Teddy and The Rough Riders

Cactus Lee

Cactus Lee is Texas music. It’s Austin nightclub music. Dusty dancefloor cattle call music. It’s rich and referential music, at times childlike and dreamy, all the while steered with wit not unlike John Prine or Tom T. Hall.The project is led by Kevin Dehan, a prolific Austin songwriter who draws inspiration from a wide range of Texas country artists, including outlaws and outsiders. Dehan’s latest release, “Sister,” marks the band’s signing to Western Vinyl. Dehan describes “Sister” as “A feel-good song. It looks yellow and sky blue. It needed cow bell and bright guitars to match. You might listen to it and roll down the windows in your car.”Since 2019, Cactus Lee has released six albums, including two in 2023, a live album, and two EPs. The project has always been a solo endeavor for Dehan, who has written and self-recorded his music on a four-track before assembling various lineups around Austin.In 2022, Dehan performed a solo acoustic set at a laundromat to test songs that would later appear on the Perfect Middle Hall EP. The Austin Chronicle described the recordings as having “fuller production with some new instrumentation [that] fills out Cactus Lee’s hippie folk sound – more Gene Clark than Gene Autry, more Jackson C. Frank than Alan Jackson. Which is to say, the music is more inspired by the dirty realism of Seventies Americana-makers than country counterparts.”2023 saw the release of two albums: Caravan, a full band studio affair recorded with Paul Simon’s producer Kyle Crusham, and Big Red, a lower-fi record that showcased Dehan’s strong songwriting abilities.This year, Cactus Lee toured solo, opened for Jake Xerxes Fussell, and performed a sold-out set in Chicago with The Pink Stones and Tobacco City. The band also assembled a full lineup in Brooklyn for three shows and a WFMU live taping.In Austin, the full band performed at over 10 shows during SXSW, played iconic venues like the Continental Club, Antone’s, C-Boy’s, and The Long Center, and opened for Uncle Lucius.This September, the band has a Friday residency at Sam’s Town Point in Austin, and in November they’ll play a Thursday night residency at Sagebrush in Austin. Additionally, they’ll be appearing at AmericanaFest in Nashville, Marfa’s Flying Island Festival (alongside Bill Callahan and Os Mutantes), and Galveston’s famed listening room Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe.

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