Official MusicFest Artist

American Aquarium
Years at MusicFest:
9
Releases:
Things Change (2018), Live at Terminal West (2016), Wolves (2015), Burn.Flicker.Die (2012), Live in Raleigh (2012), Small Town Hymns (2010), Dances for the Lonely (2009), Bones (2008), The Bible & The Bottle (2008), Antique Hearts (2006)

Frontman BJ Barham is still singing about the lessons, stories, and lives that define rural America and his tiny Reidsville hometown. Stacked with BJ’s signature storytelling, American Aquarium’s seventh studio album Things Change offers the band’s finest collection of folk-infused Southern rock-and-roll to date. The new songs question and curse current events, share one man’s intimate evolution, and leave listeners with a priceless gift: hope. BJ’s candor has fueled American Aquarium’s runaway appeal, visible most clearly in consistently sold-out shows across the country and throughout Europe. Featuring a new band lineup that includes Shane Boeker on lead guitar, drummer Joey Bybee, bassist Ben Hussey, and Adam Kurtz on pedal steel and electric guitar, as well as a reinvigorated frontman in BJ, Things Change is American Aquarium’s first release on a label after selling thousands of records on their own. Recorded at 3CG Records in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the band worked with producer and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter John Fulbright and features cameos from Americana standouts including John Moreland and Jamie Lin Wilson.