[3] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Eric D. Johnson was teaching guitar and banjo at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, and fronting an indie rock band called I Rowboat.

Mouthfuls’ closing track "When U Love Somebody," of which Johnson has said "I wrote it in the time it takes to sing it" has become a signature song for the band.

They also embarked on a co-headline tour with label-mates Rogue Wave, and supported acts such as Son Volt, Ray Lamontagne, and Guster, and also appeared for a performance at Sundance Film Festival.

[4] He has described his time in that band as "a total game changer" and influential on Fruit Bats’ work creatively and professionally.

It featured appearances by J. Mascis, Neal Casal and Richard Swift, and made it to the top 15 of the Billboard Heatseekers chart, the first Fruit Bats record to make that list.

[13] Tripper's subsequent tours would see Fruit Bats make appearances at Bonnaroo and The Dave Matthews Band Caravan.

Fruit Bats were featured on the 2011 soundtrack for the Jesse Peretz film Our Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd.

"[16] Johnson had described the retirement of the Fruit Bats name as "a career-stalling move"[4] and in 2015 announced on Instagram that he was reviving the band, declaring "I miss these old songs" via a handwritten letter.

[4] In 2016, Fruit Bats released their sixth official full-length LP, Absolute Loser, via newly formed Los Angeles–based label Easy Sound.

[26] Fruit Bats' 2021 album The Pet Parade was produced by Johnson's Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman and recorded remotely in different cities in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The title of the album is a reference to an actual pet parade that Johnson used to attend as a child in La Grange, Illinois[27]—and a metaphor for the "beauty and absurdity of existence.

[29] The video for The Pet Parade's single "The Balcony", which features a cast composed entirely of puppets, was co-directed by Johnson—his directorial debut—and his wife, Annie Beedy.

The song was one of the most-played singles of 2021 on SiriusXMU radio,[30] and that year Fruit Bats made their first network television appearance since 2009 performing it on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

The first disc featured a curated assortment of popular songs from through the years, and the second was filled with B-sides, unreleased singles, and some of the early four track recordings from the 1990s.

[34] That year also saw Fruit Bats embark on their first proper tour of the United Kingdom since 2011, including an appearance at End of the Road Festival.

[41] Johnson has described discovering the burgeoning mid-90s indie rock scene in his late teens, a discovery he would refer to as "the light at the end of the tunnel.

In August 2019 he joined Joe Russo's Almost Dead for several songs at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre,[47] and once again with that band in July 2021 at their set at Westville Music Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

[48] In October 2021 he played three shows at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, as part of Phil Lesh and Friends.