DQE, or Dairy Queen Empire, is a band formed by Atlanta singer/songwriter Grace Braun, ex-Atlanta, current New York City Photographer Chris Verene (current drummer for Cordero) and Zak Sitter, professor of Literature in Cincinatti, drummer for Fat Day.

Currently the band has been performing with Grace's husband Dugan playing drums and Jon Armstrong from The Loud Pissers on bass and other instruments. Grace Braun has also been developing a folk music project drawing inspiration classic English folk music and especially Jackson C. Frank and Nick Drake. The band was founded in 1986 and was featured in the "Destroy All Music" scene revolving around Georgia Tech radio station WREK and local-kinkos-produced fanzine editor Glen Thrasher, located in DQE's backyard of Emory Village (all were children of professors at Emory University). This was a cassette based project, and ended up involving cassettes selling for $1.89 which were either shrinkwrapped to wilted closeout vinyl or sealed in plastic and displayed in water-filled tanks aka 80's watches (at the now hurtin' Tower Records)

The band has continued despite all changes in the currents of indie-rock popularity, largely oblivious of any and all trends. Thus this one of the more honest music acts you could encounter today.

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