Dexter and The Moonrocks are having one hell of a 2026.
The Abilene, Texas band has announced its upcoming full-length album, Friends That I Don’t Like, arriving October 2 via Severance Records/Big Loud Rock. Along with the album announcement comes a brand-new single, “It’s A Lot,” and the timing couldn’t be much better. “Freakin’ Out” has officially gone Platinum, the guys are headed to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and they’re about to bring their self-described “Western Space Grunge” to Rocklahoma.
That last part has my attention for reasons beyond the press release. I’ll be at Rocklahoma over Labor Day weekend covering the festival for CountryMusicNewsBlog.com, and Dexter and The Moonrocks have officially moved onto my must-see list.
But first, there’s a new record coming.
Friends That I Don’t Like Arrives October 2
According to the band, Friends That I Don’t Like isn’t an attempt to finally pick a genre and stay there. Quite the opposite. The album leans hard into guitars, grit and the weird little no-man’s-land Dexter and The Moonrocks have occupied between Texas music, alternative rock, grunge and Southern rock.
And drummer Fox seems perfectly happy leaving the genre argument unresolved:
“For a long time, people have been struggling to place us as a band,” said drummer Fox. “Coming up in the Texas music scene came with its own expectations and stigma. We always seemed to piss off the honky tonkers and underwhelm the old school metal heads, and to be quite frank, we never cared. People kept telling us we had to lean one way or the other, or else no one would ever care. This album feels like a culmination of us tuning out all the bullsh*t and just being the 4 blue-collar rockers from small-town Texas that we always were. This album feels like an ode to everything we love about our upbringing and everything we wanted to change when we were young. We couldn’t be prouder of the work we’ve put in, and our ability to stay ourselves. I couldn’t tell you what Dexter And The Moonrocks means. Are we country, grunge, alt rock, southern rock? Honestly, who cares. All I know is that we’re here and we aren’t going anywhere.”
That may actually be the smartest possible answer.
The new single “It’s A Lot” offers the first taste attached to today’s album announcement, digging into that particular kind of exhaustion that happens when you’ve kept everything bottled up for too long.
Guitarist Ryan Anderson explains it this way:
“‘Its A Lot’ is about whatever the listener needs it to be about as always, but to me it hits on what has happened over the past year. The effort put forward to make the most of a life changing moment, though worth it, brings all brand new challenges. We couldn’t be more thankful for where we are now, but to 4 kids from small town Texas, sometimes it can be a lot.”
The album will also include previously released tracks “If You Could Talk,” “12 Steps” featuring Treaty Oak Revival, and the song that’s been damn near impossible to escape this year, “Freakin’ Out.” The remaining tracklist hasn’t been revealed yet.
“Freakin’ Out” Has Become a Monster
Calling “Freakin’ Out” a breakout single almost undersells what has happened here.
The song spent three consecutive weeks at No. 1 at Alternative Radio and five weeks atop Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, while also reaching the Top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100. According to the band’s announcement, it has racked up more than 200 million global streams in just a few months and has now earned RIAA Platinum certification.
Dexter and The Moonrocks will perform “Freakin’ Out” during their late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tomorrow night.
That’s a pretty wild trajectory for four guys whose official biography jokes that they dreamed of becoming pool cleaners.
Five years ago they were playing a local watering hole for fewer than 50 people. Now they’re selling out rooms, landing on the Hot 100 and sharing bills with Shinedown and Turnpike Troubadours. Next up are festival appearances including Rocklahoma, Strummingbird Festival and Austin City Limits.
And that’s where this gets particularly interesting for us.
WhiskeyChick’s Take:
I have spent enough years around country music to know that the minute everybody starts arguing about what genre a band belongs to, there’s usually something interesting happening.
Dexter and The Moonrocks piss off the honky tonkers and don’t satisfy the metal purists? Good. We don’t need 20 more Texas bands that sound just like the last 20 Texas acts. What makes Red Dirt and this region’s music scene so damned special is the constant evolution of sound while the attitude stays just the same.
Some of the best music happens when neither side knows which gate they’re supposed to keep.
“Western Space Grunge” sounds ridiculous until you hear the band, and then somehow it makes perfect sense. There is Texas in there. There’s grunge. There’s alt-rock. There’s enough Southern dirt under the fingernails to make them familiar to country-adjacent audiences, but they’re clearly not asking Nashville for permission to belong anywhere.
More importantly, they’re finding an audience without sanding those edges down.
Genre arguments matter a whole lot less when thousands of people already know every word.
That’s why I’m particularly curious about seeing Dexter and The Moonrocks at Rocklahoma over Labor Day weekend. Streaming numbers tell you you’ve got attention. Radio charts tell you you’ve got momentum. A Platinum plaque tells you you’ve crossed a measurable milestone.
A festival crowd tells you whether you’ve got a band, and being booked for Rocklahoma instead of it’s redneck twin Born & Raised is absolutely the right move for these guys. The audience has a lot of overlap but the potential to explode in popularity is higher at Rocklahoma.
Rocklahoma is also about as good a laboratory as you could ask for. It’s loud, hot, rowdy and full of rock fans who aren’t obligated to care about whatever is currently trending online. In fact, metalheads are very rarely chronically online like the country kids. You have to earn that crowd in real time.
A viral song can get people to the stage. What happens when the amps turn on tells you whether they’ll still care five years from now.
That’s the part I want to see firsthand.
The timing makes it even better. Rocklahoma lands roughly a month before Friends That I Don’t Like arrives October 2, which means we’re catching Dexter and The Moonrocks right in that fascinating window between breakout band and full-length-album band. Maybe we hear more of the record. Maybe “It’s A Lot” hits completely differently with a festival crowd wrapped around it. Either way, I’ll be paying attention.
Dexter and The Moonrocks say they don’t particularly care whether you call them country, grunge, alternative or Southern rock.
After the year they’re having, I don’t think anybody should be asking them to choose.
The bands worth watching aren’t always the ones that fit the format. Sometimes they’re the ones forcing the format to make room.
Friends That I Don’t Like arrives October 2 via Severance Records/Big Loud Rock. Leave the Cheeze-its at home. I’ll bring the Goldfish 😉
