Dash Rip Rock is the legendary New Orleans trio known for high-octane roots rock. The New York Times says Dash Rip Rock combines “fluency in American roots music with a robust dose of punk-rock spirit.” SPIN praises Dash Rip Rock as “undeniably the South’s greatest rock band.” In 2012 Dash Rip Rock was honored to be inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Dash Rip Rock has long been celebrated for tight musicianship, high energy live shows, and songs of raw insolence and longing that are sometimes cut with whimsy. Bill Davis, Dash Rip Rock’s founder and frontman, is a songwriter known for his blistering guitar work. For over 20 years, the band has amassed a loyal, diverse following. The wide tent of their cross-genre fan base includes aficionados of rock, roots-rock and Americana as well as rockabilly, country, and punk fans. DRR has released 17 records that have been hailed as underground classics.
Bill Davis started the band, and DRR was first signed to 688 and then Mammoth Records. In the ’90s Dash Rip Rock scored a national radio hit, “Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot.” This tongue-in-cheek classic is still played religiously over FM airwaves on counterculture feast days and covered regularly by major rock acts. This Louisiana-based band’s latest records are on Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label in San Francisco and Drag Snake Records in New Orleans.
Dash Rip Rock tours extensively and headlines numerous clubs, festivals, and roots listening rooms. Dash Rip Rock has toured with Reverend Horton Heat and The Cramps and has shared the stage with The Ramones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lou Reed, The Replacements, No Doubt, the Circle Jerks, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Black Crowes, Joe Ely and countless others, at times playing up to 250 shows a year. In 2010 Dash Rip Rock’s song “Johnny Ace” was featured in the hit video game Rock Band. Bill Davis also appeared in the 2011 documentary Outside Industry: The Story of SXSW.
Bill Davis, founder, lead guitarist and vocalist and songwriter of Dash Rip Rock is often credited as a pioneer of "country punk," "cowpunk," and alt-country music that combines elements of rock with country and outlaw country. DRR's latest album "Cherchez La Femme" was released by Drag Snake Records in the fall of 2021.
PRAISE FOR DASH RIP ROCK
WASHINGTON POST
“What lifts Dash Rip Rock’s album a head above most Southern rock is Davis’s ability to write songs that do more than sell beer on Saturday night.”
CREATIVE LOAFING
“Their roots sound’s supercharged with energy and an overdose of irreverence, delivered with crunchy swagger.”
AUSTIN CHRONICLE
“…no one can replace Bill Davis. He’s the brains behind Dash’s brawn, a barroom poet with a wicked sense of humor and a shameless knack for a good lick.”
OFFBEAT MAGAZINE
“Sporting some of Bill Davis’ hardest-hitting songs—and boosted by the best production the band’s had since its early-’90s alliance with the late Jim Dickinson—Black Liquor is the album where the band rocks out in earnest.”
ANTIGRAVITY MAGAZINE
"It's largely criminally unsung bands like Dash Rip Rock that are taking the music to new, and surprisingly subtler, places
without losing the fuck it, let's rock mentality that makes it so infectious in the first place."
TWISTED SOUTH
“The progenitor of cowpunk, band leader Davis has always had a way with twisting the images of deep south life….”
METRO PULSE KNOXVILLE
“The band has outlasted the term cowpunk and seemed destined to survive alt-country; they rock sufficiently hard that nobody’s going to try to file them under Americana. In fact, the rock part of Dash Rip Rock’s country rock has gotten harder as time has passed; last year’s Black Liquor, released by Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles, finds the band more in tune with the Gories and the Oblivians than Mumford and Sons.”
SYNC MAGAZINE
“But through the good-timing catalog of Dash Rip Rock, there are other gems that are the pinnacle of songwriting.”
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
Cowpunk (2023, Drag Snake Records, Whiskey Tan Records)
Cherchez La Femme (2021, Drag Snake Records)
Wrongheaded (2015, Drag Snake Records)
Black Liquor (2012, Alternative Tentacles)
Country Girlfriend (2008, Abitian)
Hee Haw Hell (2007, Alternative Tentacles)
Recyclone (2005, Alternative Tentacles)
Live from the Bottom of the Hill (limited release, 2003)
Sonic Boom (2003, Write On)
Hits and Giggles (2000)
Paydirt (1998, PC Music)
Dash Rip Rock’s Gold Record (1996. Ichiban)
Testosterone (1995, Australian-only release)
Get You Some of Me (1995, Sector Two/Ichiban)
Tiger Town (1993, Doctor Dream)
Boiled Alive (1991, Mammoth)
Not of This World (1990, Mammoth)
Ace of Clubs (1989, Mammoth)
Dash Rip Rock (1987, 688 Records/Mammoth)