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American Aquarium, "Clark Ave."

American Aquarium, "Lonely Ain't Easy"

Growing up in North Carolina, BJ Barham listened to a lot of Merle Haggard, George Jones and Hank Williams.

As he got older, he fell in love with rock ’n’ roll. When his band, American Aquarium, takes the stage at the Old Town Pub at 10 p.m. today, both styles of music will be at the forefront of a deeply honest, highly relatable brand of alt-country rock.

“When it comes to playing music, it’s a base of what I grew up on and what I listened to a lot in my teenage years, and it turns into this rock and country thing,” Barham said.

Today’s show will be Ameri­can Aquarium’s first in a Steam­boat Springs venue. The band is on a 10-day tour of Colo­ra­do, its longest stay in the state.

Based in Raleigh, N.C., the guys in American Aquarium have been recording country-leaning rock ’n’ roll music since 2006. Staying true to country roots and rock tastes, the band puts out lyrics like “Lonely ain’t easy/Lonely ain’t kind/Lonely won’t leave me/She’s a good friend of mine” and “Downtown girls look pretty in the bar lights/Downtown girls look pretty after hours/They look trouble, and they taste like gin/But they smell like dogwood flowers.”

“The songs are pretty much about ex-girlfriends and drinking to get over ex-girlfriends,” Barham said. “I truly believe that you write what you know about, and that’s something that’s been pretty prevalent in the past few years.”

American Aquarium is Barham on guitar and vocals, Zack Brown on piano, Bill Corbin on bass, Ryan Johnson on lead guitar, Kevin McClain on drums and Whit Wright on pedal steel.

The band is set to release its fifth full-length record, “Small Town Hymns,” on May 1. Filled with songs about Barham’s life growing up in a small North Carolina farm town, the CD stays true to Barham’s tell-it-from-life approach to songwriting.

“A lot of it’s true, so it’s not so much fiction, but it’s just a story about growing up in small towns and what happens and the struggle to get out of small towns,” he said.

After its Colorado run, American Aquarium will head to Austin, Texas, for a run of shows at the South by Southwest festival.