Interview: Getting “Sad in Carolina” With Dexter and the Moonrocks

Afterglow catches up with the alternative outlaws to talk about their Western Space Grunge EP, Austin City Limits Festival debut, and upcoming East Coast tour.

Written by C.S. Harper

Dexter and the Moonrocks needs no introduction. Since the Abilene-hailing quartet first crossed paths with Afterglow last February, they’ve blasted off to cult status. Armed with the power of Cheez-Its, the foursome has gotten a record deal, released their sophomore EP, and regularly yearned for hot tattooed women on their viral TikTok page. Ahead of the band’s ACL Festival debut and ‘Eastern Space Grunge’ tour, Afterglow met with the country-rock stars to reflect on their rising fame and near-future plans.

Afterglow: Since our interview last year, I’ve been following y'all online and witnessing your rise in popularity. How has it been experiencing so much growth in the past year?

James (lead singer): It’s been super cool.

Fox (drummer): Yeah, it’s weird…. I was just talking to James about this last night. It feels like it's all … starting to snowball where the days of having half-filled rooms are getting smaller and smaller. And it's weird that 1,000 tickets — I think we're gonna do close to that tonight — isn’t like, ‘holy shit’ anymore.

Fox: Like it's still ‘holy shit,’ but … now it's normal, where it's like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what we do now.’ And so it's happening real fast, and it's really cool.

How does it feel to be spreading the Western space grunge gospel outside of Texas, especially with the East Coast tour coming up?

Fox: It feels pretty sick. It's cool to see that we're making awesome stuff that people want to listen to. And it's very validating that we feel a certain way, and so we're trying to express that. Everybody's like, ‘Oh yeah, we feel this way too. This is awesome. Keep doing this.’ There's a space for all the weirdos and, you know, to steal from Cody Jinks, ‘the hippies and the cowboys out there.’ And it's working real well.

James: Lawsuit! See you in court, Cody. We apologize.

It’s cool to see that your music speaks to people, especially since y’all are so vocal about your blue collar and working class backgrounds. But there’s been some pushback to your music lately — Fox recently made a TikTok responding to someone claiming your music isn’t really “cowboy music.” All of this considered, how do you define your sound and position yourselves in country rock?

Fox: Yeah, I think we want to be in a position that isn't a position … which makes no sense, but I think there's a space where we want to be for everybody that wants something. We're not trying to make music that everybody likes because if you try to make every music that everybody likes, no one's going to love it. So obviously, I think we're going to rub people the wrong way. And the people that are the die-hard Hank Williams, country people are going to be like, ‘This isn't cowboy music,’ and that's going to be what it is. But I think there's a space where … the people who are wearing [cowboy] boots love to listen to Alice in Chains, and the people who are wearing Doc Martens love to listen to Tyler Childers. And we're trying to exist in that space, because that's who we are and what we grew up with. And that's what we mean by cowboy music and Western Space Grunge. It's like music that cowboys would like to listen to, and that … speaks to the depressed and the blue-collar and the working class and kind of stuff like that.

Let’s jump into the music a bit more. Y'all released your second EP, Western Space Grunge, shortly after you got signed. What was the process of getting signed and releasing the EP like?

Ryan (guitarist): Rapid. Confusing for sure. Educational in only scary ways.

James: Overnight millionaires, obviously.

Fox: He means billionaires with a ‘B,’ actually.

James [holding a potted fern]: That’s what I said, yeah…. I have a huge fern collection at the moment.

Fox: Yeah. That’s a million-dollar fern, actually, grown in the Himalayas.

James: It’s insured for a million.

Ryan: It’s just straight poison ivy.

Fox [laughing]: Could you imagine?

James: My fingers are starting to itch, I can’t.

Fox: No, but it's been awesome. The label has been great. They've been a huge help. The support's been awesome, but also, it's been nice to have someone backing you and being like, ‘Hey … here's a little bit bigger of a budget to make cooler sounding shit.’ … I think everybody would be like, ‘Oh, it's so nice to be with the label, because they're wonderful people.’ And they are, but it's also nice to have the authority and money that comes with that … just speaking frankly ….. But they've been really great.I think “Sad in Carolina”’s number 11 on the [Alternative Airplay Billboard chart] right now…. Hopefully, [it] might get up there and might make it all the way to the top — who knows? But that's been really cool.

