "horror movie heavy metal" on your website got me stupidly excited! Please describe your influences lyrically and musically in regards to horror movies and metal. Do you have a particular genre or decade of horror you draw from? This might just be me, but I get a kind of cryptid/folklore/creature feature vibe from a few of your tracks, am I right?
Von Boldt: Von Boldt: We are absolutely inspired by horror... all of our songs are about horror. I tend to write about horror fiction, horror novels, a lot of comic book stuff and any horror stuff that I like. The reason I called myself The Night Stalker was because of the 1974 TV show Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which I just thought was awesome. I always try to weave in some sort of story, outside of just scary shit. For example, we have a song on our new album called "Hallowed Be My Name" that is more about peoples’ ability to alter their lives for the better. Many people will pray to God, or whatever they may believe, to grant them the changes that they want, when in actuality as a human being, you already have that ability to change. I think in society, as a people, we've kind of forgotten that we actually have this ability to do it ourselves, so we look to gods, whatever gods may be, or we look to circumstances to change our lives for the better or to get through things. I think that humans already have that ability, that god-like power to make those changes. So, it's spooky, it's horror, and it's occult, but it's also very real. There’s an actual message in there. It's a very real thing that I'm living through. Another thing about horror-based music, or any music for that matter, is that it can get you through shit too, and that can also be a real inspiration. I’m a huge Danzig fan - which is no surprise, I'm sure - but when I was going through a divorce, Samhain got me through a lot of that divorce. None of the songs or lyrics have shit to do with going through a divorce, right? But I remember, I listened to "To Walk the Night" a lot. None of the songs are directly about divorce, obviously, but it still got me through. Somehow his music, along with many other artists, got me through the hardest points in my life without having songs about my particular scenario. So, I wanted to have that element in my music. It's not just a song about my favourite John Carpenter movies, but maybe if you look a little deeper, if you interpreted it your own way, you could come up with all kinds of stuff. There's enough room for you to have your own interpretation and there's enough room for my reasoning behind it to be a little bit deeper than just "I thought that movie was cool". But also… “That movie is cool.”
Scene Point Blank: If you could be a character in any horror movie who would it be and why?
Von Boldt: [Thinks hard.]
The first person that comes to mind is Michael Myers...I'm not sure what that says about me?!
Scene Point Blank: Following from the horror influences, what other bands have influenced Von Boldt? Do you all have similar taste in music or do you find yourselves listening to different stuff?
Von Boldt: So, if I had to list some influences there would be some obvious ones like Danzig, Slayer, Cancerslug, Doyle, Misfits, Wednesday 13. Ghost are a huge influence. Maybe not so obvious is Tom Waits, I'm a huge Tom Waits fan. I love everything Mike Patton does. I try not to let Mike Patton slip into my vocal style too much because if you do sound like him at all, if you're doing his vowels or anything it's all pretty obvious so I try not let myself go too far in that direction because I am such a huge fan of his. Johnny Cash is a big influence on me. Even some classical, we listen to everything. Everyone in the band listens to all sorts of music, we are the most eclectic group of musicians you'll ever meet.
Scene Point Blank: Your cover version of "Hound Dog" by Elvis is something vastly different from the original. What made you decide to choose this, what movie is the quote at the start from and explain your (genius) reasons for the tap dancer?
Von Boldt: Okay so, Kenji Igus, is the best tap dancer in the fuckin' world!!! He's a really close friend of mine. His dog is at my house right now as he's doing gigs, so I'm dog sitting for him. The tap dancing was because he and I are always looking for an excuse to work together. Especially because he likes taking tap dance to new places which is part of what makes him the best in my opinion.
As far as why I did the Elvis cover: It just came to me and the movie was coming out so I figured we should put it out -- like it's not just something for fun -- we should really put this out because it could get some attention. I'm actually thinking about putting out a track by The Beatles too...I'm a big Beatles fan.
