We’ve always loved the combination of things that are really beautiful (like a desert sunrise) or really dark. There’s a lot of that in this band…’  OC WEEKLY.

So says Eric Miller assessing their new EP ‘Dark Country,’ an impressive manifestation of richly evocative song craft that has established Cactus Graves as a creative force.

Over the course of various EPs, and placements in such outlets as TV’s Sons of Anarchy, Yellowstone, Alone, and Californication, Graves has built a body of work that marks them as original.

The East California-based band writes timeless, vividly detailed character studies, tapping into the emotional lives of various misfits, outsiders and troubled souls with insight and compassion.

His songwriting is matched by singer Alex Watson— his rough-hewn, deeply expressive voice, and by his distinctive instrumental arrangements, which are simultaneously intimate and epic. Graves’ songs, recordings, and Western imagery have struck a chord with a large and diverse fan base, and won praise from critics across the media spectrum.

NPR’s All Songs Considered hailed Cactus Graves as a “Frontier Storyteller,” while a recent cover story in the Times’ Sunday entertainment section noted, “Watson’s baritone echoes with villains and misfits, drunks and philistines.  It curls through loneliness, sets out on crooked desert highways. It is an American voice cured in war and betrayal— where the spectral bleeds into dreams.

“With this EP, I really wanted to get back to songs,” Miller states.

“We’re just trying to write good songs that make people feel something.”

BIO