Fox: And then we went to a place called Sonic Ranch with this guy, Ryan Hewitt, and Louis Remenapp … and that was an awesome experience. It was nine days in, basically — it's literally just summer camp for musicians in El Paso, Texas — and recorded the EP.

James: “Camp Rock,” if you will.

Fox: Yeah, “Camp Rock.” Demi Lovato was there.

Demi Lovato was there! Yeah, that’s a flex. I love how despite growing your audience and playing shows outside of Texas, you’re still uniquely Texan. And your EP still sounds true to your brand, even if it does go into a bit of a heavier rock route than your first release. What was it like evolving your sound for this project?

Fox: Yeah, I think inevitably, [rock is] where we are going. If you look at it, there's no middle class in rock and roll right now. It doesn't exist, like there's no one that's been a band for three years and is selling 5000 tickets. You either have the legacy acts like Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, … who are doing big arenas, or you have the people who were massive in the 2000s but have kind of fallen off, and they're doing the theaters. So there's not really a middle class. But in country, there is, if you look at Treaty Oak Revival — Koe Wetzel’s gotten a lot bigger now — but if you look at those people from Texas that are making it. It's almost like Texas rock and roll is what it's becoming.

Ryan: And the room we recorded in took us there immediately. The gear that was there that was owned by the people beforehand — you don't pick that up and not play rock, I guess. There’s a lot of energy that was there before we even got there that just helped make that a part of it, too.

Fox: And I think a lot of things that people miss too, is [that] cowboy doesn't have to mean country, you know…. We've never been like, ‘We're a country band.’ I think — like we have a lot of influences from there — but I think there's plenty of … people that I grew up with that were ranchers or road horses, or there's actually someone at a summer camp who was the stable director that loved, like — loved, loved, loved — just grunge and ‘90s. So, it just is what it is, you know?

We’ve talked in the past about how being a cowboy isn’t just a look — it’s also about embodying that energy. How do y’all think of you embody cowboyhood?

James: I like to think of myself as more of a drugstore cowboy. I like to go in there and talk to the real cowboys. You know, flash my spurs, spitting buckets.

Fox [laughing]: You got a bandana.

James: Fine cut snuff.

Fox: Yeah, I think it's more just being from Texas…. I didn't grow up in West Texas, but it's a very big part of me. I went to college there. I lived there for a long time, right? And they’re [points at his bandmates] from there.

Ryan: You don’t wanna be on record saying you’re a cowboy.

Fox: Yeah ... it's not necessarily being like we are [cowboys]. I think it's more just like West Texas culture…. It's a lot easier for people to get online to be like, ‘Oh, sad cowboy music.’ That's like, an easy three-word thing that someone understands what that means, versus being like, ‘Well, it's West Texas culture that comes from Texas.’ That's just a long sentence where people are like, ‘I don't know what the fuck you're telling me.’ So [like] Ryan [was] saying, I don't think we're ever being like, ‘Oh, this is what we're doing.’ And, you know, we're not living on ranches and doing stuff like that. But I think we've been around a lot of people that are like that, and it's just a part of our history and our [upbringing], and that's more what that means than roping, and riding, and doing that shit.

Of course, that makes total sense. And it’s very refreshing to see that y’all haven’t lost that authenticity and never take yourselves too seriously as musicians. How do you guys keep in touch with the essence of your brand?

Fox: It's because we always expected to be here, but we didn't really know that — you always think you're gonna play stadiums, and then you start getting to the point where it's like, ‘Fuck, we might actually play one,’ and you're like, ‘Oh, shit. What's that gonna be like?’ Playing in front of 100 people is awesome, so playing in front of 10,000 is even better. And it's just gonna be like, ‘Yeah, this is who we are.’ And we got here by being ourselves, so I don't think we're really ever gonna change.

James: Also, playing for zero people's awesome.

Fox: Yeah! Just playing music. We just enjoy playing music.

James: We don't have to intentionally stay that way, I don't think. It's just how it's going to be.

