Anyone can sign up for a healthy record-company advance and then hunker down in the studio to make an indie-nation version of Chinese Democracy. Driving yourself into financial ruin by paying for everything yourself, however, takes brass cojones.

Michael Kingcaid, who fronts Austin’s What Made Milwaukee Famous, went the “what the hell was he thinking?” route on his band’s just-released third album, You Can’t Fall Off the Floor. The record’s title hints that the singer-guitarist wasn’t exactly riding high when he began work on the record three years ago.

“It’s been a weird, rough patch for three or four years,” says Kingcaid, on the line from the land of SXSW. “There was a lot of, I don’t want to say negativity, but definitely some tough feelings involved.”

Kingcaid’s run of tough times started with the implosion of his marriage after 2008’s What Doesn’t Kill Us. From there, there were the financial hurdles of keeping a non–Pitchfork-approved band on the road in a United States where the economy has gone to hell in a petrol-doused handcart.

As a result, Kingcaid lost band members, which did nothing to dim his enthusiasm for What Made Milwaukee Famous. Instead, he played his ass off in various bands around Austin and funnelled whatever money he had into a couple of years’ worth of recording sessions for You Can’t Fall Off the Floor.

Given all that was going on around him, it stands to reason that the songs aren’t all sunshine and Texas-size lollipops. The stellar lead-off track “Silence Is the Loudest Answer” starts with “How much can you bear?/How long can you stare/’Til you feel like you got nothing left and you’re not even there.” Some people deal with their problems on a therapist’s couch, while others choose to channel their angst into art, even if they aren’t convinced it’s doing a lot of good.

“Getting it out and putting it into a song is great,” Kingcaid suggests. “But then you have to relive that time every single time you’re up on-stage and singing that song.”

If Kingcaid drove himself into debt making the record, he can at least take solace in the quality of the final product. You Can’t Fall Off the Floor is gorgeous, the band’s literate Americana laced with Dixieland jazz piano (“Gone and Done It Now”), wild-rose pedal steel (“Sorry [Again]”), and gunshot guitar violence (“Grand Entrance. Awkward Exit”). Nowhere does the money seem more well-spent than “Demons & Monkeys (And You & Me. And Me & Me)”, which starts out mixing druggy Jamaican dub and woozy cabaret and then kicks back with a Manhattan in cocktail-nation territory.

Is what he’s accomplished enough to make Kingcaid feel like it’s going to be lucky sevens for the next phase of What Made Milwaukee Famous’s career? The answer suggests he has no regrets about rolling the dice on You Can’t Fall Off the Floor.

“In terms of where I am right now, sometimes it’s like ‘Fuck it—come on,’ ” he says. “Like, ‘Why do I have to scramble all the time?’ The last tour, the transmission went on the van. And then my regular car died. But that said, I’m extremely optimistic about getting this album out there. I worked on it for four years. I’ve been sitting on something that I’m really proud of. I really feel like it’s the best thing that I’ve done.”