As far as the quote, the story goes like this. I'm close friends with Drew Marvick who made Pool Party Massacre and Mark Justice who acted in it...real indie horror shit, the best of the best. Anyway, so it all started when I was out having dinner with this girl. We were talking, catching up and I said, "I'm becoming something I just don't know what." And she was like, "That's really cool. I'm gonna use that." And I said, "Fuck you, like hell are you gonna use that!" So I had Mark, as an actor, read it like it was a movie quote and I made it sound like it was from an old movie but it's actually completely original.
Scene Point Blank: What is the scene like in Las Vegas for your style of music? Are there quite a few venues local to you or do find you have to travel around a bit for shows?
Von Boldt: There are tons of venues but Vegas is tough to have a real music scene around. However, especially with rock 'n’ roll, heavy metal and stuff, the scene is actually the best it's been right now as far as I can remember. So we're not doing too bad out here, if anything we probably overplay our hometown. We've not been on tour yet as the band is still relatively new. We're hustling to get this new album out and then we'll tour, probably something West Coast since we're so close. The scene is good but Vegas is not good like LA is good, I suppose. Vegas is a transit town. People are coming and going so it's quite tough to have a real community here but the community now is better than it's ever been.
Scene Point Blank: When and where was your very first live show and how did it go?
Von Boldt: You can go on Spotify and listen to our first show. It's kind of a shitty recording but, again, I'm a Misfits fan so I put it out anyway! We played a place called Vamp'd, it's one of my favourite places to play in Vegas at the moment, I also love going to see shows there. It went way better than I was expecting it to, to be honest. Our last show was kind of a shit show!! I think they mic’ed the cabs up backwards or something, then my cable cut out so I did a whole solo that no one could hear...it was awesome!!! But our first show was actually quite good.
Scene Point Blank: What can we expect from a live Von Boldt show now?
Von Boldt: Rawness! We play the songs way too fast. There are no click tracks, no backing tracks, we are properly live. We should have a keyboard player...but we don't. The only thing I might give in on is, see I don't want Lisa to be behind a keyboard, so I might give her a sampler with some of the organ chords on it so she can play them so that it has that spooky atmosphere to it but I haven't decided yet. Eventually we'll have a keyboard player. I just want everything to be live. I love Ghost and I think what they're doing is great and they're another huge influence on me. But, what they do works for them; it wouldn't work for what I want to do. I get that when you make it to stadium level you have all the in-ear (monitors), pyros and shit, but I would just miss the punk, rock 'n' roll, dirty shit you get from smaller venues.
Scene Point Blank: If you could play a gig with any band (past or present) who would it be and why?
Von Boldt: I would love to play with Monster Wolf, they're sick! If it's one of those famous things then, yeah, I'd like to say I'd play with Danzig, Misfits...I'd love to open for Ghost. I think it would be fun to play with Calabrese. I would like to play with Rob Zombie...like, why not?!! Or anybody that's having a fun ass halloween party!
Scene Point Blank: Do you have any funny/gross stories to tell when you've been out on the road?
Von Boldt: We've not hit the road yet, as I said you've caught us in our infancy so no juicy stories. I guess I have some stories but I'm gonna keep them to myself.
Scene Point Blank: I have only very recently discovered Von Boldt after hearing "The Night is Dark and full of Terrors" on Horrorpunk's Not Dead podcast radio show so I know very little of your back catalogue. Please use this space to talk about your current releases.
Von Boldt: So officially we have The Night Stalker Demos and a lot of these songs are coming back on the new album that we are working on right now called Hallowed Be My Name. The reasoning being the originals are all me playing everything, so the band plays very differently now as Von Boldt because there are other band members and their input now, not just me. So I wanted to capture the album as a sound of that time. This is how we sound now and this is how we play those old songs, so all of the demos will be on the new album with Carlos playing drums and Lisa's vocals, as we didn't have female vocals on the demo, plus a bunch of new stuff. We're recording it at my house and our recording studio. We have a lot of very professional clients at the studio so it's cool there, but it's not quite as conducive to horror movie rock'n'roll as my house is. I'm looking at three amplifiers in my living room right now and we're tracking everything, so some of the reverb you'll hear is actually my fuckin' house. It's just more intimate. It's, again, a photograph of the time; it's not amp simulators or drum samples. It's actually what this motherfucker’s drums sound like! This is what my house sounds like when you play guitars in it. This is actually what our cabinets sound like. You can hear our fingers on the fretboard. It's all the real thing. Mixed and mastered by ourselves. Me, Z and Darren all do studio work so we're already in that world. The logo I did with Daniel Porta (thepitforge on instagram), the gargoyle is a stock image, but I cut off his wings and added Daniel’s better ones. He’s a genius.
