Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats/Bonny Light Horseman

Songwriters on Process

"I'm a wrong hallway person. I like to make wrong turns."
Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats and Bonny Light Horseman makes a lot of mistakes. And that's a good thing, he says, because that's when the good stuff happens. "The excitement is in the mistakes," he says. "The song is a house, and sometimes you walk into the wrong room."
Johnson's talking in metaphors, of course, but his literal rooms need to be a place of chaos too. The room where he writes starts off clean, but by the end there's stuff everywhere: cables, papers, notebooks, assorted musical accessories strewn all about. "The room has to be neat to start, but the good stuff happens when the room is a disaster."
The Fruit Bats' new album A River Running to Your Heart is out April 14 on Merge Records. Listen now to my latest episode with Eric D. Johnson!