September 11th, 2009
Interview: The Fruit Bats’ Eric Johnson
When he’s not singing and playing as James Mercer’s trusted right-hand man in the Shins, Portland, Oregon vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Eric Johnson leads the Fruit Bats, the indie-rock outfit he’s fronted for some 10 years. Once essentially Johnson’s solo project — he’d enlist friends and colleagues to tour the material he wrote and recorded himself — the Fruit Bats are a full-fledged band these days, with a fantastic new album, The Ruminant Band, that mixes bright indie-pop melodies with an epic ’70s classic rock feel. They’re playing Kung Fu Necktie tomorrow night; we caught up with the genial Johnson over the phone the other day:
Looking back, what’s your take on the new album now that it’s been released?
Kind of the awesomest thing about this record is that I had a master plan and it actually worked for once. Which was that I wanted to do it fast and then put it out fast, and that fantasy almost never works out, but the timing was right. We basically did a tour of the new songs before we started making the record, which is weird. It’s sort of backwards. It’s a pretty tripped out record. I’m kind of enjoying it still, because unlike other records I’ve done which would take however long…[laughs] The previous Fruit Bats record took like a year to make just from tinkering. We weren’t in the studio every day for a year, but it took like five weeks and then we played with it for months and months. For this one, I wrote the songs, we did a tour, we immediately went into the studio after and recorded them, and by the time the smoke had cleared and we’d done the album cover art and whatever, it was out. It’s weird and rare when that happens. I don’t know if I just got lucky or I was super-pragmatic.
The sound on this album is a bit different than past albums — did you consciously make a decision to change things up, and did you worry that maybe you were getting away from your strengths or your comfort zone?
I’m not sure. You do play to your strengths, that’s it. If you’re Prince or Bowie, an insane freak that can change on a dime, that’s amazing and not everyone can do that. I’m not really totally sure. I just do what I do.
Do you take anything away from working with the Shins or some of the other bands you’ve been in when it comes to writing Fruit Bats songs?
It’s all “college,” in a way. It’s interesting. First and foremost I do [the Shins] as a job, but of course you learn stuff. But I always wrote songs first before I played in other people’s bands. I guess it’s all seeping in there somewhere.
The lyrics on this album seem a little more personal than on albums past. Did you resist giving too much away about yourself before, and now you’re a little more comfortable with it?
I dunno. I think everybody’s always trying to say something, whether they’re just trying to talk to their ex-girlfriend and say, like, “Sorry I got with that hooker,” or whatever. Some people are saying that, and some people are trying to put out an expansive message to the world about how to live your life. I think Bob Dylan said that Woody Guthrie taught him not only how to play music, but how to live life and how to think and feel. I don’t know about that, either. I’m probably somewhere in between.
You’re a proper band now, I see.
Yeah. It’s a lot different. So much so that we almost changed the name of the band to the Ruminant Band, which ended up becoming a song and the title of the record. Previously, it was just me in the studio with an acoustic guitar. This is the first time ever where everybody played instruments and came up with stuff. I’ve made records before just by myself, and I think that’s kind of fun if you’re, like, a true solo person. But I’ve never totally felt that way. I never wanted it to be that way. I think I still referred to Fruit Bats as “us” even back then. Now it’s more of a legitimate “us” instead of “me.”
The Fruit Bats play Kung Fu Necktie on Saturday, September 12th along with Pronto and Kevin Barker [7:30pm/$10].
