Today, Eric D. Johnson, the singer-songwriter known around these parts as Fruit Bats, shares “Stuck in My Head Again.” It's the first song off Baby Man, his first full-length album under the Fruit Bats moniker since 2023's A River Running to Your Heart. We don't want to spoil anything for y'all—listen to the track wherever you stream music, and reserve your CD, LP or download of Baby Man in  the Merge store or on Bandcamp.

Are you back? Heart thoroughly broken? Ours, too. Baby Man is an album unlike anything in EDJ's catalog to date, a solo record in what he calls “minimalist-maximalist” style—a minimum of instruments in maximum audio fidelity. Reuniting with producer Thom Monahan, Johnson pared down Fruit Bats' technicolor palette to guitar, piano, synthesizer, and his voice, finding new weight in those instruments and his lyrics.

Eric D. Johnson on “Stuck in My Head Again”:

Right now this world is big and weird and horrible and yeah, sometimes even beautiful in short bursts. A loud place. But if you wanna take a quick moment and get eye level with me, hear me whisper a dream in your ear, I got a new album that will do that. Here’s the first song from it. It’s a dream all right, but really a fever dream of sorts. The narrator is hazy, and in a haze, and sometimes I’m not even sure who they are. And yeah, it’s like how when you’re stuck in your own head, you can get a song stuck in your head over and over. Hopefully this one gets in there (in a good way). Love you all.

A solo album demands a solo tour, and after a full-band summer run, that's just what EDJ plans to do. Catch ‘An Intimate Solo Evening with Eric D. Johnson’ this October. Tickets are on sale now.

Fruit Bats on tour: 
Aug 01 Seattle, WA – Occidental Mall
Aug 02-03 Portland, OR – Pickathon
Aug 06 Kalamazoo, MI – Bell's Brewing
Aug 07 Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird
Aug 08 Providence, RI – Fete
Aug 09 Portland, ME – On the Ocean Fest
Aug 11 Charlton, MA – The Pavilion at Tree House Brewing
Aug 13 Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
Aug 14 Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom
Aug 15 Queens, NY – The Rockaway Hotel
Aug 16 Manchester, VT – Green Mountain Bluegrass & Roots Festival
Oct 16 Ojai, CA – Ojai Valley Woman's Club (Solo)
Oct 17 Los Angeles, CA – Pico Union Project (Solo)
Oct 18 San Francisco, CA – The Chapel (Solo – two shows) 
Oct 20 Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater (Solo)
Oct 22 Stoughton, WI – Stoughton Opera House (Solo)
Oct 23 Minneapolis, MN – Icehouse (Solo)
Oct 25 Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk Music (Solo)
Oct 27 Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark (Solo)
Oct 29 Toronto, ON – Longboat Hall (Solo)
Oct 30 Buffalo, NY – The Ninth Ward (Solo)
Nov 01 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg (Solo)
Nov 02 Cambridge, MA – Sinclair (Solo)