Our faithful Blogschu readers have certainly heard mention of Eric D. Johnson both as a friend of Jeff Bundschu's and as a co-creator of the Huichica Music Festival. He is also an incredibly talented musician and songwriter and his band the Fruit Bats is releasing their fifth album today (8/2/2011). I have listened to it and it is, in my humble opinion, their best yet.
Eric was gracious enough to take some time for a quick interview with me before I left on vacation. I think it provides a candid peek "under the hood" of a great musician who is figuring out how to make it work in the ever-changing music industry.
LM: The last time I saw you we were at Huichica and we were both drenched and exhausted. I wonder how you think the festival came off and what it was like to wear two hats as both the organizer of the festival and the headlining performer.
EDJ: It was amazing. This year I told myself that I was not going to do anything until Saturday came around but with the rain and everything, I couldn't just sit there and let things happen. It was a very stressful first few hours but then I had a great time. I think I became a man that day. And even though the first Huichica was amazing too, pound for pound, year two was even better. If we can combine the best aspects from both years for year three, we’re gonna blow some minds. Minus the rain of course.
LM: Let’s talk about Tripper, the fifth album that the Fruit Bats have put out in the ten years since the band came to be. On the Subpop website there is a beautifully written description of the genesis of the album but I was wondering if there is anything else you’d like to say about it. It sounds like the album is telling a story and that there is some final product you wanted to present.
EDJ: I don’t know if it was just because I was younger or if I was just in a different place but for a long time I was more into imagery and my lyrics were a lot more open ended. I was like, “You figure out what this is supposed to be.” It was a phase. I thought that writing about stuff was giving too much away. So this time I made it a conscious effort to tell a story with every single song. It’s not a high concept album like a Kinks' album or The Who but there is a story that is intertwined around all the songs. It’s a low-concept, concept album basically. Some songs are more obviously told than others.
LM: What’s the story behind the sneak peak album trailer on You Tube.
EDJ: That’s the video shoot for the song "You're Too Weird" and it's based on early 80's performance art videos. It’s a goofy video. I’m dressed up like George Michael meets Simon Le Bon or something like that.
LM: As a music consumer and as someone who is blogging and trying to direct people to discover new music, it’s easy to see that the industry is going through big changes right now. I wonder what that is like from the artist’s perspective?
EDJ: It’s not like I’m from far back enough to remember the serious salad days of the music industry and as a musician I’m definitely from the pre-computer, pre-My Space days. When I first started out in bands I was making flyers at Kinkos and sending out mailers and even when I was on record labels I was giving people CD’s and things didn’t leak. Actually, our album leaked yesterday which for a band like us is ok. The revenue we would lose off of that is probably minimal and if anything, if you didn't leak you’d think, “Wow, no one cares.” So I’m not glad it leaked but in a strange way it's nice for my ego.
LM: I suppose it's a twenty-first century stamp of approval to have your album leak?
EDJ: Yeah, it means that somebody gives a shit enough to want to illegally do something with your music. So anyway, things are totally different now and it would have to be an entirely separate article if I was to tell you what I think about the changes in the music industry. There is more music out there than there has ever been or maybe there’s not more, it’s just more accessible now. You can find an obscure band from the middle of nowhere just as easily as you can find Fleet Foxes. And that’s kind of a good thing because it’s made it a more level playing field. If you want to do it, you can do it. As long as you can afford a guitar. At the same time, record labels and publicists are still struggling to figure out how to ride the internet. Also, with indie bands now the success level has to be much higher. When I was going to see bands in the mid-90’s, you’d go to a club and if a band had 150 people at their show, they were considered hot shit. Now an “indie” band has to play two sold out nights at the Warfield to be considered big. And record sales are different too. If you sold 20,000 records in the indie world in the 90’s you were set, that was a huge success. Now that would be considered a failure. The numbers have to be a lot bigger now in every regard. But now you can license things easily and that’s what I do and that’s how I’ve made my living.
LM: Why is that easier?
EDJ: Selling songs to tv shows and movies is the only cut and dry way for a songwriter to get a paycheck to be honest. You can get paid well to play a show but you have a lot of overhead with that. Record sales...you aren’t going to make a penny off of that.
