Before running for Ted Cruz’s Senate seat, Democratic Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke frequented the DIY punk scene. He played in bands like Foss with Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At The Drive In and the Mars Volta. O’Rourke recently played pro-pot songs with Margo Price and Willie Nelson. While this all sounds pretty fucking cool to me, the Republican Party of Texas find his musical roots questionable.

This week, the @TexasGOP Twitter account made anti-O’Rourke memes using his old pictures. O’Rourke made the most of the revived attention on Foss by sharing an old recording from the band’s The El Paso Pussycats EP. They issued the EP issued while O’Rourke was studying at Columbia University. Listen to the track over at Rolling Stone.

O’Rourke also told Rolling Stone about meeting Leslie Feist while on tour during his summer break. He and his bandmates befriended her at their gig in Calgary. “My memory is [she] didn’t have any money to get in and so she traded, I believe, her brother’s lock-picking set and a T-shirt or a tape and then we traded her a ticket to get in,” O’Rourke says. “And then when we came through next year, she had a band called Placebo that we played with.”

Maybe Beto can’t debate Ted Cruz because he already had plans… pic.twitter.com/LdqKTh3yK4

— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) August 28, 2018