Fruit Bats Returns With Expansive Full Band Album The Landfill On June 12th

Celebrated artist Fruit Bats announces the forthcoming release of the brand-new album The Landfill, on June 12th via Merge Records with an extensive full-band US tour to follow (see dates below). The new offering finds Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Eric D. Johnson (who performs under the Fruit Bats moniker) in a highly prolific period following 2025’s critically acclaimed, intimate Fruit Bats solo outing, Baby Man. The Landfill is one of the most vibrant, full-band albums in Fruit Bats beloved catalogue.

The album title draws from a familiar feature of the Midwestern landscape where Johnson grew up: the quiet hills that rise unexpectedly from otherwise flat terrain. For Johnson, those sites became a powerful metaphor. The Landfill imagines standing atop a towering pile of history—personal, emotional, and cultural—using that unlikely vantage point to survey what lies ahead. The result is an album concerned with memory, consequence, and possibility, where the debris of the past becomes the ground from which new visions emerge.

The clever new conceptual video for the album’s title track was directed Adam Willis. Johnson says of the witty clip, “This is my 6th video with the great Adam Willis, AKA Brother Willis. Another in our long line of collabs which are often funny with cold opens and strange characters plumbing the depths of the human psyche. The very first brainstorm session, we landed on Close Encounters of the Third Kind as an initial reference. Especially the notion of a man at a crossroads who is haunted by a mysterious shape. Later that morphed into the idea that, for some strange reason, I live a double life as a tortured art star in Europe. And that my music career there is completely unknown. Truth be told, Fruit Bats have had a strange journey as more or less a cult band for a long time. Things have gotten bigger in recent years in North America but we ARE still quite obscure in Europe. This is a less than subtle nod to that fact.”

He concludes, “Silly and obscure as these concepts may be – the video still plays to the lyric and feeling of the song. The notions of memory and legacy and following signs that may or may not lead you down the right path. Adam and I always like winking in these videos but the concepts and stories are still kinda poignant at the end of the day.” Watch “The Landfill” video HERE.

During the more than two decades of releasing music as Fruit Bats, Johnson has carefully shaped his songs over time. That process shifted following Baby Man, which embraced a stream-of-consciousness writing method and captured songs almost as quickly as they appeared. The experience unlocked something in Johnson, which he carried directly into the creation of The Landfill.

Within weeks of completing the solo record, he went to Bear Creek Studios in Washington —this time with his longtime touring band, featuring bassist David Dawda, guitarist Josh Mease, keyboardist Frank LoCrasto, and drummer Kosta Galanopoulos —to apply the process in a fully collaborative setting. Johnson wanted to document the energy that has made Fruit Bats a beloved live act. The band tracked much of the album together in the room, prioritizing instinct and chemistry over polish, with few overdubs, no click tracks, and performances captured largely in real time. That approach gives The Landfill a sense of motion and color that feels both raw and radiant.

Collectively, these songs form one of the more expansive statements in the Fruit Bats canon. The Landfill balances communal energy of collaboration with deeply personal writing with lyrics that wrestle with regret, longing, and hope. Johnson surveys a landscape shaped by everything that came before finding, within it, new ways forward.

Fruit Bats North American Tour Dates

Jun 11 – San Diego, CA – Belly Up
Jun 12 – Tucson, AZ – La Rosa
Jun 13 – Santa Fe, NM – The Bridge
Jun 14 – Oklahoma City, OK – Tower Theatre
Jun 17 – Columbia, MO – Rose Music Park
Jun 18 – Indianapolis, IN – HI-FI Annex
Jun 19 – Lexington, KY – The Burl
Jun 20 – Nelsonville, OH – Nelsonville Music Festival
Jul 16 – Winston-Salem, NC – Ramkat
Jul 17 – Isle of Palms, SC – Windjammer
Jul 18 – Asheville, NC – Hellbender by The Orange Peel
Jul 19 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry
Jul 21 – Toronto, ON – Concert Hall
Jul 23 – Norwalk, CT – District Music Hall
Jul 24 – Newport, RI – Newport Folk Festival
Jul 25 – Kingston, NY – Assembly
July 28 – Northampton, MA – Academy of Music
Sep 30 – Los Angeles, CA – Bellwether
Oct 1 – Berkeley, CA – UC Theatre
Oct 2 – Santa Cruz, CA – Rio Theatre
Oct 3 – Grass Valley, CA – Center For The Arts
Oct 7 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
Oct 9 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
Oct 10 – Victoria, BC – Capitol Ballroom
Oct 11 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore
Oct 13 – Moscow, ID – International Ballroom at University of Idaho
Oct 14 – Boise, ID – Treefort Music Hall
Oct 15 – Missoula, MT – The Wilma
Oct 16 – Salt Lake City, UT – Commonwealth
Oct 17 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
Oct 20 – Lawrence, KS – Liberty Hall
Oct 21 – Iowa City, IA – Englert Theatre
Oct 22 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
Oct 23 – Madison, WI – Majestic Theater
Oct 24 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed
Nov 5 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
Nov 6 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Ballroom
Nov 7 – Boston, MA – Royale
Nov 8 – Portland, ME – State Theatre
Nov 11 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
Nov 12 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird
Nov 14 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
Nov 15 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
Nov 17 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
Nov 18 – Nashville, TN – Basement East
Nov 19 – Birmingham, AL – The Saturn
Nov 20 – New Orleans, LA – Tipitina’s
Nov 21 – Austin, TX – Mohawk