July 10, 2023 • 12 mins
Brothers Zak & Rex Cox of Uncured sit down and talk to KP before hitting the stage of Inkarceration Fest 2023! Learn more about how big-name festivals are typically ran, how Uncured got their chance to play and more!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Here. Hey, it's Kevin Powell. I'm here. I have a band
(00:25):
I'm excited to talk to. Theseguys are gonna be playing at Incarceration Fest
in Mansfield, Ohio. Um,they're gonna be playing with huge, huge
bands. The list goes on andon and on. Um there's listen white
pants, hear us slipping on.I mean, there's a lot of bands.
I'm excited to see Variols. It'llbe a lot of fun to see.
But these guys are gonna be playingSaturday. This band we got Zach,
(00:47):
we got Rex, it's uncured doingfantastic. Thank you for having us.
I'm Zach and I'm Rex. Andyeah, like you said, we
are beyond excited to be playing Incarceration. It's probably one of the list festivals
to ever exist, right in ShawshankRedemption Prison. And like you said,
we're playing on the same day asPantera, So it doesn't get much cooler
(01:08):
than the hat. Who are someof your favorites that you're looking forward to
seeing side stage or in the audienceor just in general going to see.
Well, we will only be therefor that day because we have a busy
travel schedule. You know, Iwould we would be watching Motionless and White,
but they're actually playing a little bitafter we are, so we're going
to be I'm still finishing our setand getting our gear off, so we
(01:30):
won't be able to see them.Motionless of White will be the soundtrack to
our pack up. Of course,you know a Pantera the headliner that day,
and I would need to double checkthe schedule for that day because it
all sort of blends together, youknow. Yeah, and the list of
bands is kind of ridiculous. Outwe're going to Um, sorry, I
(01:51):
don't know why I'm choosing right nowto eat a Starburst, But as we're
driving out, we're gonna probably planout as many bands as we can possibly
see. Um, see if there'sany bands that we're friends with there and
hang out with them. But um, you know, festivals are just an
amazing time and it's really cool thatwe get to count that as working because
you know, it feels like avacation. Absolutely road me through how you
(02:14):
even got on Incarceration fest So weplayed Welcome to Rockville a month ago,
yeah, in May, I thinkMay. Yeah, And what what tour
was that part of? We wereat the Filter tour, all right,
So yeah, we were on tourwith Filter, UM and sorry you tell
you this, I'm gonna finish thisand I'm gonna stop Jesus. Yeah,
(02:34):
it's just very chewy. Sorry,we had UM. We were on tour
with Filter and we UM. Actuallywe got booked on Rockville because we worked
with thirty three in West and thenbecause of that, we put together a
tour with Filter as well as wedid some headline dates and like, um
all throughout May ending in early June, and then um, after we got
(02:54):
the Rockville booked. We were oneof the first bands on Rockville, but
they also booked us on Inccarceration andwe're actually going to be headlining the Reformatory
stage at four thirty on Saturday,So we had an early spot at Rockville,
but we have a a Killer AKing's spot at Killer King Spot.
(03:15):
Yeah, we like you know,we've been playing shows for over five years
at this point, and you know, I'd say that we definitely have not
cut any corners, but um,it's just it's still a fantastic honor to
get to play Incarceration at all.And then the fact that we are playing
last on the Reformatory stage is yetanother big honor. So, um,
(03:37):
we're we're just we're very excited.I'm very happy to be here. So
some people don't know all the insand outs when it comes to a being
in a band and be playing abig fest full like this. Um,
so I'm sure you guys have somedetails that you can share. So you're
gonna show up Saturday and then I'llwalk you through it. We usually check
in is there some time around eightor nine in the morning. So what
(04:00):
we'll do is we'll always make surethat we're like within an hour of that
location the night before, because youknow, even if it's like four or
five hour drive, you don't wantto get up at four in the morning
when you're playing a show at youknow four pm. Oh yeah, that
just that makes day like twenty fourhours. So yeah, well we'll usually
get there around eight or nine,wake up, we'll do a check in,
(04:24):
and then there's kind of like acouple hours where you don't really have
anything to do. That's always thehardest part because it's there's no there's no
like concept of like stress or nerveswhen you're actually preparing to hit the stage,
but like those kind of couple hourswhere you're not doing anything, Um
feels like time moves much slower.I'd say that the day of also where
(04:46):
um, you know, checking outthe artist catering. They always have three
meals and they I mean they didit Rockville, so I'm guessing it's going
to be similar to that. We'llcheck out the artist catering. You know.
