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

How the fast-rising grunge band is shaping what "a new rock star is."

Kevin Condon

“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.”