St. Louis emo stalwarts Foxing have announced that they’re going on hiatus. “[It] has become clear to us that in our pursuit of our dreams and making the most honest and genuine art we can, our relationship with music, each other, and our sense of self without the band has eroded,” the band wrote in a statement posted to social media.
Foxing will play two farewell shows—one in Chicago and one in St. Louis—in December. See those dates and find the group’s full message below.
Foxing was formed in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2011, by bassist Josh Coll, drummer Jon Hellwig, and guitarist Matthew Piva. The band went through several lineup changes before the 2013 release of debut album The Albatross. By then, Foxing had settled into a five-piece of Coll, Hellwig, vocalist Conor Murphy, and guitarists Ricky Sampson and Eric Hudson. Foxing spent the next couple of years on the road, landing opening slots for fellow emo favorites like the Hotelier and Modern Baseball.
Coll left Foxing between the release of 2015’s Dealer and 2018’s Nearer My God. Produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, Nearer My God marked the band’s leap to anthemic, festival-sized indie-rock. In his review of Nearer My God, Ian Cohen wrote that it “provides the incapacitating rush of watching a broken play develop into a Hail Mary, a half-court buzzer beater, a double steal that actually works—the thrill of its success amplified by palpable risk and an alternate, disastrous outcome that was narrowly avoided.”
After Nearer My God, Foxing released Draw Down the Moon, in 2021, and a 2024 self-titled album.
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Foxing:
After 14 years as a band and 12 years of consistent touring, we’ve decided to take a hiatus from playing shows, writing or doing anything as Foxing.
It feels really scary to say that. This band has been completely inseparable from us as people for our entire adult lives up to this point. It is so much of our identity and our sense of self worth in the world. But it has become clear to us that in our pursuit of our dreams and making the most honest and genuine art we can, our relationship with music, each other, and our sense of self without the band has eroded. We have decided to prioritize these things and need to step away from the band to do so.
These shows in Chicago and St. Louis will be our last for the foreseeable future. Know that if you ever saw us at a show or listened to our records, you were getting the most from us that we could possibly give in that moment. We will come back if/when we feel that we have more to give.