UM got to drop off the merchto the emrch tent. We're used
to. We're used to selling ourown merch, which we love doing,
but at big festivals they sell it. So we already have just like the
(05:06):
few things packed up because we onlyget like two soft items in one hard,
so like we were doing a shirt, shorts and a baseball hat.
That's all packed up ready to go. We'll drop that off and then it's
nice us to like walk around andjust like see what like all the stages
are. Just see how it's likelooking the layout all that. I always
(05:27):
wondered about the merch thing with festivals. I'm glad you mentioned that, because
one I never would have thought toask that. I always thought bands just
had people do their merch and thatwas it. But yeah, that's cool.
On most of these kind of likeconglomerate festivals. Um, yeah,
everything is done by a third party, usually coordinated by the festival, and
no band sells as much merch atfestivals as they would at you know,
(05:49):
one of their shows because a there'sso much more competition and be it's just
kind of in like a off location, a lot of mean and everyone's also
like everyone's going to buy like theofficial festival shirt. You know. It's
like I would say, like ifI was a person there, like I'd
say at least seventy five percent ofthe people just want the festival shirt because
(06:12):
they're there to see all the bands, and it's like they're less likely to
just be like, you know,just pick out like emotionless and white shirt
as opposed to the incarceration shirt.It doesn't gonna make a huge difference.
We also, when we were atRockville walking around the lines for the official
merch, We're just so long,So it was like, wow, I'm
not waiting in line to get nothing. We'll plan how we're going to do
our setup because a lot of timeswhat they'll have you do on festivals is
(06:35):
set up on one side of thestage, the other band loads off on
the opposite one, so like everythingis just kind of going in this rotation
where if you, let's say you'reloading onto the left side, everybody loads
off on the right. So it'spretty it's pretty well well planned out.
And what we'll do is we'll figureout how we can get all of our
(06:56):
gear in the right order so thatwhen we bring it onto stage, we're
not burying any of the stuff thatwe need to access first. And I
do all of our computer and allof our computer and electronic stuff, while
the rest of the guys are doingmore of the physical stuff and the mics.
So um, basically, as soonas I can get frequencies dialed for
(07:16):
in years and wireless packs, I'lldo that. Sometimes they'll send you frequencies
in advance that have already been checkedand prepped by the festival. So yeah,
either either like I'll get the sheepthat has the prepped frequencies and just
plug that in. I'll do ita day in advance if I can,
but if not, then you know, we'll just get there and scan for
(07:38):
frequencies, make sure everything is working. And yeah, I mean from that
point it's basically just play the showand pack up, make sure you don't
lose anything that's That's like a bigaspect of touring that I feel like nobody
really talks about is just so muchof your brain power is spent keeping track
of things. So that because likeit's so easy to lose stuff? Are
(08:00):
you either of you guys like me? When it comes to shows and you
think of like six hundred things atonce, and then as soon as the
sets over, you're like, Okay, what do I have to do?
Where? Am I? Yeah?No, no, you get you have
you have like this checklist of everythingthat you need to do and keep track
of. And then once you getthat post show high or post show low,
(08:24):
depending on what time it is,um, just all of that gets
like like flooded out immediately. Soso yeah, it's just you know,
you're good. It's good to havea process intact um. And at this
point, you know, we've playedhundreds of shows, so I think we've
gotten a lot of the mistakes outof the way, but definitely not all
of them. You know, howlong of a second do you guys have?
