RAISED BY A MURDER OF CROWS

ON THE ROAD AGAIN, AGAIN

Good morning to you all! As you can see, we’ve got some tour dates up for you. The pre-sale tickets are up for purchase this morning at 10AM, local venue time.

Get ‘em while they’re hot here: https://tix.concertmaps.com/fruitbats/ .

Don’t freak if you don’t see your hometown; we’re going to be filling in all of those gaps over the next few days, so just keep checking back. Also, there will be a few different support acts for different chunks of the tour. That info will be up in the next few days as well. AND... lots more fun and weird things to tell you in the coming weeks. Get ready for a torrential summer downpour of Fruit Bats!

MOUNTAIN

I've gotta use this blog more often, I know. It's been since January, dang! If you haven't heard, the album is called "The Ruminant Band," its done, and comes out in about six weeks time. We're putting the finishing touches on a full US tour (with a small slice of Canada in there), and I'll have dates and info within a week or two. Once we hit the road, you will see frequent and poetic posts on this deal.

Here's a little digression for you.

This picture above was taken by me, with a blue plastic Fisher Price 110 camera. I'm guessing the year as 1986. That tiny brownish plateau in the far distant middle of the picture was (and is) a landfill. I had never really seen a mountain yet in 1986, and this was as close as it got. I was pretty obsessed with this thing. It was the most dramatic piece of the horizon for miles until you hit the towering skyscrapers of Chicago. In the winter it would get covered in snow like a little tiny Matterhorn. If you ever got up close enough you'd see that the whole mound was covered in busy flocks of gulls, crows, and garbage trucks zooming up and down the side. The area around it was no less captivating to me - a patchwork of corn and soybean fields, some natural prairie, a trickly little river, a Civil War era cemetery, and an old stone quarry that, like all old stone quarries, was haunted by the ghosts of drowned boys. And this big garbage heap towering over it all. It was creepy and weird and beautiful and rad.

I went back to visit my folks not too long ago and now the mountain is much bigger and covered in wavy green grass and purple clover. They took down the barbed wire fence around it and stopped filling it, and put a hiking trail right up to the top. The field in the foreground is all McMansions now, though, stealing the view for themselves. These days I live in a place with gigantic gorgeous snow capped beastly peaks, but I still will always love that little trash pile the most of any mountain.

Talk to you guys about Fruit Bats shows next week. Much love, EDJ.

Been Rehearsin'

That's it, really. Sounding pretty good, I think. Excited to hit the road. Oh, and hey, midwesternites... We're coming to Chicago on March 28th and Iowa City on April 2. Should be fun!

Pants and Such

I just got back from spending most of the month of December driving around my mother land - the blustery, snowy Midwest. I had the sincere pleasure of doing an extended sit-in with my pals Vetiver, who also happen to be one of my favorite bands of the past decade or so. It's a true joy to sit up on stage and get to bask in the sweetness of Andy Cabic's tunes. Not to mention getting to play on said jams. For those of you Fruit Bats/Vetiver fans who came and talked to me - nice to have seen you!

Shortly thereafter, I pulled into Chicago, and immediately put my Fruit Bats pants back on. I am speaking metaphorically. I don't have actual Fruit Bats pants, although a pair of puffy chef pants adorned in cartoonish Fruit Bats would be sweet. I only own two pairs of pants these days; gray Levi's and some black H&M slacks. I keep them both very clean, mind you. Apologies for the digression. Anyway, in Chicago I holed up with my band mates for a couple of days of practice at Graeme's apartment. It was the first Fruit Bats rehearsal in three years. It worked out really well. We are ready for you.

Here's the band... Ron Lewis has moved out from behind the kit and will be handling the keyboard duties as well as any other instrument we put in front of him. Ron is very tall, sings like an angel, and talks in impenetrable Missoulian lingo. Graeme Gibson, formerly of one of my favorite short lived Chicago bands, The Boas, will play drums. His joining us makes the Fruit Bats 20% Canadian, and more importantly, 20% Kelownan. He also plays in the great band Disappears. Chris Sherman will play bass. That dude's been playing with me officially longer than anyone else. Since Mouthfuls. He might be the most unsung bassist in a town filled with bassists. He's from Cereal City, USA, grows a beard in a day and can fix shit on the van that no one's ever heard of. The fantastic Sam Wagster will handle guitar duties, and he might be the first true lead guitarist I've ever had in this band. Sam's joining us makes the Fruit Bats now 20% Texan. Plus he plays pedal steel, which is the instrument that God probably plays.

For those of you guys coming to the upcoming shows: you should dance. Or tap your feet. My amp will now be turned up to seven instead of the usual four or five.

We are going to choogle for you.

GOIN’ ON TOUR, MAKIN’ A RECORD!

So, here we go. This is the Fruit Bats’ first blog entry. And my first as a human. It’s not like I’m some sort of hyper-anachronistic chap who only travels by wheelbarrow, communicates via pigeon, and enjoys hardtack and johnnycakes for meals. I just haven’t gotten around to it.

So hopefully I will keep you informed and perhaps even slightly entertained with this gul-durned newfangled thingamabobber.

Here’s the musical news. After three years or so, Fruit Bats are back in the saddle. I spent the last couple of years playing in The Shins (a fine day job if there ever was one), but I’m back in full force with the first love of my musical life. Songs have been written. Recording dates have been written in permanent ink. To prove that I’m serious about this, Fruit Bats will be touring the west coast of the United States of America. How ‘bout it? Other parts of the country, as well as other nations, will be visited later in the year.

In the interest of getting everybody the chance to come out, we booked as many all ages shows as was possible. If we’re not doing all-ages in your town, there’s a good chance we’ll be doing one pretty near by. All I gotta say is “road trip.” Right?

So come on out! Go to the new and improved www.fruitbatsmusic.com or www.myspace.com/thefruitbats and check out the dates and information.

Oh, and more to come...