American Aquarium - Wolves (2015)

After hard years spent on tour with little to show for it, the North Carolina band American Aquarium fully intended to call it quits after recording the 2012 album “Burn.Flicker.Die.” Instead, the alt-country group found unexpected success—enough to revise their break-up plans and make another record, “Wolves,” which premieres today on Speakeasy.

It’s a collection of 10 scruffy songs shot through with an abundance of roots-rock grit and wistful, road-worn lyrics from singer and guitarist BJ Barham, who calls the album “a huge departure.”

“I wrote happy songs on this record,” he says with a raspy laugh. “I’ve been sober for more than six months now, I’ve been married for three months. Six years ago, if you told me I’d be sober and married and writing love songs, I’d have said you were crazy.”

For starters, American Aquarium spent twice as long in the studio as the musicians ever had before, thanks to a fan-funded Pledgemusic campaign that raised money to record “Wolves.”

“They gave us enough money to go in the studio for 13 days and then we left for a month and went back in for seven more days and fixed all the stuff we didn’t like,” Barham says. “Our fans gave us a major-label record making opportunity without us having to sign our souls away to a major label, and for that, we will always be grateful.”

After a comparatively light tour schedule in 2014 (260 days on the road, instead of the usual 300-plus, Barham says) American Aquarium ramps up again Friday, Jan. 30, in Raleigh, on a run that extends into May.