(08:45):
Thirty minutes? Okay, thirty minutes? Any um songs that fans can
look forward to hearing from you guysat incord Ration Fest. One step closer.
They were doing a cover of thatlive um as well as our most
recent single, fight This War,and I guess a lot of the other
songs you probably expect us to play, okay, okay, just mostly off
of our most recent EP. What'sbeen the reception to that so far?
(09:09):
It's been fantastic. We this Wedecided to make this an EP and not
a record because we thought that itwasn't entirely focused enough to be, you
know, a full record because alot of the songs have different energies to
them, which you know, asartists we like. But I can see
how when you make an album youreally want to make that like an official
(09:31):
statement where you have a very focusedmessage, very focused sound, and um,
you know, this group of songswe liked, but I didn't think
that it had that, you know, that energy of like a really cohesive
work. So this is like asampler of a lot of the things that
Uncured has done and can do.And then the next record is going to
be us making an official statement likethis is who we are, this is
(09:54):
what we sound like, and youbetter like it, you know. Okay,
So you got Incarceration Fest next weekend, and depending on when you watch
us, what else do you havegoing on the rest of twenty twenty three.
Um, well, we do havea couple like shows here and there
in like Pennsylvania, like with Headpeis one of them. That's like in
(10:16):
a place that we just played onour last tour, you know, so
they wanted to have us back,and we are planning for a tour this
fall, like sometime in October orsomething like that. Well, we also
have about fifteen shows booked with apretty big act for this fall. But
I don't think we can say that. Ye, I don't think it's still
you know, things in the works. It's all it's looking like we should
have a good US North America tourin the fall, and um, we're
(10:37):
gonna try to add in as manythings as we can. Okay, awesome.
I always like to kind of wrapthings up by asking the bands,
do you have any tips, tricks, any advice you would give to maybe
a band just starting out, We'rea band looking to move to the next
step, because any advice is goodadvice. Yeah, I'd say the most
(10:58):
important thing is to surround yourself withlike minded people, ideally that are better
at it than you are, andthen you know, if you hang out
with four people, you'll become thefifth. You ever heard that kind of
quote, Like, that's very true. So um, you know it sounds
it sounds like an Instagram grindset posts, but elevate your circle as much as
you can. Literally, Yes,anything else I would say, Um,
(11:22):
you also can't get discouraged because ittakes time. And you might think,
like, oh, tons of bandsjust like blow up out of nowhere,
but for the most part, likeninety nine point nine of everyone has to
you know, just work at itevery day for years, you know,
because you're not going to blow upand get lucky. But you will be
successful if you put in the workover a long period of time. I
(11:43):
mean you won't you won't necessarily besuccessful, but you like, if you
are putting in consistent work, youcan't guarantee growth. So that's that's right,
That's kind of what you have toaim for. Okay, solid advice,
anything you want to say to fansas we wrap things up, Yes,
so, um, the most helpfulthing is us. Please stream us
Uncured on Spotify and check out ourmusic video for Fight This War on YouTube,
(12:05):
and please follow Uncured band on Instagramand Facebook. Rex, Zach,
appreciate a minute of your time heretoday. Um. Looking forward to seeing
you at Incarceration Fest. Hopefully Ican shake your hands, meet you,
do whatever, that kind of funstuff. All right, go ahead Saturday.
Yeah, I'll be there all everyday. All right, right,
we'll see reformatory speed of course.All right, guys. Well, thank
(12:28):
you so much for hopping on.I'll talk to you guys later. All
right, all right, thank youso much talking. Hey, nice talk
to you nice men. You havea good one, all right, take
care all right. So that wasRex. That was Zach from the band
Uncured. Super excited to check theseguys out at Incarceerration Fest twenty twenty three
in Mansfield, Ohio. Plenty ofother bands on this festival. I'm excited
(12:48):
to see Panta slipping on. Imean, the list goes on and on
and on and on, but it'sgonna be a fun time regardless. If
you're going say hi, I'll sayhi back. Hope you have a good
time, and hey, thanks forcaning out this episode of the podcast.
