A conversation with Nils Goldschmidt, bassist of Las Vegas rock band VELVET CHAINS.
RYAN J. DOWNEY: Tell me about your first exposure to music.
NILS GOLDSCHMIDT: I grew up in Chile and moved here [in my late teens]. My first exposure to music was probably when my mom put me in violin lessons at five years old. I didn’t quite enjoy playing violin – the girls aren’t interested in a violin player. Guns N’ Roses was the first band to really hit me.
Did you find later in life that the violin lessons were helpful?
NILS : Yes. I always felt I could get up and perform because I did it as a kid. Getting on a stage was never an issue, especially when I moved into rock and roll many years later. I’m appreciative of that.
What brought you to the United States?
I came to the US for college. I have an undergraduate degree in Hotel Management.
That seems helpful for a touring act.
[Laughs] It’s actually worked against us because I’m so picky with hotels that it takes me hours to book each one.
I started a career in the hotel industry and eventually moved to Vegas to finish school at UNLV. I got a master’s degree and entered the hotel industry. I did almost every job, from night auditor and front desk to answering phones, making beds, revenue management, and hotel analytics. Eventually, I started my own business and failed a few times before building and selling it.
But halfway through my entrepreneurial career, it wasn’t making me happy. Fortunately, the business was successful, but at some point, I said, ‘There’s got to be more. I need to pursue something that I love.’ I picked up a bass and said, ‘Well, this feels like home, just like a violin, four strings, one finger at a time.’
How did you assemble the band?
I had formed a few bands before that with friends to jam. But I set out in 2018 to do a band and play covers in bars, hotels, casinos, whatever would work, just for fun. I didn’t even care if they paid me or not. I just wanted to have a good time. I put this ad on Craigslist and found a bunch of like-minded musicians.
This is where the name comes from. We were a 90s and 2000s cover band. We loved GN’R and Velvet Revolver. Our drummer, one of the first to answer the ad, was like, ‘Hey, I love Alice in Chains. Why don’t we go with Velvet Chains?’ I was even in another cover band before called Stone Velvet Pilots.
What kind of conversations did you have when writing your own stuff?
COVID happened, and we couldn’t play anymore. And I’m like, ‘Well, I can sit here and drink whiskey every night and stare at the wall, or I can drink whiskey every night and write some music.’ I started writing songs. Eventually, I hooked up with Drew Lawrence, a songwriter out of LA. I showed everything we’d written to the band. I said, ‘I want to do this original thing.’ They all said, ‘This sounds super cool. Let’s do it.’
We kept writing as a group and recorded our first album, Icarus. A few members changed. Ultimately, that album sounded too much like a demo, so we took it down. We re-recorded three of those songs [‘Tattooed,’ ‘Pass the Disease,’ and ‘Wasted’] with our current vocalist, Ro Viper, and re-uploaded them earlier this year.
You grew up in Chile, and there’s a Brazilian member of the band, too, right?
Yes, our lead guitar player, Lahi Cassiano, is Brazilian. Ro and I are Chilean. Our drummer [Jason Hope] and rhythm guitar player [Von Boldt] are both American. I mean, we’re all American now.
How do you feel your heritage figures into Velvet Chains?
We are all influenced by rock and roll, but we have different backgrounds, so we grew up hearing other things. I’m super influenced by Spanish rock, where the lyrics are a little more poetic. They are more like The Cure, where you can interpret them however you want. My lyrics are very much a reflection of that.
Our Brazilian kid grew up around Bossa Nova, Samba, and all sorts of Brazilian music. But his favorite band of all time is KISS. His family was always involved in music, playing traditional Brazilian tunes, so he’s got all sorts of riffs and unique ideas in his head that contribute to incredible creativity.
Ro has a similar background to mine. GN’R is probably his favorite band if I’m not mistaken. Von Bolt grew up in Jersey. His favorite band is The Misfits. Jason is from Chicago, and he’s into Mötley Crüe all day.
The fact that we’re so different helps us, not only in creativity and music and ideas, but we don’t get sick of each other because we’re always discovering new things about each other and poking fun at each other’s accents and cultural backgrounds. But we don’t go out there and say that we are an ‘international’ band. It’s not like we’re trying to tell the world, ‘Listen to us because we are very diverse.’ If anybody asks, we’re happy to share.
Otherwise, we’re just another American band at the end of the day.
Let’s talk about the current single, ‘Dead Inside.’ Some folks may be familiar with ‘Stuck Against the Wall,’ or your Elvis Presley cover. What made you decide this would be the new flagship song?
At the time, ‘Stuck Against the Wall’ was very representative of who we were. People got to know us through that, and it opened many doors. But I didn’t want people to put us in a box. We wanted to put out something a little harder. We hooked up with producer Mitch Marlow. We wrote together and came up with this song, with a sound that we felt probably hit better on rock radio today. We’re super happy with it. Hopefully, people will see a different side of us, and let’s see what their reaction is.
What’s the feedback been like so far?
It’s come out with a bang. Our streaming numbers are doing great compared to our previous releases, and people seem to love it.
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