American Aquarium w/ Joshua Ray Walker

AMERICAN AQUARIUM
In the lush tobacco fields of North Carolina where BJ Barham was raised, people work hard. Families stay nearby, toiling and growing together. BJ loves those farms and his tiny Reidsville hometown, but he had to run off and start American Aquarium, a band now beloved by thousands.

BJ couldn’t stay. But he couldn’t really leave, either: he’s still singing about the lessons, stories, and lives that define rural America––and him.

“I moved to the big city to go to college and fell in love with music,” BJ says. “But half the songs on our record are about small towns––little pieces of my childhood. I’ve had moments where it turns out a piece of broken English my father repeated twice a week is the most accurate way to say something. So I put it in a song.”

American Aquarium’s seventh studio album Things Change offers the band’s finest collection of folk-infused Southern rock-and-roll to date. Stacked with BJ’s signature storytelling––always deeply personal but also instantly relatable––the record questions and curses current events, shares one man’s intimate evolution, and leaves listeners with a priceless gift: hope.

JOSHUA RAY WALKER

RAISED ON THE MUSIC OF THE SMOKEY MOUNTAINS, JOSHUA RAY WALKER TOOK A PRECARIOUS PATH BACK TO TRADITIONAL COUNTRY MUSIC. ONE FORGED BY MUSICAL EXPLORATION AND LIFE EXPERIENCES THAT MOST HIS AGE HAVE NOT YET ENDURED. HE HAS PLAYED HIS SONGS ON STAGES ALL ACROSS TEXAS AND BEYOND, ENTHRALLING LISTENERS WITH HIS BRAND OF MELODIC, CHARACTER-DRIVEN WRITING WHICH PUTS A NEW SPIN ON TRADITIONAL STORY-TELLING COUNTRY.