There’s a lot of political music out there, and there are even some politicians that are into music. Take, for example, Indonesian president Joko Widodo, who likes Lamb of God and Napalm Death. However, in Texas, there’s a congress member running for Senator looking to defeat Ted Cruz that’s not only a music fan, but used to be in a band with Cedric Bizler-Savala from The Mars Volta and At The Drive In!
Robert Frances “Beto” O’Rourke represents the 16th District of Texas in El Paso. But before he became a politician, he was the guitarist and vocalist of Foss, a band that Bixler-Zavala played drums in. Their first main exposure was an evangelical public access TV show that they lied to get on. After releasing a few albums, O’Rourke called it a day, he told The Washington Post:
“I wasn’t that good at it,” he admitted. And his dad was pressuring him to grow up. “He won’t say it, but the expectation is: We didn’t take out loans for you to go to Columbia and then [play] in a punk band your whole life.”
He got involved in politics at 32, and in 2012, won his position as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, which he’s been re-elected to twice. He announced his candidacy against Ted Cruz on Friday (31). And while his record isn’t completely clean (a breaking and entering charge from 1995 which was a “prank gone awry” and a 1998 drunk driving arrest), it’s a lot more clean than many currently holding office. Plus, he’s got some serious musician cred, even if he claims that he wasn’t that good at being a rock star. It seems like there’s enough ill will towards Ted Cruz that we might be able to see a former punk musician in the Senate next year.
