Fruit Bats

The highest note of the song is studio trickery.

As I listened to it this time, I was wondering whether that was what was happening, because it's impossibly high, you know? but also I know if I've got it right, that Boston was kind of, kind of like fruit bats in a way.

It was a guy at like MIT who pretty much did most of it just as a one man show.

Right.

And, you know, I was, this is, this is like a whole jumble of things I was doing in kind of probably approximately 1995. six to 1999 i had an indie rock band of my own but we were only played like four shows it was it was just very like haphazard but like things could be haphazard back then and it was just it just i was just i was doing all kinds of things but i realized at that point i was like When I joined Caliphone, I was a guy that had gone from playing in some coffee shops and playing in a modest indie rock band where we played a few shows, local shows, to doing this crazy tour in spring of 2000, opening for Modest Mouse, who were suddenly just on their ascent.

And the middle act, or no, actually the first of three acts for much of that tour was the shins who were like an unsigned band at the moment and it was kind of like i was like launched into the sun all of a sudden through this kind of strain like for just a guy who kind of didn't really know what i was doing for like four years but was tinkering at all these kind of things i was suddenly like kind of thrust into this burgeoning early 2000s indie scene which in my life completely it that was like charted the course of my life that tour

When was the fruit bats born? Like, what's the origin? And when did you first record something as fruit bats?

I was doing a lot of for tracking by the I like I bought a for track from a friend Tascam Porto for and I was doing a lot of for tracking.

Eric D. Johnson.

Maybe best known for his work with the Fruit Bats, although I recently saw a lot of people rocking out to his band that he's formed most recently with Aeneas Mitchell and Josh Kaufman, Bonnie Light Horseman, at a music festival where we performed together, Old 97s and Bonnie Light Horseman.

But Eric D. Johnson goes back with the Fruit Bats a long way and has made a lot of great records over the years.

and has a new one out and he is so cool and funny and smart and i really have enjoyed talking to him over the years and i was so psyched to finally get him to submit to the wheels off treatment so i think y'all are going to appreciate this conversation a lot about perseverance and music and It's really great.

A lot about creativity.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

um congratulations on the new fruit bats record it's great thank you it's really cool i mean it's just i i would expect nothing less but you tend to be um a man of many talents and a man of many sounds and i never know what to expect and this new record is so i feel like the scope is really big in a great way and i just think it's it's super cool unexpected beautiful way to go Thank you.

This is the Terrapin Crossroads Podcast, and we're glad you're here.

Our theme music comes courtesy of Eric D. Johnson, a.k.a. Fruitbats, whose new album, The Landfill, is out now.

You can catch him on tour nationally.

Information at www.fruitbatsmusic.com. And check out Eric on the last episode of the City of Podcasts.

This episode was recorded at Gunlike Bunshu Winery in Sonoma, California, where for years Eric helped co-produce the Wachika Music Festival.

Catch Fruit Bats on tour now.

Learn more at www.fruitbatsmusic.com or find him on Instagram at fruit underscore bats.

My name is James Joiner.

No way.

Well, actually, so...

Well, it'll actually be the 25th anniversary of the first Fruitbats, like, real tour, which was opening for Modest Mouse.

Wow.