AM Clouds is finally ready to make it rain.

The Bend indie rock quartet started work on its first full-length album, “Rainmaker,” in spring 2018, shortly after the August 2017 release of its three-song, debut EP, “War of Love.” The group tracked the 10 songs live at The Firing Room with Dayne Wood in about 2½ days, according to vocalist/songwriter/lead guitarist Bruce Moon.

But the pace slackened as the band began working on overdubs in Moon’s home studio. A busy concert schedule at venues such as Spoken Moto and Volcanic Theatre Pub, where the quartet will host its “Rainmaker” release show Friday, slowed the process even further. The mixing and mastering process brought more delays — and an appendectomy for masterer Adam Gonsalves.

“We got the record mastered and our mixer, Jeff (Stuart Saltzman, known for working with King Black Acid, Death Cab for Cutie and more), said, ‘I don’t think the mastering’s quite right; I think you might want him to take another pass at the mastering,’” Moon said recently while discussing the album with bassist Pete Ficht at The Commons. “… He’s a super listener. So we had another pass at the mastering, and during that process the masterer, his appendix exploded. So he was in the hospital for a little while — he’s fine.”

In the almost two years it took to finish the album, the group — Moon, Ficht, guitarist Graham Boostrom and drummer Dan Paggi — continued to push the songs in new directions. The title track, which started as a three-minute “folky pop song,” Moon said, grew to almost 10 minutes with its psychedelic, guitar-fueled outro section. The country ballad “Almost Her,” which closes out the record, also got an extended jam that finds Moon soloing over a Crazy Horse-esque groove.

“Some of the songs wound up in such a different place at the end than where they started, that it’s just kind of cool to see how some of them evolved with us being a pretty active live band,” Moon said. “The chemistry that I think has developed with the band as an ensemble playing live together has definitely evolved and gotten better and more cohesive and adventurous and those kinds of things.”

Although, that chemistry was apparent from the band’s start in 2016. The quartet spent a year and a half woodshedding Moon’s songs, and released its debut EP, the three-song “War of Love,” before ever stepping foot onstage. Its debut show was at the Bend Roots Revival in August 2017. According to the band’s online bio, that was by design.

“It was very like, ‘Let’s just keep working and when we’re feeling really good about the set, then let’s play some shows,’” Ficht said. “It wasn’t like, we have to get ready. But it was nice. It’s always really rewarding when you can take a song from an acoustic guitar demo to a fully arranged song in one practice.”

Moon and Ficht logged time in Portland’s music scene for many years: Ficht is a veteran of King Black Acid, while Moon played with The Very Foundation and Sclera. Although they played with some of the same people, they didn’t meet until 2016, at a party in Bend.

Paggi hails from California’s Bay Area, where he played with La Dolce Vita and Biv & the Mnemonics, while Boostrom fronted Los Angeles band Dionysos for eight years.

“We all had a lot of common denominators in music we liked, and I think we all heard similar things in Bruce’s songs, and it just kind of came out sounding like that,” Ficht said. “The guys are really versatile. I always get surprised when we’re like, ‘Well, what if we try this thing?’ And it’s so outlandish, but in like the first try or two we’ve got it down.

Born in Missouri and raised throughout the South, Moon started in punk bands as a teenager. He’s distantly related to Cowboy Copas, the country singer who was killed in the same plane crash that killed Patsy Cline in 1963.

“Even though he’s not a super close relative and he’s not someone that I’ve met, it just feels cool to have another musician that I’m related to,” Moon said. “There aren’t a lot of musicians in my family, so I’ve always felt like the kind of oddball.”

His musical interests grew to include classic rock, country, psychedelic rock such as Pink Floyd and much more. The songs on “Rainmaker” reflect this, from the snappy, hook-drive rock of “Paradise” to the twisting riffs and melodies of “Headlong.”

“I think at some point when we were talking about (what we sound like), I wanted to say it was indie classic rock,” Moon said, “And then I think Pete was like, ‘No, I think it’s classic indie.’”

With “Rainmaker” out on CD and coming to online distributors Feb. 14, AM Clouds is looking to play more out-of-town shows, schedules permitting. But the band seems most excited about the creative process. After the album’s long gestation, Moon said he is looking forward to working on new songs.

“I think the album was sort of a document of the band that we really wanted — that I think was probably more important than playing live (to us),” Ficht said. “Let’s make a record that really showcases the band and we’re really proud of and sounds great. And in a way, that’s more satisfying in the long term, because 10 years from now, you can put that CD in and go, ‘Wow, it still sounds great.’ But you won’t remember any show you played unless you got arrested.”

What: AM Clouds album release show, with Cosmonautical, The Color Study

When: 9 p.m. Friday

Where: Volcanic Theatre Pub, 70 SW Century Drive, Bend

Cost: $8 plus fees in advance, $10 at the door

Contact: volcanictheatre.com or or 541-323-1881