James Tuffs of Dexter and The Moonrocks performs during 2026 Austin City Limits Music Festiva at Zilker Park on October 04, 2026, in Austin, Texas.
Erika Goldring/WireImage
It wasn’t that long ago that Texas’ Dexter and the Moonrocks were driving six hours to make $300 in a “shitty bar,” working manual labor jobs, posting their music and promoting their shows on TikTok. But now there’s the single “Freakin’ Out” (212 million Spotify streams and counting with 28 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100), a set on Austin City Limits Music Festival’s main stage, and an actual tour bus.
“And at the same time, we’re still one-hit wonders,” lead singer and guitarist James Tuffs said before their Sunday set at ACL Fest. “Even if we have four more platinum songs, doesn’t matter,” drummer James Fox echoed.
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Dexter and the Moonrocks, made up of Tuffs, Fox, Ryan Anderson and bassist Ty Anderson, all from West Texas’ Throckmorton County (population: 1,639), are undeniably having a banner year. If you weren’t tuned into years of their TikTok music promotion, sincerely attempting to get a Cheez-Its sponsorship and instead (?) making a wall of “hot alt girls,” it may seem like they came out of nowhere and landed on Jimmy Fallon. But they bristle at the idea that they’re “industry plants”—an accusation that’s become more frequent from drop-in internet commenters.
“Just because you haven’t been paying attention, it doesn’t mean we haven’t been working, you know what I mean?” Fox said.
Their debut album Friends That I Don’t Like, released Oct. 2, has a distinct nostalgic rock feel, like songs you would have listened to in your high school friend’s busted Honda Accord. It’s part of the band’s appeal in this age, where commenters are celebrating that “white boys are making rock music again.” That sound isn’t something they keep in mind while writing—they consider the “red dirt” rock-country of Koe Wetzel, Turnpike Troubadours and Cross Canadian Ragweed as more inspiration—but if someone thinks they sound like “divorced dad rock,” who are they to argue?
“We just make music we wanna listen to,” Ryan Anderson said. “I think the second we start having an agenda when we’re trying to write songs, that’s when you get lesser music.”
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“But that’s an avenue for how we can pitch the song,” Fox said. “That’s more where the world building comes in as opposed to like us sitting around the room and James being like, ‘you know what, I’ve really been thinking about we need a Nickelback song.’ We’ve never done that.”
Musical guests Dexter and The Moonrocks pose backstage at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026.
NBC/Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Image
During the band’s 2:45 p.m. Sunday set on the American Express stage at ACL Fest, the crowd, which undoubtedly included fans who found the band through TikTok, embraced Dexter and the Moonrock’s “white boy rock” sound with mosh pits and screamed lyrics (especially to “Freakin’ Out”). Rain and mud be damned—”what a beautiful, s–tty day” Tuffs said from the stage.
But the band isn’t fully celebrating. They’re pretty tired, and Fox notes they haven’t seen their families in six months. For the rest of the year, they’ve got several shows in Australia; the tour promoting Friends That I Don’t Like, which includes two sold-out Austin shows at Emo’s; and no real break until late December.
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“We signed up for this,” Fox said. “They said, like, ‘If y’all wanna do what this takes when ‘Freakin’ Out’ happens, like the rest of the year is gonna f–king suck.'”
And then Fox thinks back to the 12-hour drives, the sleeping in vans, the time Ryan Anderson drove from a show in Corpus Christi to get back to work staining concrete in Wichita—when $5,000 for a trailer felt like an unimaginable expense.
Smart, funny and sometimes unhinged look at the week that was.
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“I think these last six months have been like, ‘OK, if we put the pedal to the metal and really care about the fanbase that we’ve gotten, it’ll set us up,'” Fox said.
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Right now, before 2:45 p.m. on the first Sunday of the festival, they’re still worried no one will show up to their ACL set. It all feels “surreal,” and the album seems to be doing well (“no one seems to be making fun of us,” Ryan Anderson notes).
Exhaustion and anxiety aside: “We’re not suffering by any means,” Ryan Anderson said. “It’s the best job in the world, but it’s a job.”