Forget the free booze, the chicks and the parties – the members of indie rock band Fruit Bats have found a better way to entertain themselves while on the road.

“We went to the zoo the other day in Denver,” says Eric Johnson, front man of Fruit Bats.

“We got stuck in a thunderstorm in the middle of it, but we saw komodo dragons, which for me, was one of the more exciting parts.”

Johnson says trying to stay busy when on tour is the fun part.

“It’s kind of like being on vacation, except then you’re forced to play a show 45 minutes every night,” he says. “I’m sick of being on the road right now, actually, but I also enjoy doing it. It’s a love-hate relationship.”

Fruit Bats are on the road to promote their latest album, “Spelled in Bones.” Although the band has paraded through many lineup changes since its start in Chicago during the mid-’90s, this tour is composed of Johnson, guitarist Dan Strack, bassist Adam Howry and drummer Ron Lewis.

Although he has a love-hate relationship with the touring part, Johnson admits he enjoys the spotlight.

“Performing I’m kind of into, although I have sort of a schizophrenic Gemini personality where part of me is painfully shy and the other part of me is really a ham and enjoys being up on the stage,” he says.

“So I have sort of a split personality in that way. I have really mixed feelings about getting on a stage and performing for people.”

Despite his fears, Johnson says Fruit Bats puts on a lively show.

“The live show rocks out a little bit more than the records,” he says. “It’s a little bit more danceable than your average Fruit Bats record listening experience.”

Johnson, who is a self-taught musician, says his musical skills were not originally learned by choice. Instead, it was a friendly gesture and maybe a matter of coolness.

“I was forced into it because in high school, my friends wanted me to sing for their band and I didn’t know how to play an instrument, but I didn’t want to just stand there singing,” he says. “So I forced myself to play the guitar. I’ve never really gotten much better than then, but enough so that I can write chords and write melodies over the top of those chords.”

While writing “Spelled in Bones,” Johnson says time spent on the West Coast influenced his work, but his real muse was a dirty habit.

“I quit smoking for eight months and then I started smoking again and I kind of wrote all these songs at once right when I started smoking,” he says. “Not that I’m trying to say that smoking is good at all, but it was just part of this creative release I had because I’d been really uptight.”

After three albums, Johnson says the element he enjoys most out of the album-making process is not the writing or touring, but the recording.

“The recording is really the most fun part because you can do it different every time,” he says.

Already planning to do the fourth Fruit Bats album differently, Johnson says his impatience has led him to start thinking about the various ways he can record the next release. He says his biggest concern is simplicity.

“I want to do it a little more raw, a little more stripped down and maybe done on an eight-track or something like that rather than on a computer,” he says. “And maybe record it out in the country, but that’s the real general plan for it right now.”

 

Who: Fruit Bats, Rogue Wave

Where: M-Shop

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Cost: $8 students, $10 public