Artist: Fruit Bats
Hometown: Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles
Album: A River Running to Your Heart
Release Date: April 14, 2023
Label: Merge Records
In Their Words: âWhen I first met my wife, she kept referring to a âRushin’ River Valleyâ that was near where she grew up in West Sonoma County, California. I really thought she was leaning into a folksy colloquialism, dropping the âgâ on ârushingâ and all. It took me a while to learn that she was actually talking about the Russian River Valley â a beautiful area known for redwoods and chardonnay and biblical-level flooding. This song is about true love, and the question of whether we are fated to be together or if it’s all just universal chaos tossing us around. It’s also about ghosts and bad dreams and trying to move forward and climbing over a mountain and hoping to glimpse the other side.
âOver the years there’s been a lot of geography in my music, a lot of landscapes. Sometimes the places are real, sometimes they’re emotional. I’ve always liked the idea of songs and albums that exist in a continuum with one another. I’m not talking about some kind of deep series of concept albums, mind you. More like the idea that my songs are all pretty much tributaries of the same river. Which makes a lot of metaphorical sense because my path has been long and winding and often slow and muddy. But always moving towards the sea. I guess you could say this album is the one where I took all that emotional geography and kind of mapped it out.” — Eric D. Johnson, Fruit Bats
Photo Credit: Chantal Anderson
