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Every musician is asked the same question: What song was your favorite? And every musician I have ever interviewed or talked with has said the same thing: Songs are like children, and it is too hard to pick one. For lead guitarist Denny Smith, this collection of tracks from FOXX gives even more depth to this analogy. “I just hope everyone enjoys these ‘baby pictures,” Smith explains, ”because that’s what this release is - very beginnings.” Every musician is asked the same question: What song was your favorite? And every musician I have ever interviewed or talked with has said the same thing: Songs are like children, and it is too hard to pick one.”

Pekin, Illinois, is not a frequent stop on the Hard Rock Highway, but it was the birthplace of the musical Tassart family and would eventually become the den of FOXX! Lead vocalist Shannon Tassart and youngest brother, drummer Shandal, followed in the footsteps of their older brother, Shane, who fronted such Los Angeles bands as Wicked Jester and Best of Seven, which also featured future FOXX member Denny Smith. “Shane was the first legit badass rocker in our area,” recalls bassist Jeff Van Dyke. Later, Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne would lay claim to that title, but “prior to them, I think Dan Fogelberg was the area’s favorite son,” laughs Smith.

Bouncing around in various bands made up of interchangeable parts, Shannon, Shandal, and Jeff finally found the missing piece to their musical puzzle in Denny Smith. While perhaps not as musically polished as the others, Smith was doggedly determined to make a name for himself, and the earliest incarnation of FOXX was born… but Lady Fortune wasn’t to shine her face on the band just yet, as Van Dyke was set to leave for college in Tennessee, leaving the band with spare parts filling his void in the FOXX musical machine. Determined to push forward, FOXX went to work crafting original material and playing a few local shows to get their name out into the world. Armed with growing confidence and an increasing following, FOXX was looking for bigger, better things when their current bassist informed the band that, like Van Dyke, he was headed off to school. Not deterred, Shannon made a call to Jeff, who had been soaking up the music scene of Nashville. While home on a break from classes, Jeff met up with his bandmates to see if the magic was still there for FOXX. It was not.

After admittedly never really bothering to learn the original material FOXX had put together, Van Dyke was soon headed back to college in Tennessee. However, Fate would intervene, this time more positively, as Van Dyke popped in a cassette of one of the band’s rehearsals and gave the neglected songs the chance they really deserved. A switch was flipped, and Van Dyke soon found himself back in Pekin and in Denny’s mom’s basement, working with a cheap, borrowed 4-track recorder, laying down FOXX’s first demo, consisting of music crafted by Smith and arranged by the band.

The band was soon paying their dues in clubs, working on their musical craft, showmanship, and stage presence. “We got hip to a lot of the Chicago bands like Joker, Defcon, Dear Diary, Theatre, and Sphinx. They were operating on a whole other level than the guys in our neck of the woods,” recalls Smith. “They all looked and sounded like acts that should’ve been on Headbanger’s Ball, whereas most of the bands in our area, even if they had a good song or two in their back pocket, looked like they had just punched a clock at the foundry and rolled up on the gig, straight from their shift. There was no ‘show business’ to it, and we couldn’t get down with that.” Following their instincts to up their game, FOXX went to work on their stage show. “We did have a lot of detractors,” Smith remembers, “but mainly because the brothers were prettier than most of the girls the guys in the other bands were dating! We were not afraid to go for it with the whole ‘image thing.’ We gave exactly zero shits if some guy in another band thought we were cool.”

Hitting the road throughout central Illinois and venturing as far away as the Crazy Horse Saloon in Biloxi, Mississippi, the band eventually found themselves booked every other weekend. But it was not without work. Taking their cue from their heroes on the Sunset Strip, FOXX was notorious for their unabashed flyering of the area. According to Van Dyke, “We were a nuisance! There was no telephone pole in the area devoid of a FOXX flyer! I believe after we left, there was a city ordinance passed after we moved away that banned the flyering of telephone poles.” “Yeah, we were the ‘flyer guys,’” Smith adds. “I could not tell you how many times we were pulled over for flyering poles in the middle of nowhere or got detained for looking suspicious in some neighborhood where a resident spotted us plastering those things to a streetlight after dark! Kinkos knew us well, and I bought CT-150 staples by the case. Those things could puncture anything!”

Despite making what Smith calls the “unfortunate decision to join the herd and do shows where we mixed covers and originals, 50/50,” the band continued to write and create new music of their own, hoping to move up the musical ladder. “We got to open for Head East, who were local legends, as they had recorded their album, Flat As A Pancake, in Pekin. Shannon managed to insult one of the guys in the band, and the keyboard player had to bum a speaker cabinet from me to use as a stand,” but that was as close to the ‘big time’ as FOXX ever came.

