Fruit Bats is an American indie rock band formed in 1997 in Chicago, Illinois, as the project of singer/songwriter Eric D. Johnson. Johnson is the band's sole permanent member, with various musicians joining the band in live and studio settings.
History
Early years and Echolocation
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Eric D. Johnson was teaching guitar and banjo at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, and fronting an indie rock band called I Rowboat. In early 2000 he joined the experimental folk group Califone as a multi-instrumentalist. He had also been making homemade cassettes since 1997 under the name Fruit Bats. He describes coming up with the band name as a joke of sorts, describing it as "this dumb fake punk rock name that I put on a four-track tape."
The members of Califone ran a small record label called Perishable, and after hearing some of the Fruit Bats recordings, agreed to release a proper full-length album. The subsequent album, Echolocation, was produced by Brian Deck and released in the fall of 2001. Fruit Bats made their live debut at Chicago's Empty Bottle in March 2001. They went on to tour frequently in 2001–2002, often as a support act for such bands as The Sadies, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Modest Mouse and The Shins.
Sub Pop years
In 2002, Fruit Bats signed with Sub Pop Records. It was through friendships Johnson had developed with members of Modest Mouse and The Shins that he was able to get an introduction with the label. Fruit Bats' Sub Pop debut, Mouthfuls, was released in April 2003. The band continued to tour regularly, traveling with label-mates Iron and Wine and Holopaw, as well as playing some headlining dates. That album cycle also saw the band make their major festival debut at Washington state's Sasquatch! Music Festival in 2004. Mouthfuls’ closing track "When U Love Somebody," of which Johnson has said "I wrote it in the time it takes to sing it" has become a signature song for the band. It was featured in the film Youth in Revolt, and has been covered by bands such as The Decemberists, Guster and Said the Whale.
In 2005 Fruit Bats released their second album for Sub Pop, Spelled in Bones. That same year they made their network television debut on Last Call with Carson Daly. They also embarked on a co-headline tour with label-mates Rogue Wave, and supported acts such as Son Volt, Ray Lamontagne, and Guster, and also appeared for a performance at Sundance Film Festival.
Johnson became a member of The Shins in late 2006 and toured with that band until 2010. He has described his time in that band as "a total game changer" and influential on Fruit Bats’ work creatively and professionally. Of his time with that band he said, "there is no way that you don’t get the DNA of the music. It seeps into you. I got to totally climb inside of those songs, it was a good influence on me because those are amazing songs… That showed me the inner workings of a successful band with songs that are super connective…I really grew up being in that band. It was a total education for me."
In 2009, after a three-year break while Johnson toured with The Shins, Fruit Bats released the album The Ruminant Band. This album marked a sonic departure for the band, with a ragged, guitar heavy folk-rock sound. Johnson has described this album "a better use of my influences" and has also stated the album was a creative and stylistic watershed for him. The album was also something of a critical breakthrough for Fruit Bats, getting positive reviews from Pitchfork, The A.V. Club and Robert Christgau. The band also made another TV appearance, this time on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It was also on this album cycle that the band made the first of many appearances at Portland's Pickathon Music Festival.
Fruit Bats’ final album for Sub Pop, Tripper, came out in August 2011. It was the first of several releases by the band produced by Thom Monahan. It featured appearances by J. Mascis, Neal Casal and Richard Swift, and made it to the top 15 of the Billboard Heatseekers chart, the first Fruit Bats record to make that list. The album's single "You’re Too Weird" is often remembered for its very 1980s music video, in which Johnson plays a heavily styled version of himself. Tripper subsequent tours would see Fruit Bats make appearances at Bonnaroo and The Dave Matthews Band Caravan.
Fruit Bats were featured on the 2011 soundtrack for the Jesse Peretz film Our Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd. Johnson served as the soundtrack's producer, and also composed the score for the film.