Dexter and the Moonrocks Want ‘to Set the Tone of What Rock Music Is Going to Be’

“We’re four dumbasses from West Texas — like us or hate us, this is who we are,” drummer Ryan Fox (commonly referred to as just Fox) says matter-of-­factly of a band that has both helped to resurrect the sound of ’90s grunge and bring them back to the Billboard charts. The four members of Dexter and the Moonrocks started out exploring red-dirt country but have surged to the forefront of the current rock revival with songs that marry country’s confessional lyrics (“I’m a bad guy” stories, as guitarist Ryan Anderson puts it) with grunge’s heavy guitars, acoustic introspection and affinity for strong melody.

The resulting sound — they’ve dubbed it “Western space grunge,” the name of their July 2024 debut EP — is powered by singer James Tuffs’ ­magnetic, raw vocals and can evoke everything from Alice in Chains to Weezer. After getting together outside Abilene and releasing its debut single in 2021, the band began a still-relentless live schedule, getting signed by Severance Records in a joint venture with Big Loud Rock in 2023 and making its alternative radio breakthrough the following year.

But it wasn’t until earlier this year that Dexter and the Moonrocks became a true commercial force, when its smash, “Freakin’ Out,” spent five weeks at No. 1 on Alternative Airplay, broke onto Pop Airplay and became the band’s Billboard Hot 100 debut, reaching No. 33. It will be on the debut full-length, Friends That I Don’t Like (out Oct. 2), from the four guys who all still live within two hours of each other in northwest Texas. As Anderson vows, “We’re never, ever moving to Nashville.”

Why did “Freakin’ Out” feel like the right breakout moment for you?

Ryan Anderson: I was always under the impression we were going to do this organic growth thing, where three albums later [we] finally blow up. I didn’t think we were going to have a pop moment. But credit to James and Fox; in the studio when we were still working on it, they both were saying, “This is the one.”

Ryan Fox: And then you don’t understand what that actually means, and it’s like, oh, this is a way different beast. I think back to like “Ritalin” and “Sad in Carolina” and all those moments where I’m like, “God, these are such good songs, I wish these did bigger.” But there isn’t a universe where I think “Freakin’ Out” isn’t the best moment for this band to accelerate. We finally became professionals touring, we understood our sound and who we wanted to be.  Thank God we had our massive hit when we also had a robust discography, a base of diehard fans and we had done the grinding of touring. We established who we are.  

Since “Freakin’ Out” took off, have you seen the effects of your success at radio?

Fox: We’ve always been the weird “I don’t know what to do with you, so I’m not going to do anything with you” kind of band. And so the radio success didn’t feel like it was moving my personal needle as much as seeing more and more guys in cowboy hats standing next to goth chicks, and dudes wearing all black going on a date with, like, the most “do-a-dollop-o’-Daisy” girl you’ve ever seen in your life at our concerts. That’s awesome.

How did being the “weird band” benefit you?

Fox: We had some success and there were people whispering in our ears like, “You need to market yourself this way. You need to appeal to this audience.” There was about a year of that and then we all looked at each other like, “This sucks. Let’s go back to making stuff that we enjoy, that feels like the full amalgamation of our upbringing as musicians.”

Anderson: And that’s what got us attention. We said, “We know what got us here, and we appreciate any advice, but we want to trust ourselves.”

Fox: Our [2025 EP] Donkey Flats we recorded ourselves out of a double-wide trailer. We kind of hit reset, changed our team, and also, got more of a “f–k you” behind us. And then “Freakin’ Out” came out, and it was finally like, oh, man, we get to set the tone of what this culture is going to be, what rock music is going to be, for the next three to five years.

Your music is often heavy — both sonically and lyrically — but you also have a knack for melody. What is the band’s writing process?

Anderson: Melody always comes first — not just in [process] order, but I think that’s what we prioritize the most.

Fox: We each inherently have our own different styles, and those styles mesh to be us. That’s why we’ve realized we can’t do cowrites — sitting in a room and doing the whole Nashville thing. The only people that really know how to write a Dexter and the Moonrocks song are Dexter and the Moonrocks.

How do you guys now characterize the country influence on you? 

Anderson: I think originally the country thing kind of bled in because that’s what we were listening to when we started the band, and that’s kind of what we thought we were going to do — not like, boot scootin’ fiddles and steel guitars, but the more Texas-y red dirt thing. And that went away immediately, and the rock thing took over pretty naturally. The confessional side of the lyrics and the “it’s my fault” kind of thing in our songs… that’s where the country comes in these days.
 
Fox: I’ve always been a big believer that grunge and country talk about the exact same things — loss and addiction and being angry at the government and all of that. For me at least, our sense of country is from a sense of place and identity. We are so proudly Texan. The album cover is a 15-foot metal bull that probably 2000 people in the entire world know about, that’s on some guy’s land on a highway off a town that has 700 people that live in it, which happens to be the town that we’re from. You know what I mean? We are uniquely Texas, and we love that. If anything, it’s less 1787682433 about the country twang and more about the country influence in the culture and having cowboys in the mosh pit. You know, cowboys and cowgirls want to mosh too.

Fox, you handle the band’s social media presence, and you’re very funny. How do you think about it?

Fox: I think “Freakin’ Out” doesn’t happen if the internet doesn’t exist. Social media is the new MTV. So many people are trying to be dark and mysterious, like Kurt Cobain, and we’re more like, “We’re going to show you everything.” That’s what being a new rock star is: It’s being genuine, it’s being kind, it’s being respectful, it’s still being angry — like, you should break stuff — but gone are the days of trashing a hotel room. Moshing is fun, but we’re going to mosh respectfully. That’s what we’re about.

Anderson: We’ve never been shy of who we are, and Fox has been so good about capturing that.

A version of this story appears in the Aug. 22, 2026, issue of Billboard.