Eric Donald Johnson (born June 7, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the leader and sole permanent member of the influential folk-rock band Fruit Bats, and for his tenure as a member of The Shins. He has also scored films, most notably Our Idiot Brother and Smashed.
Johnson moved around the Midwest as a child and spent his adolescent and teenage years in Chicago’s Western Suburbs.[1] He planned on becoming a filmmaker or screenwriter but discovered an interest in songwriting after joining a local band in high school.[2]
Johnson did not attend college but instead moved to Chicago and became involved with the local music scene there, getting a job at the Old Town School of Folk Music where he taught classes and worked as a house manager for concerts.[3]
Career
Pre-Fruit Bats
In the late 1990’s, Johnson fronted an indie-rock band called I Rowboat. In early 2000, he became a member of the experimental folk-rock group Califone. It was on tour with Califone that he befriended the members of Modest Mouse and The Shins, who took an interest in Fruit Bats and made an introduction to the record label Sub Pop.[4]
Fruit Bats' 2003 song "When U Love Somebody" was featured in the film Youth in Revolt,[5] and has been covered by bands such as The Decemberists,[6] Said the Whale, and Guster.
In November 2013, Johnson announced he would be dissolving Fruit Bats.[7] They played what was to be their farewell show at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon on November 16, 2013.[8]
Fruit Bats (reformation in 2015-present)
In 2014, Johnson released an album under the name EDJ. The subsequent release was not a commercial success, and was later described by Johnson as a “career stalling move.”[9]
In 2015, My Morning Jacket invited Johnson to open a tour with his EDJ project, and instead Johnson opted to re-form Fruit Bats to do the tour. This led to the album Absolute Loser, which featured the popular single “Humbug Mountain Song.”
In 2018, Fruit Bats signed to Merge Records and the following year released their seventh studio album Gold Past Life, of which Variety wrote, “there won’t be many albums in 2019 with as many quotable, cut-to-the-marrow lines as this one has.”[10]
In 2020, they released The Pet Parade, which was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic with producer (and Johnson’s Bonny Light Horseman bandmate) Josh Kaufman. That same year, Johnson recorded a full-album cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ 1993 album Siamese Dream.
In early 2021, Fruit Bats made their first network television performance since 2009, performing on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Johnson left the band in 2011 due to scheduling conflicts with Fruit Bats, and went on to appear on several tracks on their fourth studio album, Port of Morrow. Johnson briefly reappeared with the band for their set at the Bonnaroo Festival in June 2012.[13]
Bonny Light Horseman
The band first came together at the Eaux Claires festival in 2018 when invited by the festivals co-founders Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) and Aaron Dessner (of The National). From the early sessions for this performance, the trio decided to form the band in a more official capacity. Their self-titled debut album was released on January 25, 2020. The album contains a mixture of traditional British folk songs and original material. It was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album as well as the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for the track "Deep in Love." The album was awarded Best Americana Record at the 2021 Libera Awards and was also nominated for the Libera Award for Best Breakthrough Artist. The group's sophomore album, Rolling Golden Holy, was released in October 2022. Singles "California" and "Summer Dream" were released in advance of the album. Unlike the group's debut, Rolling Golden Holy comprises all original material.[14]
Film work
In 2010 Johnson was hired to score Max Winkler's comedy Ceremony, starring Uma Thurman and Michael Angarano.[15] Later that year he worked on director Jesse Peretz’s feature Our Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Johnson co-scored the film with Nathan Larson, and also wrote and produced three original songs for the soundtrack, as well as contributing a cover of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree." In 2013 Johnson collaborated with Vetiver front man Andy Cabic on scores for two critically lauded Sundance features - one for the dramedy Smashed and the other for the documentary After Tiller.[16]
In 2012 Johnson collaborated with Andy Cabic of Vetiver on the music for the critically lauded Sundance feature Smashed, a score which landed on the Academy Awards’ shortlist for that year.[17]
In 2016 Johnson scored director Rod Blackhurst’s feature debut Here Alone, which won the Tribeca Film Festival’s audience award. The following year saw Johnson scoring the comedy feature Spivak for Netflix.
Johnson has occasionally appeared as an actor, most notably a cameo as a Grateful Dead cover band member in Jean-Marc Vallée’s 2014 drama Wild. He also provided voices for various characters in the cartoon pilot E Coli High which premiered on IFC Selects,[18] as well as the voiceover for TurboTax’s Super Bowl Ad in 2021.[19]
A longtime Deadhead,[24] Johnson has appeared several times as a guest on several Grateful Dead related projects. In August 2019 he joined Joe Russo’s Almost Dead for several songs at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre,[25] he joined JRAD for several songs in July 2021 at their Westville Music Bowl concert in New Haven, Connecticut.
In October 2023, Fruit Bats opened for JRAD, with all members of JRAD backing him, at the Frost Amphitheater on the campus of Stanford University[26] and at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre.[27] He also sat in during the main JRAD set on several songs during both aforementioned concerts.[28][29] Previously, in October 2021, he played three shows with the original bass player of the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York as part of Phil Lesh and Friends.
Personal life
Johnson has been in a relationship since 2004 with Annie Beedy, an artist and permaculture landscape designer. They were married in 2011. Johnson describes himself as having a “slightly nomadic childhood and… a nomadic adulthood, too.”[30] A Chicago native, Johnson has lived in Seattle, Portland, and, as of 2017, Los Angeles.
