Constant Cocoon Booking Interview
Kirin Pax and Joshua Minor have been booking shows in and around the St. Louis area for over a year now and their company, Constant Cocoon Booking only continues to grow. I got to sit down with the two of them and discuss how they met, the early days, and some really exciting things coming up on their horizon.
BIASED: So how did Constant Cocoon all come together?
Kirin: Patches asked me to help book a really shitty metal show.
(laughs)
Joshua: Man, I don’t even remember how we even got that, but I think how it started was I began making friends with people in different music scenes, like someone out in California who joined a band in New Jersey. When they’re on tour with other bands who say they want to come through St. Louis, they would give them my name. And I think that was the same thing that was happening to you?
KP: Yeah I had friends in Texas so anytime that they had friends that were coming through St. Louis they would send them through me.
JM: I started noticing Kirin at all these same shows I was getting invited to and just asked if she would want to kind of combine forces, you know? And here we are.
Since the inception almost a year ago, how have you evolved your process and worked to expand what you are doing?
JM: It’s been insane honestly. It really started like here’s a band from Texas or New Jersey or something. We were doing really small shows and making hand drawn flyers to get people to come see these bands that are on tour that have dreams just like you and me. We were trying to help be a part of it and eventually our name started getting spread around and we gained somewhat of a following on social media. Now we are running our website, there are so many more things we want to do. We want to start a newsletter, email list, and just combine forces with people that we know and try to just make it one big thing where we’re all helping out.
KP: We’ve also been trying to go to more local artists to design our flyers instead of going to the same person or doing it all ourselves.
JM: We really wanted to combine the art with the music.
KP: I’d also like to get care packages together for touring bands with things to do around the city, places to eat, towels, deodorant, snacks, things like that.
JM: We’re also realizing that we need to start making some money, so in addition to all that we’ve been looking to partner up with local companies that might want to invest in local music and art. That is something that we will also be a big part of the birthday show.
KP: We also want to be able to pay the local bands that play our shows. When we first started we barely were able to pay locals, but every show we’ve been able to give them more and more.
JM: Pretty much all the money we made went to the venue and the touring bands. We never saw a dime.
You mentioned the birthday show that is right around the corner now.
JM: Yup, April 17th at the Firebird. I never thought I’d ever be booking a show at the Firebird, it’s really surreal. We started booking shows at smaller places that you might have to pay some rent money at. I’m so thankful that they’re supporting this too. It’s going to be an all-local showcase with Ursa Major, Sleeping Cranes, Freak Out, Skin Tags, and Lavender. We are also going to have local artists sharing what they do.
KP: We have record labels showcasing as well, we have a raffle with donations from a lot of local businesses that have been wanting to get involved. It’s going to be really cool.
So if you had to say what the ultimate goal of CCB is…
KP: To bring more rad bands to St. Louis.
JM: Yeah.
KP: It would be nice too start giving the city a better rep for things like this.
JM: Everything that is happening here right now, I never expected to happen, but here we are. Ultimate fantasy is that it would be cool as hell of we could do this for a living. But I too am a musician and I know what it’s like to be really hungry.
KP: It would be really cool to get a big enough following to open our own venue. That’s my dream.
Luca Torretta
BSTL