Here. Hey, it's Kevin Powell. I'm here. I have a band
(00:25):
I'm excited to talk to. Theseguys are gonna be playing at Incarceration Fest
in Mansfield, Ohio. Um,they're gonna be playing with huge, huge
bands. The list goes on andon and on. Um there's listen white
pants, hear us slipping on.I mean, there's a lot of bands.
I'm excited to see Variols. It'llbe a lot of fun to see.
But these guys are gonna be playingSaturday. This band we got Zach,
(00:47):
we got Rex, it's uncured doingfantastic. Thank you for having us.
I'm Zach and I'm Rex. Andyeah, like you said, we
are beyond excited to be playing Incarceration. It's probably one of the list festivals
to ever exist, right in ShawshankRedemption Prison. And like you said,
we're playing on the same day asPantera, So it doesn't get much cooler
(01:08):
than the hat. Who are someof your favorites that you're looking forward to
seeing side stage or in the audienceor just in general going to see.
Well, we will only be therefor that day because we have a busy
travel schedule. You know, Iwould we would be watching Motionless and White,
but they're actually playing a little bitafter we are, so we're going
to be I'm still finishing our setand getting our gear off, so we
(01:30):
won't be able to see them.Motionless of White will be the soundtrack to
our pack up. Of course,you know a Pantera the headliner that day,
and I would need to double checkthe schedule for that day because it
all sort of blends together, youknow. Yeah, and the list of
bands is kind of ridiculous. Outwe're going to Um, sorry, I
(01:51):
don't know why I'm choosing right nowto eat a Starburst, But as we're
driving out, we're gonna probably planout as many bands as we can possibly
see. Um, see if there'sany bands that we're friends with there and
hang out with them. But um, you know, festivals are just an
amazing time and it's really cool thatwe get to count that as working because
you know, it feels like avacation. Absolutely road me through how you
(02:14):
even got on Incarceration fest So weplayed Welcome to Rockville a month ago,
yeah, in May, I thinkMay. Yeah, And what what tour
was that part of? We wereat the Filter tour, all right,
So yeah, we were on tourwith Filter, UM and sorry you tell
you this, I'm gonna finish thisand I'm gonna stop Jesus. Yeah,
(02:34):
it's just very chewy. Sorry,we had UM. We were on tour
with Filter and we UM. Actuallywe got booked on Rockville because we worked
with thirty three in West and thenbecause of that, we put together a
tour with Filter as well as wedid some headline dates and like, um
all throughout May ending in early June, and then um, after we got
(02:54):
the Rockville booked. We were oneof the first bands on Rockville, but
they also booked us on Inccarceration andwe're actually going to be headlining the Reformatory
stage at four thirty on Saturday,So we had an early spot at Rockville,
but we have a a Killer AKing's spot at Killer King Spot.
(03:15):
Yeah, we like you know,we've been playing shows for over five years
at this point, and you know, I'd say that we definitely have not
cut any corners, but um,it's just it's still a fantastic honor to
get to play Incarceration at all.And then the fact that we are playing
last on the Reformatory stage is yetanother big honor. So, um,
(03:37):
we're we're just we're very excited.I'm very happy to be here. So
some people don't know all the insand outs when it comes to a being
in a band and be playing abig fest full like this. Um,
so I'm sure you guys have somedetails that you can share. So you're
gonna show up Saturday and then I'llwalk you through it. We usually check
in is there some time around eightor nine in the morning. So what
(04:00):
we'll do is we'll always make surethat we're like within an hour of that
location the night before, because youknow, even if it's like four or
five hour drive, you don't wantto get up at four in the morning
when you're playing a show at youknow four pm. Oh yeah, that
just that makes day like twenty fourhours. So yeah, well we'll usually
get there around eight or nine,wake up, we'll do a check in,
(04:24):
and then there's kind of like acouple hours where you don't really have
anything to do. That's always thehardest part because it's there's no there's no
like concept of like stress or nerveswhen you're actually preparing to hit the stage,
but like those kind of couple hourswhere you're not doing anything, Um
feels like time moves much slower.I'd say that the day of also where
(04:46):
um, you know, checking outthe artist catering. They always have three
meals and they I mean they didit Rockville, so I'm guessing it's going
to be similar to that. We'llcheck out the artist catering. You know.
