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Blue Cactus' Sophomore Album

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We're Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez-- Blue Cactus -- partners in life and music based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As individuals and band mates, it has always been about music for us. After eight years of collaboration and three albums under our belt, we have decided to put the music that brought us together at the forefront of our lives and pursue it as a full-time career. Without the steady income of our corporate jobs, this leap can feel scary and uncertain, but ultimately this is what we believe we were put on this earth to do: To bring people together with the music we know and love.

In the summer following our debut album release, we were chosen as artists in residence at Wildacres. For an entire week, we lived in a 100 year-old cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. Mammoth-sized wolf spiders were regular guests, cell phones rarely worked, and we wrote some of the best material in our history of making music together.  These are the songs we will be recording with your help.

We have a clear vision for our next album, and have assembled an inspiring team to help us realize it. At the end of March, we enter the studio to record our fourth record together. In order to fully realize this dream, we are humbly asking for your support.

Up to this point, we have written, recorded and released our music, booked shows, secured press coverage and all other promotional materials, entirely on our own. We were able to fund our past endeavors with day jobs at the expense of being able to pursue our music full-time.

We are motivated more than ever to make Blue Cactus the small business that can support our dreams of making music for a living. We realize that we need to reach beyond ourselves in order to accomplish this. With this album, we aim to garner interest from record labels and booking agents and to move forward with those who can help us on our path to sustainable careers in the music industry.

We are grateful for all of the people who have encouraged us to pursue Blue Cactus as our full-time job. We believe that this new album will open many important doors for us, and we are very excited to begin the recording process. If you have any questions, please reach out to us. We'd love to tell you more!


BLUE TUESDAY RAFFLE:
Every Tuesday this month, at high noon we will raffle off various Blue Cactus-related goods (merch, tickets to a show, and more!)
A new batch of winners will be selected from each week's donors!
Every $10 you donate before noon on Tuesday will enter you in the drawing for a chance to win that week's mystery prize(s)!
Follow Blue Cactus on social media for updates on weekly raffle prizes and winners:
INSTAGRAM 
FACEBOOK 


YOUR DONATION WILL FUND:

* STUDIO FEES (Production, recording, mixing and mastering)- $5200
* SESSION MUSICIANS- $3000
* ALBUM ART + GRAPHIC SET UP- $500
* MANUFACTURING (CD duplication and vinyl pressing)- $3,600
* ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDS will be applied directly to costs associated with releasing the record (i.e. tour expenses, publicity, marketing, etc.)
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Donations 

  • Jonathan Kestler
    • $10 
    • 5 yrs
Donate

Fundraising team (3)

Steph Stewart
Organizer
Raised $1,115 from 33 donations
Chapel Hill, NC
Mike Ferguson
Team member
Raised $1,130 from 5 donations
Mario Arnez
Team member
Raised $110 from 2 donations
This team raised $2,955 from 58 other donations.

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