Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, who are scheduled to play at Hopscotch 2025 , have evolved their take on country music
by David Menconi | photography by Eamon Queeney

Early in its existence, Blue Cactus seemed like a pretty standard-issue country band. The Chapel Hill duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez played stately countrypolitan, a throwback to the 1970s with classic country themes. “I Never Knew Heartache (Then I Knew You)” was a punchline worthy of Tammy Wynette herself, one of many on the group’s 2017 debut album Blue Cactus.

Blue Cactus actually had similar parenthetical one-liner titles for more than half its songs, “I Can’t Remember (To Forget You),” “Not Alone (‘Till You Come Home)” and “So Right (You Got Left)” among them. The music was more than promising, but it was as if the songs emerged from a writing exercise, which wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Starting to write a song with the title first is an explicit, tried-and-true classic country thing,” says Arnez. “That can help with the writing, to know where you’re going through the whole process. It was fun, but it eventually felt like running into a wall.”

Blue Cactus circa 2025 is a vastly different band in spirit as well as sound from these origins. Stewart and Arnez call their music “cosmic Americana,” setting Stewart’s plainspoken voice among atmospheric arrangements landing somewhere near 1970s-vintage Fleetwood Mac at its dreamiest.

Believer (Sleepy Cat Records), the third and newest Blue Cactus LP, glides into the stratosphere with waves of guitar ambience while retaining Stewart’s sharp wordplay. The lyrics “I don’t know if I’m getting better, if I’m getting worse, but I’m getting by,” from album opener “This Kind of Rain” is just one of many memorable soundbites.

“I’m really proud of those guys,” says Sleepy Cat co-founder Gabe Anderson, who is also one of the group’s regular drummers. “Steph has always been able to write timeless, classic country lyrics that make you think and have a clever punchline hook, and Mario’s arrangements always bring a nice, crooked element to the tunes. The last two records, they’ve had more of the big rock sound creeping into the spaciness. I think Steph and Mario have both really found their voice.”

Born and raised in the small town of Catawba, Stewart grew up listening to classic country music and the female-centered folk-pop of the late-1990s Lilith Fair tours. Arnez grew up in Florida before moving to North Carolina, citing everything from Nirvana to “Weird Al” Yankovic as formative influences. 

Eventually they came together in Stewart’s first band, Steph Stewart & the Boyfriends, whose initial lineup featured original Squirrel Nut Zippers bassist Don Raleigh. The Boyfriends lineup shifted over time until it was down to just Stewart and Arnez, at which point they changed their name to Blue Cactus and went harder in a country direction. 

While Arnez sang lead on a number of songs on Blue Cactus, now he makes most of his contributions on the instrumental side. “Push come to shove,” he says, “I’m happy to just shut up and play my guitar.”

“These songs were mostly written during a period of time when I hoped things were going to get better,” Stewart says. “It was during the pandemic and I was having a lot of chronic health problems, trying to figure out what to do at a time when we couldn’t play live. I was feeling lost before eventually coming around to feeling like we’d be all right. That’s what music does. Good music is medicine for people.”

Blue Cactus has been on a steadily upward trajectory in recent years, recording three albums, each an evolution of its predecessor, with a revolving cast of players from the Sleepy Cat orbit. Landmarks achieved this year include starring on an episode of the PBS series Shaped By Sound in the spring, followed by a six-week tour over the summer — their most extended stretch to date.

Their fall schedule includes performing at this month’s alternative-leaning Hopscotch Music Festival, then the Americana festival Raleigh Wide Open the first weekend in October. More new songs are already starting to percolate, but the agenda for the rest of this year will be mostly live shows and promotion of the Believer album.

“I’m grateful this record is out there,” Stewart says. “Some of these songs have been there for me when I was going through difficult times. I’m glad to share them with other people, maybe have them be there for anyone else going through some things, too. At the same time, we’re writing new stuff, already feeling like we can’t wait to get to the next record. 

This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.