UM got to drop off the merchto the emrch tent. We're used
to. We're used to selling ourown merch, which we love doing,
but at big festivals they sell it. So we already have just like the
(05:06):
few things packed up because we onlyget like two soft items in one hard,
so like we were doing a shirt, shorts and a baseball hat.
That's all packed up ready to go. We'll drop that off and then it's
nice us to like walk around andjust like see what like all the stages
are. Just see how it's likelooking the layout all that. I always
(05:27):
wondered about the merch thing with festivals. I'm glad you mentioned that, because
one I never would have thought toask that. I always thought bands just
had people do their merch and thatwas it. But yeah, that's cool.
On most of these kind of likeconglomerate festivals. Um, yeah,
everything is done by a third party, usually coordinated by the festival, and
no band sells as much merch atfestivals as they would at you know,
(05:49):
one of their shows because a there'sso much more competition and be it's just
kind of in like a off location, a lot of mean and everyone's also
like everyone's going to buy like theofficial festival shirt. You know. It's
like I would say, like ifI was a person there, like I'd
say at least seventy five percent ofthe people just want the festival shirt because
(06:12):
they're there to see all the bands, and it's like they're less likely to
just be like, you know,just pick out like emotionless and white shirt
as opposed to the incarceration shirt.It doesn't gonna make a huge difference.
We also, when we were atRockville walking around the lines for the official
merch, We're just so long,So it was like, wow, I'm
not waiting in line to get nothing. We'll plan how we're going to do
our setup because a lot of timeswhat they'll have you do on festivals is
(06:35):
set up on one side of thestage, the other band loads off on
the opposite one, so like everythingis just kind of going in this rotation
where if you, let's say you'reloading onto the left side, everybody loads
off on the right. So it'spretty it's pretty well well planned out.
And what we'll do is we'll figureout how we can get all of our
(06:56):
gear in the right order so thatwhen we bring it onto stage, we're
not burying any of the stuff thatwe need to access first. And I
do all of our computer and allof our computer and electronic stuff, while
the rest of the guys are doingmore of the physical stuff and the mics.
So um, basically, as soonas I can get frequencies dialed for
(07:16):
in years and wireless packs, I'lldo that. Sometimes they'll send you frequencies
in advance that have already been checkedand prepped by the festival. So yeah,
either either like I'll get the sheepthat has the prepped frequencies and just
plug that in. I'll do ita day in advance if I can,
but if not, then you know, we'll just get there and scan for
(07:38):
frequencies, make sure everything is working. And yeah, I mean from that
point it's basically just play the showand pack up, make sure you don't
lose anything that's That's like a bigaspect of touring that I feel like nobody
really talks about is just so muchof your brain power is spent keeping track
of things. So that because likeit's so easy to lose stuff? Are
(08:00):
you either of you guys like me? When it comes to shows and you
think of like six hundred things atonce, and then as soon as the
sets over, you're like, Okay, what do I have to do?
Where? Am I? Yeah?No, no, you get you have
you have like this checklist of everythingthat you need to do and keep track
of. And then once you getthat post show high or post show low,
(08:24):
depending on what time it is,um, just all of that gets
like like flooded out immediately. Soso yeah, it's just you know,
you're good. It's good to havea process intact um. And at this
point, you know, we've playedhundreds of shows, so I think we've
gotten a lot of the mistakes outof the way, but definitely not all
of them. You know, howlong of a second do you guys have?
(08:45):
Thirty minutes? Okay, thirty minutes? Any um songs that fans can
look forward to hearing from you guysat incord Ration Fest. One step closer.
