In the last three albums from Fruit Bats, an indie-folk band previously based in Chicago, then Seattle and now Portland, singer-songwriter Eric D. Johnson knits restless tales about feelings of inadequacy and homesickness, processing moods of malaise and solitude. As such: Fruit Bats’ Tripper is an excellent record to drink alone to.
This year’s Absolute Loser, the band’s follow-up to the 2011 concept album, is equally as beautiful.
Johnson, who sounds like The Shins’ James Mercer with a permanent head cold, reaches to depressive depths in an all-too-aching timbre. Johnson’s nasal voice adds an endearing awkwardness. He balances its languid indie-rock style with a country-western bent, banjo solos and slide guitar twang abound.
Each Fruit Bats album is rife with individual moments to love, like the theremin-like synth in “Heart Like An Orange” set to a waltz-tempo, the incongruously upbeat melody to “Being On Your Own,” or the emotional nakedness of “Baby Bluebird,” which recalls something off John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band.
I had eight questions for Eric D. Johnson, whose band is playing at the HiFi Music Hall this Saturday, Sept. 23. Tickets are $15 in advance and $18 on the day of the show. Doors open at 9 p.m. Show starts at 10 p.m. 21+.
—
Emerald: On Absolute Loser, you’re obliquely referencing different locations — the “Humbug Mountain” but also the “Soon-To-Be Ghost Town.” Is there any specific location that you’re referring to here, or anywhere with which you’d connect the new album?
Eric D. Johnson: There’s always a lot of geography in my songs. They’re pretty informed by moving and traveling. I think it comes from being a Midwest kid. We didn’t travel a lot when I was a kid, so there were sort of these fantasy versions of these places kicking around in my head that were maybe real or not real. I’m talking more just about a feeling that kind of gets tacked onto a hyper-reality or a fantasy-reality. And “From a Soon-To-Be Ghost Town” is more of an allegory about liking a place and having to leave, or having your friends leave and just feeling like you’re the last man standing.
– Fruit Bats, “Absolute Loser”
You’re from Chicago; you moved to Seattle and now you’re in Portland. How would you describe your relationship to the Pacific Northwest, given your roaming nature?
I think it’s home now. I’ve been in the Northwest for 12 years now. I’ve been here for all my thirties, all my big kid years. I was in Chicago a lot in my twenties touring and this is kind of my settling down place. Obviously there are real natives here, too, but it’s kind of a transient culture here, too. A lot of people are from elsewhere. This is definitely home for me now.
What’s the story behind the Absolute Loser cover photo?
That’s a picture of my wife. That’s her on a road trip, ten, fifteen years ago or something. She was on a road trip with a friend of hers. That was a picture of her brushing her teeth in a parking lot somewhere in New Mexico or Utah. I think we wanted a photograph that looked a little timeless and journalistic.
How did your wife like being put on the cover with the words “Absolute Loser” pasted on it?
I know, that’s — [laughs] I mean, the title Absolute Loser doesn’t mean something who’s a loser. And she actually chose the picture. Because we were sort of going through old photographs. But the words don’t really mean an ‘Absolute Loser’ it means someone experiencing an absolute loss. So it’s not like a loser-y person. It’s not like a Beck loser. It’s someone who is lost. The title track on Absolute Loser, if you listen to the lyrics, there’s an extreme silver lining in there that means you’ve lost everything and you’re about to rebuild.
Tripper was on heavy rotation when I was a college freshman ’cause it helped me when I was feeling particularly self-pitying or lonely.
[laughs] That’s a good one for that.
But when I hear it, I can’t help but feel like you had a similar sense of anxiety or misery when you wrote it. Am I projecting that?
No, I’m actually happy to hear you say that. I think people tend to view my music as very light or sunshiny, which I find myself having to over-explain that it’s not so much. So when somebody actually asks me a question like you just asked, it makes me kinda happy. I’m like, there’s more to it than that. There is an anxiety and an angst in that album about transience. A lot of it is based on dreams that I had. But the hooky concept of Tripper was this really weird tripped-out dude I met, who was a real person [“Tony the Tripper”].
A lot of my songs about being swallowed up by the earth, like “Tangie and Ray,” is about that. “Tony the Tripper” is just kind of about lost souls living by the railroad tracks. “Picture of a Bird” is sort of about giving up on your dreams. But again, I try to put humor and pathos in there, too. But, yeah, that record — you weren’t wrong in reading a little anxiety in there.
“Tried to live on the beach and was seared by the sun / Back on the farm his folks were up in arms crying, ‘our baby’s a bum!’ / But them Florida Girls kept him at ease / Ginger and rose and jasmine and all the other smells on the breeze / Up from the marshes she came to him / like a flip flop floatin’ on a wave”
– Fruit Bats, “Heart Like An Orange”
You helped out on The Shins’ album Wincing The Night Away. And I can’t hang up the phone without asking you if you’ve kept in touch with James Mercer or if you had any influence on the upcoming Shins record.
He and I talk like every week. He’s still one of my best friends. We definitely keep in touch. We text probably like every week. We hang out whenever we’re both in town. I’ve had no – I’ve meant to come over to work on the new Shins record, but I keep being gone. So I’ve had no input other than saying, ‘Go get ’em, tiger’ every now and again via text.
How do you think The Decemberists did with the cover of “When U Love Somebody”?
Oh, it was awesome. It was incredibly, incredibly flattering. They’ve always been very supportive. Fruit Bats has always been one of those bands where it’s like, never been the biggest band in the world, we tend to get a lot of props from other bands, especially big, notable bands give us props. My Morning Jacket has covered “Wild Honey” off Tripper and it’s very flattering to think that our peers and people who are these heavy-hitters are going out there and repping for us.
The Facebook page for Fruit Bats has a list: Bloody Marys, major 7th chords, Nashville tuning, Tibetan singing bowls. It’s a really nice aesthetic, but is there some unifying element? What do they signify to you?
Those are all relaxing things, I think. Those are all unifyingly comforting for me.
Are all those things accessible in your house right now?
Um, I don’t have the fixin’s for Bloody Marys right now. I do have a guitar that’s strung up Nashville style. I do have a Tibetan singing bowl. And I am capable of playing a major seventh chord at any given moment.
Check out the music video for Fruit Bats’ “Humbug Mountain Song,” filmed on Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, OR, below.