Fruit Bats

Fruit Bats
Mouthfuls
release date: April 8, 2003

Fruit Bats: Origin of the Species

I remember being impressed by a promo photograph tacked to Eric Johnson’s fridge. It was a rock and roll band, some outfit called The Unispheres. They were out of LaGrange, Illinois and appeared to be heavily influenced by those garage-rock fashionistas Paul Revere and the Raiders. After some formal investigation, I learned the facts: Eric’s father had spent a period in the late Sixties as the teenaged manager of many of Western Cook County’s finest rock and roll bands, and The Unispheres were his prized act. Sadly, they never broke outside of LaGrange. Sure, they had their moments: proms, graduation parties, triple bills at the Foreign Legion…but, alas, no rock and roll immortality, just a glossy 5” x 7” tacked to a dirty fridge thirty years later – and a few smart-ass kids getting a big laugh out of the whole idea.

Some time shortly after that night, Eric and I started a modest little band called I Rowboat. We had no ambition beyond four-track noodling. This was Chicago, after all, a town best known for its rock and roll incest, and we weren’t even distant relatives. The idea was to try to have fun while it lasted. 

By spring of 1999, Fruit Bats had formed as a side project of I Rowboat, which was kind of funny, considering I Rowboat had only played four or five gigs.  Fruit Bats recorded a few songs on four-track, then all was forgotten. Fruit Bats disbanded before it ever really began, and I Rowboat fizzled out shortly thereafter. And I moved to Massachusetts, without even a promo photograph to prove my rock and roll dream had ever existed.

Then something amazing happened… I’m still not clear on the full details, but Eric landed a gig playing guitar and banjo for Chicago’s near-legendary folk weirdos Califone. Encouraged by Califone/Perishable Records honchos Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella, Johnson recorded the Fruit Bats’ debut album, Echolocation (released on Perishable in summer, 2001). At this point, “Fruit Bats” was basically a solo project for Eric, with help from original Fruit Bat Dan Strack and a host of other Chicago musicians. Former Orso member Gillian Lisee joined Fruit Bats in late 2001 as a fulltime member. After the release of Echolocation, the band spent a fair amount of time on the road – with Modest Mouse, The Shins, and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, as well as three headlining tours. In late summer 2002, the Fruit Bats agreed to record their second album for Sub Pop. The result is Mouthfuls, produced by Brian Deck (Red Red Meat, Modest Mouse, Ugly Casanova, Souled American, etc...).

Beyond Fruit Bats, Eric has been a live multi-instrumentalist with Ugly Casanova and Sally Timms, is an instructor at The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, and spends an inordinate amount of time studying nature from the couch of his Chicago apartment. Currently, he is studying endemic species, including the freshwater seals of Lake Baikal in south-central Russia.

So what do Fruit Bats sound like? Well, I should say the Fruit Bats’ sound arises from such disparate influences as Phil Spector, Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac, and the ’86 Waubonsie Valley High School production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! Which is to say the Fruit Bats are hard to pin down.

I should also say Fruit Bats play beautiful, heart-felt music in an age that resists beautiful, heart-felt music. Call them love songs dedicated to Ma Nature, primal lullabies, folk-pop gems (with an increasing emphasis on pop). It’s music for dreamers, amateur zoologists, closet hippies, record geeks, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters alike. It’s music for all sorts, or, at least, the curious soul in everyone.

So there you have it. Now, go listen to Fruit Bats and make up your own mind.

— Brian Belval, Goshen, MA (January, 2003)