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American Aquarium returns to Black Cat |
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
by LINDSAY CRAVEN
Lifestyles Reporter
A new sound in country music is coming to Black Cat Burrito Saturday night.
Raleigh natives, American Aquarium return to Boone for their second performance at Black Cat and promise to give students a show they can’t find anywhere else.
“American Aquarium started out a couple years ago. It actually started my junior year of high school with a couple friends of mine…but that really didn’t work because there was a lot of conflict,” lead vocalist BJ Burnham said. “The project really got a lot of steam about a year and a half ago when we put together the band we’re currently in and started touring a lot.”
The band played 175 shows last year and will play 250 shows by the end of 2008.
“None of us were friends before this band. We put together a really
good band and then we all became friends,” Burnham said. “We’re all
best friends now.”
The band met through other bands they weren’t happy with or while looking for another band to become part of.
The band attributes its unique blend of country and rock to the music each member was raised on.
“A lot of the buzz around Raleigh is really hardcore and we weren’t
really into that kind of stuff… We’re all really big fans and grew up
on rock,” Burnham said. “I was raised on country like [Hank Williams,
Sr.] and Merle Haggard and the whole country scene that started here in
Raleigh… From the early to mid ‘90s really influenced a lot of our
sound.”
American Aquarium’s latest album “Bible and the Bottle” will be
released April 26 and the band is very proud of the talent it worked
with on the album.
“It’s a new studio record. We recorded it with Greg Elkins. He did some
work with Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams, and Caitlin Cary from Whiskeytown
actually did all the background vocals on our record,” Burnham said.
“It has 11 songs about one of my past relationships.”
American Aquarium will also release an EP titled “Bones,” which was recorded in the band’s living room over one night.
The band does all of its own recording and distribution of its albums.
“We’ve been very well received. Of course, if you think you’re going to
put a record out yourself and get it in stores then you’re sadly
mistaken,” Burnham said. “I was the manager of a record store for five
years and the record industry is a very sad, sad industry.”
American Aquarium also posts its songs for purchase on all major music download Web sites.
The band cites its influences as Ryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, Drive By Truckers and Bob Dylan.
“We have a lot of different stuff on the iPod when we travel. It all
comes down to people who are honest with themselves,” Burnham said.
“You can hear when somebody’s being honest and when somebody’s just
being a pretentious writer. We’re just really big fans of serious
songwriters.”
Burnham thinks he would still want to be in the music industry even if he could not be a musician full time.
“I definitely would like to work for a smaller label,” Burnham said. “I
do all of our booking, so I would probably be a booking agent for
independent bands if I wasn’t doing this full time.”
American Aquarium leaves our readers with a few words of encouragement to make it to the show this Saturday night.
“It will be a drunken good time. We’re definitely known for our live
shows. Our live shows are what sells records,” Burnham said. “We’re
wild, we’re loud. It’s not country music that’s going to ever see the
light of radio. It’s not the kind of music you hear your grandpa
listening to. It’s more like punk rock kids who learned how to play
country music.”
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