Blues on Fire: Ian Moore, Jesse Dayton & Johnny Moeller Unite to Launch the Ultimate Texas Supergroup Revival

Texas Headhunters 

NEW SUPERGROUP FEATURING
IAN MOORE, JESSE DAYTON, AND JOHNNY MOELLER
LIGHTS THE FUSE ON A TEXAS BLUES REVIVAL

​Release date: August 22, 2025
​

​Tracked live over five blistering days at Willie Nelson’s legendary Pedernales Studio, Texas Headhunters delivers a dozen raw, razor-edged tracks that hit like a gut punch. This isn’t nostalgia—it’s a full-throttle blues revival. Stripped-down, snarling, and lived-in, this record burns with the kind of heat you can’t fake.

At the helm is Grammy-winning engineer and co-producer Steve Chadie (Willie Nelson, Los Lonely Boys), whose no-BS approach captured the band’s live-wire chemistry—smoky, gritty, and as potent as a backroom shot of mezcal.

The debut single, “Maggie Went Back to Mineola,” sets the tone. Written by Jesse Dayton, it’s a hard-luck story of sin, survival, and second chances. “A girl from Mineola goes to Dallas and becomes a stripper,” Dayton explains. “She gets into all this stuff, then comes home to work at Dollar General and try to go to church. That’s Ian on lead.” Fueled by swampy grooves and razor-sharp guitars, it echoes the dirty swagger of early ZZ Top—tailor-made for blasting out of open windows on a Texas highway.

The magic? It’s all in the mix. Ian Moore’s psychedelic soul. Johnny Moeller’s deep-pocket sting. Jesse Dayton’s outlaw grind. Three distinctive voices—each writing, each singing, each capable of lighting the fuse. But they also know when to hold back, let the groove breathe, and let the blues do what it does best: simmer, swing, and sting.

About Texas Headhunters
Born out of Austin’s blues legacy, Texas Headhunters brings together three giants of the scene—Ian Moore, Jesse Dayton, and Johnny Moeller—for something far more than a side project. This is a mission.

Moore, the guitar virtuoso who once opened for Dylan and the Stones, carved his own genre-bending path across soul, blues, and psychedelia. Dayton, the Beaumont native and Renaissance outlaw, has done it all—from punk bands to country stages, horror film scores to modern blues chart-toppers. And Moeller? He’s the groove king of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, a quiet assassin with tone for days.
​
All three cut their teeth under the watchful eye of Clifford Antone, and as Antone’s celebrates its 50th anniversary, Texas Headhunters arrives as a torchbearer for that timeless sound. “We all grew up on that vibe,” says Moore. “The Tailgators, LeRoi Brothers, the T-Birds, Stevie. The Austin blues scene was just cool—and that’s what we’re chasing here.”
​

​Website: 
txhh.live