For 12 hours Friday, UCF students rocked out to help find a cure for cancer.
The UCF students who put on the event told KnightNews.com’s Catalina Morales it took six months to plan it all out.
“Basically we come together to suppor the fight against cancer,” organizer Brittney Mason said. “We raise money for Relay for Life and we’re putting on this to do our fall fundraiser.”
Organizers said they hoped to attract 1,000 people to the event.
“A lot of prep work went into it,” Mason said. ” We had to get 14 bands to come out and play, and we got a lot of stuff donated.”
The next major event the group puts on is the Relay For Life Walk, set to take place on April 16 and 17 of next year.
KnightNews.com’s Catalina Morales also conducted some question and answers sessions with some of the bands. She said she had a great time interviewing them, but wasn’t able to talk to all of them because they were busy setting up. But take a look at what the ones she talked to said:
Joe and Billy from The Prospect
Catalina: How long have you guys been playing together?
Joe: Well Adam, Billy and I have been friends since high school and the band became official two years ago with Jake.
Catalina: What’s it like playing shows?
Joe: We have a lot of fun and we enjoy meeting new people. We make fun of each other a lot and some people think we’re being serious when we do this but we’re just joking around.
Catalina: And what about touring?
Billy: We just played at Warped Tour and that was great but it was a lot of work. It gets hard trying to do everything sometimes. We don’t get a lot of time to sleep.
Catalina: So what do you do to stay awake?
Billy: We drink a lot of Monster. We actually buy a lot of the blue one, the lo-carb.
Benji from Set It Off
Catalina: How long has the band been playing?
Benji: It started over a year ago but I joined two months later. I actually found it through MySpace classifieds. Once I heard back from them, they told me to call to schedule for an audition and I called them straight away even though it was 2 in the morning.
Catalina: What made you look for a band?
Benji: I had left my home and was living on the street, practically sleeping at the beach. I had almost given up on music but I decided to give it one last shot. I believe it’s important to love music regardless of everything else because it’s about being able to express yourself.
Cody from Set It Off
Catalina: How did you become interested in music?
Cody: I used to study clarinet and later I began doing covers on YouTube. I actually made a video for Alex from All Time Low asking him if I could sing onstage with the band at their show in Cleveland. He replied with a video and I was able to sing Coffee Shop Soundtrack with them. It was amazing!
Catalina: Sounds amazing! So how do you like this event so far?
Cody: It’s great. I also have a personal reason for supporting it so much. My dad was struggling with cancer and at first he wasn’t very supportive of my music. Once he saw my YouTube videos he started to become more supportive and he passed away a week later.
Catalina: I’m sure he’s very proud of you now. So where do you get the inspiration for your songs?
Cody: They’re all about someone I know. They’re mostly pop but we’re working on adding darker elements in the future.
Here’s the link to Cody’s YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjhOQieDBWA
Mikey, Dennis, and Andy from T13C!
Catalina: So the band has been together for 8 years now, but you two just recently joined?
Mikey: Yeah I’ve been playing with them for two months now. I messaged them and started hanging out with them, I became part of the band before even trying out.
Dennis: I joined about a month ago, I had a mutual friend who got me in the band.
Catalina: How do you like it so far?
Dennis: It’s a new concept for me, I went from metal to pop. I guess I haven’t found my soft side yet. (laughs)
Catalina: What do you guys do to entertain yourselves while touring?
Dennis: We tell too many gay jokes.
Mikey: I don’t think we tell enough gay jokes. (laughs)
Andy: We also play “would you rather…” and a game where you have to use a band’s name in every sentence you say. Like if I said… (long pause)…
Dennis: This will not end well.
Catalina: What?
Dennis: I just used a band’s name in the sentence. Endwell is the name of a band.
Catalina: Oh ok. So Andy, how’s it been working with these guys?
Andy: We get along so well and it’s a great collection of musicians. I think Dennis and Mikey have great potential but every artist has a limit and we still don’t know what they’re capable of. They’re bringing new aspects to the band though and our music is evolving, which is a good thing.
Lou from Pathway to Providence
Catalina: How did you guys get started with your music?
Lou: We’ve been playing since high school but we got serious about it two years ago. Music dominated at our school. It wasn’t as impressive to be an athlete as it was to be a musician.
Catalina: So how’s touring going?
Lou: Well we’re dead broke and our van broke down.
Catalina: How have you been getting around??
Lou: We’re borrowing an SUV from one of the guys’ parents. It’s a really good thing that we’re so close with our families.
Catalina: So besides that very unfortunate situation, are you guys enjoying this event?
Lou: Yeah we love hanging out with the other bands. We all just kind of go our separate ways and hang out with different people. When we go to parties we don’t even associate with each other… when someone asks where the other band members are we say we don’t really know. (laughs)
Mikey, Joe, Sterling, and Troy from InPassing
Catalina: How did the band get started?
