The Bluegrass Situation Talks Baby Man With Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson

The Bluegrass Situation has an interview with Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson, who explains that new LP Baby Man “was the leftiest of all left turns you could possibly take, because the original plan was a very lo-fi hair-metal covers album. [It was] basically a midterm project between album cycles… This record turned into something that was me and Thom Monahan working for probably a week and a half. It wasn’t a mandate I laid down, but the whole record was written and recorded in that space, which I almost never do… Everything you hear is a week in the life. When we delivered it to the record label [Merge], again thinking it was a midterm project, they were like, ‘This is really good. This is a real album.’ So the hair-metal covers record will happen someday, but instead you get Baby Man.” Check out the full interview here.

Out now via Merge, Baby Man broke into the NACC Top 40 last week and is aiming for a new peak this week. Fruit Bats’ tour begins next week:

10/16 – Ojai, CA – Ojai Valley Woman’s Club
10/17 – Los Angeles, CA – Pico Union Project
10/18 – San Francisco, CA  –The Chapel (Two Shows)
10/20 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
10/22 – Stoughton, WI – Stoughton Opera House
10/23 – Minneapolis, MN – Icehouse
10/24 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk Music
10/25 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk Music
10/27 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
10/29 – Toronto, ON – Longboat Hall
10/30 – Buffalo, NY – The Ninth Ward
10/31 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
11/1 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
11/2 – Cambridge, MA – Sinclair