Fox: Everybody grew up either wanting to be a rockstar, an athlete, or, you know, John Wayne. And there weren't many opportunities for us to fucking be John Wayne and none of us made it to the league. So we're kind of doing the next best thing and trying to do that. And that's, you know, what we're trying to encapsulate more with the cowboy stuff. Because I think everybody in West Texas wishes they were fucking Clint Eastwood in “The Good, Bad and the Ugly.” But how realistic is that? Not really. And so it's for all the people that are like, ‘Damn, I wish I could have done this, but now I have to live in West Texas and fucking be an accountant.’ And that's kind of what everything's for.

Going back to “Sad in Carolina,” what was the process of creating that song like?

James: Well, you work with a guy named Ryan Hewitt — Louis included — you are bound to make some magic.

Fox: It's a lot of, ‘Let's just try the dumbest thing we can think of, and then work backwards and something's gonna sound cool.’

Ryan: We make music that we wanna listen to. Not in a selfish way, but yeah. But back to Ryan and Louis … they push you, but without you realizing you're being pushed. It naturally makes you want to do better, I guess. So that we owe a lot of the cool sounds to them.

Fox: And they're wizards at getting tones and mic-ing things and putting vocals and just effects. And they're so good at their job that way that it just transports it to just another [level]. And they somehow are able to keep the raw, like idiocy of it all, but make it feel really professional at the same time.

James: They might be actual wizards.

Fox: Yeah, it's like a mullet. They're very like, business in the front, party in the back.

Speaking of polishing things up, you recently re-recorded some of your older songs, “She Likes Girls” and “Autopilot.” What made you decide to revisit these tracks?

Fox: Itwas just because we saw what Louis and Hewitt could do, and we really, really liked those songs. And Ty originally did them, and he did just a fucking phenomenal job with them. And I think we were like, ‘Okay, we could take these to the next level.’ And these are songs that a lot of people really like, but I think a lot of people maybe were turned off by a lot of the rawness of it…. We re-recorded it and got it to a little bit more where it could be played on the radio, or it could have a moment, because it's more appealing to the wider people. And we were like, ‘Fuck it. Let's just try it.’ It worked out well, I guess.

It absolutely did! To wrap up, could you tell me more about your most recent single, “Like You (Like You)?”

Fox: Well, Ryan wrote it in 45 minutes in his room, and then he came out and he wanted to try the song, and then we played it. And we went, ‘This is a banger!’

Ryan: And it’s about hating your job. Not this job, but your day job.

Very on-brand for Dexter and the Moonrocks!

Fox: The whole thing's awesome…. There [were] supposed to be seven songs on the EP, and then our label [was] like, ‘Hey, technically, if you put out seven songs, it becomes an album instead of an EP. So this would be your debut album.’ And we were like, ‘Oh, we don't want to do that,’ because we wanted to actually do a full-length [album]. So we were like, ‘Okay, what if we just put six songs and pick what we think the second-best song is’ — because we really loved “Sad in Carolina” — and leave that off and then release it a month and a half later. And so that's what we're doing with “Like You (Like You).” Like, in [parentheses]. Parenthesis is important.

And speaking of hating your day jobs, are y’all still working nine-to-five gigs?

Fox: No, no, no, this is full-time.

Awesome! Now that the EP is out, what are your future plans?

Fox: Yeah, we’ve got a northeast tour coming up that we're really excited for. We love going to the northeast. It feels like home. Going to the Carolinas again, which “Sad in Carolina” makes [the Carolinas] feel like home. And then we're in the process of [recording] another EP, … and then we really want to do a full-length. We have the songs, [but] we haven't had the time to take three weeks and actually do a full-length. And then 2025, we're going to hit all of our favorite places over again and tour everywhere. And Florida too, because they have been bugging us about that.

Sounds great! Anything else fans should know?

Fox: That’s about it — just [stream] “Like You (Like You),” and we got a tour coming up, so go check that out!

Stream “Like You (Like You)” on Apple Music and Spotify. Contribute to the band’s “Support in Carolina” fundraiser to benefit Hurricane Helene survivors and check out their ‘Eastern Space Grunge’ tour on Instagram.