Jonny Tex is an indie rock band from Boston, Massachusetts, assembled from the wreckage of a messy country cover act and rebuilt with tighter songs, dry humor, and a steadier hand on the wheel. Their music runs on earnest absurdism and slacker pop precision, Western undertones woven through East Coast restraint. 

Mark of Cain, out May 28 via Austin label Happen Twice, is four songs about men performing as someone larger than themselves: insisting everything’s fine, shutting people out, picking fights with their own reflection. The EP moves through a cast of vignettes — wide-eyed indie rock, alt-western isolation, lovesick indecision, and a Dinosaur Jr.-inspired closer about getting tripped up by jealousy. The whole thing is held together by misguided sincerity and cheap heroism.

Frontman Tex, a former youth pastor in training, writes as someone who mistakes confidence for clarity. The narrator is more amused than sympathetic, and not entirely off the hook himself.

In under a year, the band has opened for Guerrilla Toss, French Cassettes, and The Thing, played six showcases at SXSW 2026, and headlines Boston’s Lilypad on release night.