Mikey: We were all in different bands and played in shows together. Then we ended up getting together to form inPassing.
Catalina: What do you guys do to prepare for shows?
Joe: We always pray before we go onstage and Sterling sometimes does cartwheels. (laughs)
Sterling: We also avoid fast food and drink a lot of water. I think we drink more than 10 bottles of water per day.
Catalina: How do you promote the band?
Troy: We just took a 12-day trip following Blink-182, passing out flyers and telling people about our band. We basically live, breathe, eat, and sleep the band. Everything we do revolved around it.
Catalina: Do you have any fun facts about you?
Troy: I used to pole vault in high school and I was also in the drum line. Oh and I’m a UCF alumni and I want to thank Nicole Howatt for teaching me everything I know about marketing.
Andrew and Mike from Camerae
Catalina: How did you guys get started with your music?
Andrew: Me, my little brother [Jonny], and Dave grew up together and we had very musical families. That’s kind of what got us into it.
Catalina: How do you define your sound?
A: We like messing with different styles since we all like a variety of music, from jazz to hard rock. We used to do more ambient music but we added a dancy feel to try to get people on board.
Catalina: So what do you do for fun?
Mike: Play a lot of video games, mostly the zombie ones.
Catalina: Do you have any tips for aspiring musicians?
Mike: Yes. Never reach under a bathroom stall. I did that once and ended up finding poop under there. And never be a douche to anyone.
Catalina: You guys have another show coming up in Orlando right?
Mike: November 8th at The Social. Make sure you’re there!
Brian and Jason from Vega Under Fire
Catalina: So I see that unlike most of the other guys playing tonight your hair is not straight. What do you do to style it?
Jason: I don’t do much to it. I like it to be more natural.
Brian: We’re au naturale baby. But I do straighten it sometimes. I really want one of those irons with the spinning wheels, I can’t remember what it’s called.
Catalina: That doesn’t sound very manly.
Jason: Then ask us what’s the manliest thing about us.
Catalina: Ok. What’s the manliest thing about you?
Brian: Well I have a very ferocious dog. He’s a poodle.
Jason: I got struck by lightning once.
Catalina: Are you serious?
Jason: Yeah, I was in my car. Nothing happened to me though, I came out just fine.
Catalina: Oh wow. So are you guys enjoying this event?
Jason: We’re friends with more than half of these bands so it’s a lot of fun being with them and this is a really good show.
Brian: We really like doing charities. We’ve done some for Save Darfur, fighting against AIDS, and Invisible Children. It’s nice to support these causes and we get to play shows, so it’s good from both ends.
Justin and Jon C. from A Cover Story
Catalina: What style of music do you guys play?
Justin: We all have very different tastes in music so we just play whatever fits. We do some hard stuff but we also have slower songs.
Jon: We’re constantly trying to revamp our music. We merge a lot of the old with the new to improve our sound.
Catalina: And how are you guys doing with the “Next Big Thing” contest from XL 106.7?
Jon: We’re looking good for the top 5. Johnny Magic actually said “I’m not picking favorites, but these guys are really good.” If we win we get a contract with Universal Republic Records.
Catalina: Well I’ve definitely been voting for you! So who came up with the idea to put on Rock The Cure?
Jon: Brittney [Mason] and I came up with it and we’ve been organizing the whole thing. The next thing was to figure out which bands to put on the bill. We got lucky because a lot of them are in the middle of touring but were able to fit in this event between their other shows. It’s really great that they could come out and support the cause.
Click on this link if you want to support A Cover Story win the contest! They are now in the final six.
http://www.xl1067.com/pages/nextbigthing.html?_show
Jeremy from The Scenic
Catalina: How did you become interested in music?
Jeremy: My mom was really into The Beatles and I would listen to them growing up. She actually taught me how to harmonize.
Catalina: I know this is a very hard question, but what would you say is your favorite Beatles song?
Jeremy: Well my favorite album is Abbey Road. And this is going to sound very cliché, but my favorite song is Hey Jude.
Catalina: So I heard you were in another band in Orlando before joining The Scenic. What can you tell me about that?
Jeremy: The band was called Rory and we were together for almost 7 years. We had the typical band fall out… We had been together for so long that it got to the point where we just didn’t agree on things anymore.
Catalina: I see you have a lot of tattoos. Can you tell me what some of them are?
Jeremy: My whole left arm has tattoos of my favorite story books. And this one [on my right arm] is of my favorite comic book, The Maxx.
Catalina: How old were you when you got your first one?
Jeremy: I was 16. It was this star [on my right arm] and it was a friendship tattoo I got done with three of my friends. Unfortunately I don’t talk to any of them anymore. I also got the tramp stamp on my back. Don’t ever get a tramp stamp. (Girlfriend’s name tattooed on lower back.)
