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Unleashed by the monstrous single, "Freaking Out," Dexter & the Moonrocks have reason to feel like their new life, status, and success is "a lot," because, like their stellar new single “It's A Lot," it most certainly is. Comprised of childhood companions from Texas, they’ve created a reunion of big radio rock energy and underclass lyrical honesty that hasn’t been pertinent for over a decade. Unearthed, their music is a pinprick of realism, a heavy nod of acknowledgment to an audience dealing with the fallout of the American dream falling out of focus, but finding hope despite it.

We love to credit the rockstars who want to be in their backyards. Fenced in emotionally, purposefully, surrounded by friends and family, pacing the day by the sun overhead and the sounds of kids till dusk captures the light again. A sucker for beautiful vignettes, this one painted by James Tuffs, we spoke to the front man himself about his latest single before a late night taping, and we deeply enjoyed his generosity of storytelling, all captured here:

OnesToWatch: Congrats on Jimmy Fallon. My first question is, why are you an artist? 

Dexter & the Moonrocks: Dude, to be honest, I remember as a kid, it was the first thing where my friends were like, you could be worse at that, dude. Like, you're not that bad. I thought of myself as someone who was gonna be a musician one day, but not to this extent, this all seems ridiculous. 

Was there anything else competing for your interest creatively as an outlet, as a thought starter for potentially having a career, or was it always just music? 

Funnily enough, I wanted to be in the NBA so bad. Believe it or not, it didn't take that long for me to realize that was never going to happen. 

Just give him a shot, coach. Pivoting to the band formation.
I've always celebrated bands. I think that's a little harder to do now and there's a whole new dynamic in writing and working with people. How did you decide to start a band rather than pursue a solo music career? 

When it comes to forming the band, the lead guitarist is my best friend and the dude who taught me how to play the guitar. We graduated together. The bass player is his cousin. The drummer we met at a college close to home. It's crazy luck. 

Another way of putting that is that you stuck with it. 

Yeah. I wrote a handful of songs, and someone without telling me entered me in some sort of contest. There was some dude starting up some “record label,” heavy on the quotes, and he was like, “I can see you doing this one day.” I called Ryan, who was the best musician I knew – still is – I was like, dude, drop out of college, let's do this thing. And he did. He really did. Then we called his cousin and said, go buy a bass guitar and learn that shit right now. And he did. So it's funny, dude. 


I love it. And I think this is the way a band should be put together, not by professionals and auditions. What is your writing process like as a group? Do you guys have roles? 

We've tried a bunch of methods and we're still learning, obviously. I'm a melody first guy, I need to find a good hook or I feel like I'm wasting time. But there’s always something different, man. We're just making what we're happy with and I can't believe that we have such incredible fans that are rocking with us. 

Let's talk about the album announcement, Friends That I Don't Like. I think we've touched on some of these friends already. Specific to this upcoming record, was there something unique about its creation?

It was unique because it was us realizing that this is our debut album. Everything else had been EPs and singles, so the importance of that is so surreal. You feel it in the middle of making it and it could go one or 2 ways. You could write way worse shit because you feel the pressure, or step up to the plate. I felt the best I ever had in a creative way, writing at the studio and all the tracking, I think we're all really happy with how it came out. 

I also find self-editing so interesting. It's not really spoken about a lot, but deciding what to add or take out from an album is pretty tough, right? How did that come together for this debut of yours? 

We had a lot of songs written, but a lot of them we didn't feel were cohesive with what we were trying to do for our debut album. So a lot of it was, like I said, being written, knowing we are writing our debut album. It didn't feel like just writing songs. We wrote an album at the studio and we've never done anything close to that. It has all been songs I wrote when I was 19 that were good enough to record. But this album, we got together and wrote an album. It was an awesome experience. 

Beautiful. Do you guys, as a group, have an ambition for this record? Is there something you really want to take away from it personally? Do you want your audience to take something specific from it? 

