page_title: Foss (band)
section_title: Recordings, tours, and public-access television appearance
hierarchical_section_title: Foss (band) / History / Recordings, tours, and public-access television appearance
caption_attribution_description: English: This file was derived from&#x3a;&#160;&#32;&#160;At the Drive-In Lollapalooza.jpg
context_page_description: Foss was an American rock band formed in El Paso, Texas in the early 1990s. Though short-lived and obscure in its own time, the band garnered renewed attention when one of its former members, Beto O'Rourke, campaigned in the 2018 US Senate election in Texas as the Democratic candidate against incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. Another member, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, found success in the music industry as the singer for the rock bands At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta, as well as a member of numerous other musical projects.
  Typically described as a post-hardcore band, Foss's sound incorporated elements of punk rock, emo, and indie rock styles of the period. The members of Foss espoused the DIY ethic and were influenced by the independent label Dischord Records and punk zines like Maximumrocknroll. The band released a handful of recordings and embarked on two tours spanning parts of the United States and Canada. Foss appeared on Let's Get Real With Bill Lowrey, an evangelical show on El Paso public-access television, after tricking the show's producers into believing they were a Christian rock band. Video of the chaotic performance later resurfaced on YouTube.
context_section_description: O'Rourke and Bixler-Zavala formed Foss along with Mike Stevens and Arlo Klahr. They took the name "Foss" from the Icelandic word for "waterfall". The members of Foss formed their own label, Western Breed Records, and issued a 7-inch record, titled The El Paso Pussycats. Reportedly titled after a failed television pilot about crime-fighting women, The El Paso Pussycats shows O'Rourke wearing a floral-pattern dress on its cover. The dress belonged to Maggie Asfahani, O'Rourke's girlfriend at the time, who later said "There's nothing particularly complicated about it—we were all hanging out, and someone thought it would be funny if we switched clothes, the girls and guys. That was all, just being different." Other Foss recordings included a self-titled demo and a full-length album, Fewel Street (sometimes spelled Fewell or St.). The label Western Breed later issued some of the earliest releases by Bixler-Zavala's band At the Drive-In.
  Foss embarked on two tours of North America during O'Rourke's summer breaks following his sophomore and junior years in college. O'Rourke and Klahr organized the tours with the help of Book Your Own Fucking Life, a DIY guide published by Maximumrocknroll that provided resources and contacts for touring bands. On one of the tours, O'Rourke booked a gig as an opening act at a venue in San Francisco by calling, pretending to be a founder of Sub Pop, and claiming the band was about to be signed; the plan worked, but Foss was ejected after playing only two songs. While on tour, Foss met Feist, who was later a member of Broken Social Scene and solo artist.
  In 1994, an El Paso public-access television show, Let's Get Real With Bill Lowrey, broadcast a Foss performance and interview. Because it was an evangelical program, Foss told the producers they played gospel and Christian rock in order to get on the show. The band quickly wrote a new song for their television debut. The host, Lowrey, later told The Washington Post: "Oh yeah, they kind of pulled a fast one on me. But we enjoyed it. Mostly I can't believe he grew up to be a functioning member of society."
  Clips of Foss's performance on Let's Get Real later surfaced on YouTube. Matt Miller of Esquire described Foss' performance as "absolute chaos with the band hopping around and people screaming—you can imagine elderly '90s Texans turning this on and being absolutely terrified". Matthew Adams of The Dallas Morning News called the performance "complete chaos" and said that, based on O'Rourke's musical performances on his 2018 Senate campaign, his musical skills seemed to have improved since the 1990s.
caption: Cedric Bixler-Zavala, a founding member of Foss, is better known as the singer of At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta (pictured performing with At the Drive-In in 2012).
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