The band soldiered on, and in the summer of 1991, the four guys holed up in Wooden Nickel Studio to record their debut EP, Goin’ For Broke, producing 250 cassettes to sell and distribute through local record stores and at concerts. After those sessions, the band made the decision to reverse course and focus exclusively on doing original music. While satisfying artistically, the move was one that had serious repercussions financially, as the Pekin area was dominated by cover bands. Taking any opening support slots they could swing, FOXX managed to stay afloat… and managed to sell out their entire inventory of cassettes. Plus, these gigs gave the band the opportunity to work out new material in front of live audiences, and by the spring of ’92, the boys were back in the recording studio. This time, the band doubled their inventory, making five hundred copies of the new ‘King Of The Fools’ release,’ which featured what is considered to be the best of their original tunes, the title track from this second effort.

Despite the overwhelming success of the band’s release party for the new album, FOXX found themselves staring down the debt incurred from recording the new album, and the band decided to return to the local club scene, which included returning to playing covers in their sets. To bolster their live show even further, the decision was also made to add a fifth FOXX to the den, with childhood friend Patrick Miller added as an official member and second guitarist, freeing up Shannon to focus solely on his role as the lead singer for the band. The band ground forward with this lineup for two years, sharpening their sound and polishing their stage show while continuing to write and work on new material. Despite all this progress, however, the music industry was not making the trek to Illinois to see what FOXX had to offer, and the decision to move to a more music-friendly environment was made. “We wrote 25 to 30 songs, but we only had two actual releases - the 6-song ‘Goin’ For Broke,’ and the 9-song ‘The King Of The Fools,’ both only available on cassette. Self-financed and self-released was as big as it got for us back then. We were too young and naïve to really know how most of that [the music industry] worked. Being so geographically isolated from any real ‘industry’ goings-on, I am not sure we had the first clue of how to go about getting our demos into the right hands,” Denny admits. With Jeff’s previous experiences in Nashville sounding like the best bet for FOXX, the decision to relocate seemed the logical next step. But making that decision did not come without a high price. The newest member, Pat, had commitments he needed to tend to in Illinois, and Shandal resigned, stating he needed to step away for a time to work on his more progressive musical skills.

Soldiering on and renaming themselves 17 Days, Shannon, Jeff, and Denny recruited a new drummer and set out to make their mark in Music City. It became obvious that things were not going to work out in Nashville almost immediately, as the band members’ girlfriends were robbed at gunpoint outside of the group’s new rehearsal space. Then, shortly after playing their only gig as 17 Days, the guys found themselves without a drummer again, and the entire situation unraveled before it ever really had a chance to take off. After years of struggle, sacrifice, and even a bit of success, the final remnants of FOXX separated and set off on new adventures.

Music remained a vital part of everyone’s lives, even after FOXX. Denny returned to Illinois to reunite with Shandal in a new power pop group known as Loveshine. Shannon left the Midwest completely and relocated to Los Angeles, where he joined his oldest brother, Shane, in the band Needle Damage Done. Finding that scene not to his liking, Shannon returned to form a new cover band with Shandal, switching places with Denny, who joined Shane in his newest project, Best of Seven. Jeff chose to remain in Nashville and started a family, thinking his musical career was behind him, but when Shannon returned to Tennessee, Jeff picked up his bass yet again, working in My Beautiful Disaster… which also later featured Patrick on lead guitar after he had finally found his way south. If that were not enough, Denny would also return to the Volunteer State, working with bands Bombshell Crush and The Great Affairs, which Patrick was also briefly involved with. Fate, it seemed, was not ready to let the FOXX family dissolve completely.

While it may have taken more than twenty years, FOXX was destined to get one last chance to shine. In 2014, the band found itself reuniting for the Rock ‘N Skull Festival, getting the opportunity to share the stage with bands such as Black N Blue, Danger Danger, Enuff Z’Nuff, and Tuff. FOXX was finally sharing the stage with some of the big names of their youth, and they were doing it at home… in Pekin, Illinois.

“I think we had something special to offer the world,” Shannon says, “but we took it for granted. We thought we would always be young, and the opportunity would always be there.” While that may not have been true, Shannon does offer an undeniable truth about the FOXX boys. “We had something different than a lot of bands. A brotherhood that would last a lifetime.” “We were brash, young kids who didn’t have a ton of money or experience,” Jeff adds. “We did our thing, our way, until the very end. This is for those fans who liked us for who we were.”

Indeed, this is for those fans who remember FOXX as those damn kids with the fliers and all the hair. FOXX and Roll… the legend lives on!