It's very personal, these songs mean a lot to us and we just want them released into the ether. We have no expectations in terms of performance of the album. We're just happy to have an album. For the fans, it's just, literally, that I hope that they can twist the words and make it make sense and correlate to their life in any way. That's why I don't typically say what a song is about because I let people come to it. 

I always love that. 

And you deserve to believe it's about you, dude. 

Let's talk about the lead single, “It’s a Lot.” Why did you decide to make that the launching point for the album? 

It’s so in your face, it sounded like a single to us. We had just released a song called “If You Could Talk,” and that was very personal and not super in your face. It felt like a full 180. You might not know what to expect, but we have more songs than “Freaking Out.” 

It's the song of the year, according to Hits magazine. 

Honestly, that song's in Fortnite, so I'm happy. 


On that note, let’s pivot to some more fun questions. When you're at your most zen, your most calm, where are you and what are you doing? 

I'm with my family. I'm a homebody. I don't like to travel. I don't like big groups of people. 

You're gonna be a great touring musician. 


I picked the right line of work for sure. But yeah, I have a wife and a son. You could lock me in like a property with them plus my parents and siblings and I would be good. I would never have to leave. 

What does it look like, you and your family hanging?

Video games, movies, cartoons. We're all foodies. So, you know, we'll talk about food while eating food while thinking about food. 

If you were to curate a festival, what is your dream lineup? 


My favorite band of all time, Death Cab For Cutie. Modest Mouse is another one, Deftones. My parents were really young when they had me and they raised me on some really cool music. 

Last couple of questions. Let's get into food. So who is the band cook? 

It's the lead guitarist. It's not even close and it's funny because I used to work in a kitchen. If you're ever in Throckmorne, go eat a Fowler's burger because it's the best burger in Texas. Get the jalapeno bun. But the cook of the band is Ryan. He will try anything. He's a great cook. He makes baller pasta. 

I was going to ask, if you guys were celebrating something, do you have a go-to meal or restaurant? 

I like seafood. And honestly, I have a hot take. We're talking about food. I have a hot take. Steak isn't a Top 50 food. It's not. It's literally not. And pizza isn't top 15. 
Those are both criminally overrated. 

The steak thing I can kind of get, even just environmentally, but pizza's a little tougher… So are you saying American style pizza or just all pizza generally? 


All pizza… like, dude, you're trying to tell me you can't name 15 foods better than pizza? I genuinely feel like that's hard to believe. 

Give me your top 5 food. 


Oh man, okay. Sushi is my favorite. A lobster roll is better than pizza. 

Okay, but here's my hot take on lobster rolls. It is just a butter delivery system. 

Okay, then, butter's better than pizza.
Hot dogs are the vice versa. are criminally underrated. Why are they not talked about just as much as burgers? 


I'm assuming the nitrates, but it's also a good way to use everything from an animal, right? 

Hot dogs are up there. 

I feel like you and I could talk for food forever. What about a dream venue or a place to visit? 

In terms of a dream venue, a lot of people who have my job, they want to play Red Rocks, and that's mine, too. I've seen pictures and it looks insane. In terms of visiting somewhere, my mom was born and raised in the UK. I've never been over there, I need to go. 

Last couple of questions. I would love a recommendation that's not music. And then you can probably presuppose the next one, which is a music rec.

It's gonna be video game related. Pow World is so much better than any Pokemon game that is out right now. It's not even close. It's like Pokemon with guns, but just better. If you like survival games, play the game Pow World. 

Awesome, how bout a music rec? 

There's this band called Showroom. My parents listen to a lot of super underground stuff, but on CDs and whatnot, so I need to check how many monthly listeners this band has on Spotify. 49 monthly listeners, dude. It's ridiculous. I love it. Listen to their song “Clarity.” 
They're phenomenal. 

Lastly, I just want to end on anything you want to end on. Advice, shout-outs, anything. 

Dude, I just... especially with what's going on, I'm dealing with crazy imposter syndrome to the point where it's hilarious. This is all literally funny. Like, we have somehow convinced the world that we are important, and that's funny. There's no good advice to give, man. Don't get arrested. Don't be mean to people. 

Thank you so much. 

This was absolutely a blast.