Me, Z, and Darren plus a couple of other talented musicians are in a synthwave band called The Movie. You can look us up on Spotify.
Scene Point Blank: What do you consider the benefits of being a DIY band?
Von Boldt: I think today, honestly... everything. We are interested in record labels but, until I see a deal, I don't know exactly how interested I really am. So, yeah, I may have mentioned that Danzig is one of my favourites and he was DIY before it was cool, right? Everything from doing his own coloured vinyl, he had it all. He was doing everything that we do now, back in the day when it was way harder. I could shit out a logo onto some shirt and they'll mail it to me. Everybody else will do the work for me; he was screen printing his own stuff. The DIY thing is more personal, even something like making your own shirts where you're only making so many at a time. I like that from bands. I like Bandcamp and connecting with people. There's a great band out in North Carolina called Wayland Storms, fuckin' love them and we were talking online a little bit, sharing music and it's just so much cooler when it's DIY. The experience I think, as a music listener, is just far better than when you're too big to do it yourself. That's the trick I think, for a band like us is to figure out as we get more and more popular how to stay as DIY as possible.
Scene Point Blank: What do you consider to be Von Boldt’s greatest achievement to date?
Von Boldt: I think it will be this new album. That will be our biggest achievement to date. It's not easy to get a band together in this way. We're all talented in our own ways, we all have our own things going on. Darren, Carlos and Lisa all have kids and are married. You know so it's hard, just in general to get this many talented people to play on my record, that's named after me. It's no small feat especially as I'm not a "known" person so to speak, they're working with me strictly because they believe in the music and I think that's a pretty special accomplishment.
Scene Point Blank: What is next for Von Boldt?
Von Boldt: We [had] a show on Oct. 21 at Vamp'd for their Halloween party, which we're really excited about! We tend to film our shows and use it for content so we're hoping to put the whole show up on YouTube.
The new album Hallowed By My Name will be out this year and we hope to bring you news on that very soon.
As for social media you can find us on Instagram mostly, at vonboldtband. We're on TikTok to, I don't know if I'm doing it right...Doing a little research trying to reach people. We seem to be finding people on TikTok but I'm not sure at this early stage how effective I am on that thing. I don't see us doing any dance trends or anything but we're on there. Instagram is where the majority of our stuff is though.
Scene Point Blank: Do you have any Von Boldt merchandise and where do we get it?
Von Boldt: Anything we have will be going up on Bandcamp. We tend to sell more at shows currently with our popularity being what it is at this time. It just makes sense to save stuff to sell at a show. There's no shipping at the moment either, but I'm planning on having extra at the show so we'll probably have a spill over to put online and eventually, down the road I'd like to some vinyl or cassettes.
Scene Point Blank: Thank you again for taking part in this feature it has been a pleasure, please use this space to mention anything else about yourselves you think will be beneficial to your band or any other bands, friends, family, pets, neighbours or any venues you think deserve a shout out!
Von Boldt: Kenji Igus, Count’s Vamp’d Las Vegas, and Monsterwolf (Pro-wrestler Mechawolf’s band and our homies).
The guys from Horrorpunk's Not Dead Radio, I love them. Thanks to them for putting us up, they're awesome dudes! We're supposed to be on their Horrorpunk's Not Dead: Vol 2 compilation and I have every intention of actually writing a more horrorpunk style song specifically for them.
There's a legit punk rock shop in town called Cash 4 Chaos and the guy in there has his own screen print shop, so he screen prints our shirts for us and my own custom stuff, so thanks to them too.