LM: I was going to ask you that actually. If you had to compare album vs. show vs. now you’re saying licensing to tv or movies, which one is more lucrative? You’re saying at the end of the day the best paycheck comes from licensing.
EDJ: It’s not even a close comparison. Album sales, zero. Almost nothing. I just started recouping money we put out for an album eight years ago and it’s still not a ton. With shows, I can probably make more money but I pay my band fairly because everyone is in their mid-30’s and everyone’s a total pro. It’s the only way I can keep them around. They would be in Wilco or something if I didn’t keep them happy. So basically for myself I don’t get paid on tour at all. I cover my expenses and after a month on tour I’ll throw myself a bone of like 400 bucks. Licensing is the only thing I make money from.
LM: On Blogschu, I've been wrestling with how to legally and responsibly share music so that people can listen to it and then hopefully decide if they want to buy it or not. At the end of the day it sounds like you’re not going to make a ton of money off of albums anyway.
EDJ: I’m actually less sour on the music industry than I sound but I definitely think that there should be some changes. There are certain kinds of album deals where you can get a better cut of record sales but a lot of times that moves them into taking cuts of other stuff. Basically, they are always going to take as much as possible from you. It’s a super weird business. When I describe it I think, “That doesn’t even sound real.”
LM: It’s really helpful to hear about it from the artist's perspective and what it’s like to be in the middle of all of this.
EDJ: I’m a good artist to ask about this stuff because I am literally the most average you can be. And I mean that in a good way for the most part. I think people assume that unless you are super famous you must be poor. Take Bob Pollard from Guided By Voices which was a huge band - they would play multiple sold out nights at the El Rey. I read an interview where Bob Pollard was home in Dayton, Ohio and some guy came up to him and said, “Sorry your band never made it.” Here they are one of the most influential bands of the 90’s and if you’re not Michael Jackson or Madonna, your average high school buddy from Ohio might not realize that there is a whole different kind of universe out there. People are always shocked when they ask me “What is your day job?” and I say “I don’t have one.” They must think I'm a trust fund person or something. You can actually do it [be successful in a band] but you just have to hang around long enough and be patient and get a few different strands of things like the licensing stuff. But most people don’t last that long.
LM: I think you also have to make good music, and you guys do.
EDJ: Well, I would hope. It’s like having a holding your breath contest in the pool or something. I held my breath longer than a lot of people.
LM: I wonder what it was like for you as a kid - when did you realize you had a gift for music and you wanted to perform and how was that nurtured when you were growing up?
EDJ: I don’t know. I was always into music but there’s no auspicious creation story. I definitely had fantasies of being in a band but I also wanted to be a baseball pitcher or an archaeologist. I just always wanted to do something different and weird.
LM: So then what ended up putting you in a band vs. out in the field digging up dinosaurs?
EDJ: I wanted to be a writer for a long time and when I was in seventh grade I won the Illinois State Young Authors contest for my school and they made me go to all of these workshops. I was actually a bad student who was just good at being creative and all the other kids who would go to the “smart kid” workshops were not even really good writers, they were just sort of overall smart kids. I was clearly not the smart kid because they were all talking about their advanced calculus and their summer theatre camps and I was just a little fat kid who would sit about three feet away from the TV and ingest pop culture, rock and roll and heavy metal. They were as mean to me as the jocks were. So that soured me on writing. Then I got interested in film but I didn’t get into any film schools because my grades were so bad. I ended up in this art school in Chicago called Columbia College (sort of like an expensive open admissions community college art school but it’s actually a really cool school) but I couldn’t just make my own movie, there wasn’t Final Cut Pro yet. You had to have a Super 8 and you had to have a splicer which was only available through equipment rental. So I got soured on the gear aspect of film making. FInally I just started playing in bands. Basically I could have been something else but I got soured on all the other creative avenues.
LM: You guys are hitting the road with Vetiver in September in support of both of your new albums. What is your favorite part about being on the road and what is your least favorite part about being on the road?
