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Fruit Bats, the brainchild of lead singer and songwriter Eric Johnson, is coming to Santa Fe on Friday, June 12.

The band, with Johnson as its sole permanent member and featuring a rotating cast of musicians, is going on tour in support of its new album, 鈥淭he Landfill.鈥�

Johnson said his last album was quiet and stripped down, and he toured by himself, but for 鈥淭he Landfill,鈥� the tour will include others.

鈥�(The album) gives you the feeling of what the live show is sort of like these days,鈥� Johnson said.

He said his catalog of music is vast and comes from all sorts of matters of the heart, but 鈥淭he Landfill,鈥� has a metaphorical theme.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the perspective you gain through life, which is to say we build a mountain from our own trash in some ways,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淏ut it gives us perspective, and we can look out over the land on it.鈥�

The album was written in about two months in a blast of fruitful writing, he said. Johnson said he didn鈥檛 leave anything off 鈥淭he Landfill,鈥� and everything was written in that moment.

鈥淚 never really know what the favorite is until I鈥檝e played it live a million times,鈥� Johnson said.

While it might be considered old-fashioned, he said he wants people to listen to the album in tracklist order, putting a lot of thought into the sequence of songs.

鈥淚 think of it in a cinematic way and love people to sort of hear it as intended,鈥� Johnson said.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e thinking about vinyl, you want to do side A that should hook everybody,鈥� Johnson said, 鈥渁nd then they should be invested by side B, so you can put the more subtle things on side B.鈥�

He said there are certain ways songs should grab listeners鈥� attention, such as the second-to-last song being the climax of the album and the final song an epilogue.

鈥淚 always think about the first line of a song, the first line of an album should grab people, sort of in an emotional way, and it does,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淎s well as the last line, too.鈥�

He said in the digital age, it can sometimes feel old-fashioned to put on a show, but he enjoys the energy.

鈥淚t sounds cliche or corny, maybe, but the energy exchange and the sort of exchange you have between a performer (and) the audience in a live setting, it鈥檚 a really beautiful thing,鈥� Johnson said.

Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.