Although fall WILD concert was canceled, in part due to Washington University hosting a presidential debate on campus, undergraduates were still involved musically in the fall semester’s biggest event.

The Bear Nation Varsity Band, a Student Union-affiliated group, played for each major news network on Sunday, Oct. 9. The band, which formed in 2015, performed on FOX in the morning, CNN in the afternoon and MSNBC in the evening.

In addition to these scheduled engagements, the band was also asked Sunday to play on CNN during prime time, directly before the debate itself.

“The last debate’s coverage was over 80 million people, so we’re really excited. Especially as a young organization on campus, I think it’s great to get our name out there,” junior and band president Devika Jaishankar said.

Although preparations for hosting the debate on campus have been going on for months, the pep band’s involvement has come about relatively recently. CNN, MSNBC and FOX each contacted the group separately within the last week, and they have been preparing to play for the past few days.

“We’ve mostly been playing our regular repertoire, which is pop and rock tunes,” Jaishankar said.

Sometimes, though, the content of the coverage can affect what the band will perform, according to junior Sabina Maniak, a conductor for Bear Nation Varsity Band.

“Generally, they just let us play what we want to play. Granted, if there are more sensitive topics going on—like with the Donald Trump scandal that just came out, they don’t want us playing ‘Hey Baby’ right after they talk about that. So we’ve been sort of mindful of the content and just going from there,” Maniak said.

In addition to their standard repertoire, the band learned a new arrangement for their time on CNN.

“CNN wrote an arrangement of their debate theme for this year that we’ve been playing at each of the commercial breaks, which is getting played throughout the rest of the day for the debate,” Jaishankar said.

The Bear Nation Varsity Band, which performs at Wash. U. varsity sporting events, including football and basketball games, usually numbers around 35 students. But for their performances on the national news, they did some extra recruiting, including from other musical groups on campus.

“I think just recruiting for this debate alone, we accumulated 30 new members, so we hope to retain a lot of these people and to see them go into our athletic season and really start to pump up our athletics here at Wash. U., too,” Jaishankar said.

Even Provost Holden Thorp got in on the fun. Thorp briefly joined the band for a song on the bass while they were performing for CNN in Brookings Quadrangle.

“I’ve sat in with the pep band before, when they’re playing at basketball, so I know the guys, and they saw me walk up and asked me if I wanted to play with them. How they picked an ‘80s song, I don’t know—but they probably just looked at me and said that would be the only one I would know,” Thorp said.

Pep band members seem to have had all positive experiences working with the news networks.

“It’s been a lot of fun. All of the executives have been a lot of fun to work with…They are just very excited to have us there,” Maniak said. “When we were working with FOX, the reporters came in and hung out with us. [They] asked us questions about the instruments. They were a lot more personable than I thought they were going to be.”

Beyond boosting the group’s visibility, the pep band’s performances leading up to the debate have actively involved students in the event, which many undergraduates have criticized for providing minimal benefits to the student body at a high cost.

“It’s energizing to be on campus. Everybody knows that the debate’s on campus, but I think this has really solidified what our role is in the debate,” Jaishankar said. “And I think it’s really to pump up the student body and to show that we are also actively involved in this election year.”