EDJ: Honestly, I don’t love it anymore in general because I’ve been doing it for so long and being one of those middle-path bands we’re not on a tour bus. We’re still in a van which is pretty difficult when you’re 35 and you’ve been doing it for 10 years. I don’t like that aspect. I used to love it. I loved seeing new places and being on the road and all of the cool stuff that goes with that. I have toured so much that I have been everywhere you can be. I think Fruit Bats has played in 41 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. I do like to play shows and there is still the occasional cool place that I get to go, like Gun Bun. A few months ago I was in Hawaii, Big Sur and Sonoma for shows and I thought, "I’m lucky, those are three pretty epic places." And I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t doing music.
LM: How about when everyone in the audience sings along to your songs?
EDJ: Yeah, that’s awesome. And being in that weird space, having the slow climb, we never got to experience that crazy out-of-the-gate successs that a lot of my friend’s bands did around the same time. But we get to savor the small victories like having played in Houston twenty times and literally no one is there for the first eighteen times and then finally having a good packed show. There are certain places where you get to see the pieces fall into place over the course of a really long decade.
LM: Last question, I heard that the Shins might be releasing a new album in the near future and I was wondering if you could possibly give the Gun Bun audience any exclusive updates on that.
EDJ: I have no exclusive updates quite honestly. It’s in the works. I played on it. I know that the Shins will be doing some shows this fall but I won’t be there because I’ll be on the road with Fruit Bats. The record sounds awesome, I’ve heard it. But I have no exciting scoop on it beyond it’s definitely happening.
A big thank-you to Eric for speaking with me and an even bigger congratulations to him and his hard working band mates on the release of their new album today.
You can purchase/download Tripper from Subpop, iTunes or Amazon.
You can also listen to the album on Spotify.
And now on to our regularly scheduled programming. Don't forget that you now have to use Spotify to listen to my Music Monday picks. I have been using it for a few weeks now and I am absolutely hooked. I know it might seem tedious to sign up and download the software but I promise you, it is worth it. Click here to subscribe to the playlist if you are a Spotify user.
Here are my picks for this week's Music Monday:
"So American" by Portugal. The Man from In The Mountain In The Cloud
This band is from the great city of Portland but many of its members originate from Sarah Palin's hometown in Alaska. This alt-rock band has been at it for a handful of years now, releasing records through indie labels, through their own imprint, and now through Atlantic Records. They will hit the road for a world-tour this fall, check it out here to see if they're coming to your neck of the woods.
"Trials Of The Past (feat. Sampha)" by SBTRKT from SBTRKT
A year ago, SBTRKT (otherwise known as Aaron Jerome) was known only in small circles for his DJ stints in East London and some high profile remixes. Flash forward twelve months and the release of his self-titled debut album has rocketed him to the forefront of the UK electronic music scene. The experimental nature of his music extends to persona as well, Jerome wears a variety of tribal masks when he performs live.
"Best Thing For Me" by Release The Sunbird from Come Back To Us
I discovered this album on Spotify and I'm so glad that I did. This is one of those bands that I might have missed because there is so much new music being released all the time and it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Born out of a side project from Rogue Wave's Zach Rogue, Come Back to Us is a beautiful album and you can listen to it in its entirety on Spotify.
"Fallout" by Neon Indian from Era Extraña
Neon Indian is a chillwave band from Texas. The term "chillwave" was coined by the writer behind the music blog Hipster Runoff and he defines it as "a catchall term for recent practitioners of fuzzed-out, dance-ready, nostalgia-inducing tunes." The artist behind Neon Indian describes his sound as “Childhood re-contextualized through a psychedelic, lo-fi filter. The idea of memory before you were old enough to have memories.” This track is from Neon Indian's new album which will be released on September 13th, so it's not yet available on Spotify but you can download it in exchange for your email address and once it is on your computer, Spotify will play it in the playlist.
"Concrete Gold" by WU LYF from Go Tell Fire To The Mountain
For these Music Monday blog posts, I try hard not to pick songs only because they are buzz-worthy. I really do try to pick songs that I like to listen to. With this track, I veered off my usual course. WU LYF (which stands for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation - I'm not kidding) has been blogged about a lot lately, mostly because they are trying hard NOT to be blogged about. This UK band declines interviews, regularly deletes their Wikipedia page, and often performs wearing bandit masks to disguise their identity. I definitely don't love their music but I do find it - and their methods to debunk the industry - very intriguing.
Cheers, Lisa