They were doing a cover of thatlive um as well as our most
recent single, fight This War,and I guess a lot of the other
songs you probably expect us to play, okay, okay, just mostly off
of our most recent EP. What'sbeen the reception to that so far?
(09:09):
It's been fantastic. We this Wedecided to make this an EP and not
a record because we thought that itwasn't entirely focused enough to be, you
know, a full record because alot of the songs have different energies to
them, which you know, asartists we like. But I can see
how when you make an album youreally want to make that like an official
(09:31):
statement where you have a very focusedmessage, very focused sound, and um,
you know, this group of songswe liked, but I didn't think
that it had that, you know, that energy of like a really cohesive
work. So this is like asampler of a lot of the things that
Uncured has done and can do.And then the next record is going to
be us making an official statement likethis is who we are, this is
(09:54):
what we sound like, and youbetter like it, you know. Okay,
So you got Incarceration Fest next weekend, and depending on when you watch
us, what else do you havegoing on the rest of twenty twenty three.
Um, well, we do havea couple like shows here and there
in like Pennsylvania, like with Headpeis one of them. That's like in
(10:16):
a place that we just played onour last tour, you know, so
they wanted to have us back,and we are planning for a tour this
fall, like sometime in October orsomething like that. Well, we also
have about fifteen shows booked with apretty big act for this fall. But
I don't think we can say that. Ye, I don't think it's still
you know, things in the works. It's all it's looking like we should
have a good US North America tourin the fall, and um, we're
(10:37):
gonna try to add in as manythings as we can. Okay, awesome.
I always like to kind of wrapthings up by asking the bands,
do you have any tips, tricks, any advice you would give to maybe
a band just starting out, We'rea band looking to move to the next
step, because any advice is goodadvice. Yeah, I'd say the most
(10:58):
important thing is to surround yourself withlike minded people, ideally that are better
at it than you are, andthen you know, if you hang out
with four people, you'll become thefifth. You ever heard that kind of
quote, Like, that's very true. So um, you know it sounds
it sounds like an Instagram grindset posts, but elevate your circle as much as
you can. Literally, Yes,anything else I would say, Um,
(11:22):
you also can't get discouraged because ittakes time. And you might think,
like, oh, tons of bandsjust like blow up out of nowhere,
but for the most part, likeninety nine point nine of everyone has to
you know, just work at itevery day for years, you know,
because you're not going to blow upand get lucky. But you will be
successful if you put in the workover a long period of time. I
(11:43):
mean you won't you won't necessarily besuccessful, but you like, if you
are putting in consistent work, youcan't guarantee growth. So that's that's right,
That's kind of what you have toaim for. Okay, solid advice,
anything you want to say to fansas we wrap things up, Yes,
so, um, the most helpfulthing is us. Please stream us
Uncured on Spotify and check out ourmusic video for Fight This War on YouTube,
(12:05):
and please follow Uncured band on Instagramand Facebook. Rex, Zach,
appreciate a minute of your time heretoday. Um. Looking forward to seeing
you at Incarceration Fest. Hopefully Ican shake your hands, meet you,
do whatever, that kind of funstuff. All right, go ahead Saturday.
Yeah, I'll be there all everyday. All right, right,
we'll see reformatory speed of course.All right, guys. Well, thank
(12:28):
you so much for hopping on.I'll talk to you guys later. All
right, all right, thank youso much talking. Hey, nice talk
to you nice men. You havea good one, all right, take
care all right. So that wasRex. That was Zach from the band
Uncured. Super excited to check theseguys out at Incarceerration Fest twenty twenty three
in Mansfield, Ohio. Plenty ofother bands on this festival. I'm excited
(12:48):
to see Panta slipping on. Imean, the list goes on and on
and on and on, but it'sgonna be a fun time regardless. If
you're going say hi, I'll sayhi back. Hope you have a good
time, and hey, thanks forcaning out this episode of the podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.