From origins busking on Portland street corners and playing impromptu gigs at taco shops and wing joints, Fruition’s Americana sound has grown up. That’s to be expected when you’ve been a band for more than 15 years and rocked sold-out shows and festivals across the country, sharing tunes from a solid string of studio records, EPs, singles and a live record, the group’s most recent release.
“I am a road dog, baby, there ain’t no two ways about it,” Mimi Naja sings in the opening verse of “I Don’t Mind” from “Live, Vol. 1,” which kicked off Fruition’s set at Boise’s Visual Arts Collective. Released in early 2022, the band’s first-ever live release documents a show from Feb. 10, 2019.
“It was the end of a long tour, so we were definitely firing on all cylinders,” describes drummer Tyler Thompson. “Luckily, we didn’t even know the show was being recorded to multitrack, so the energy couldn’t be more honest and rowdy.”
When the pandemic hit and a road-worn band like Fruition was forced to slam on the brakes, the quintet was left with pieces of their lives in the before-times. Thompson began mixing these Boise live recordings in his home studio, Studio 110, while bassist Jeff Leonard started digging through the GoPro clips he’d collected from the cameras he had set up at every show on that winter tour.
“We’ve always been a ‘live band,’ as people might say. Our fans have always really enjoyed the live show,” explains guitarist and songwriter Jay Cobb Anderson. “Live, Vol. 1” was an effort to lift the spirits of both the fans and the band when live performances were off the table. It also may have been a harbinger for what was to come.
When the pandemic subsided, things looked and felt a bit different. Band members had moved to new cities, gotten married or gotten sober, and a few had kids. These new developments also altered the ways in which the five bandmates viewed making music and going back out on the road.
Fruition has always been a unique, three-headed beast with three principal songwriters and singers sharing leading roles on stage and recordings. Anderson may be the most prolific of the bunch, but multi-instrumentalists Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek more than carry their melodic weight, with both their lyrical talents and musical sensibilities on mandolin and keys, respectively. The three represent the original core of a band that started out as a string band and evolved into something more electric, establishing itself as a powerful live presence with legions of Fruity Freaks following from Oregon to Colorado as the five worked their way up festival bills and rock club stages.
“As a band, we’ve always said that we’re a ‘song band’ when people ask what kind of band we are. Whether it’s been a rock song or a soul song or a countryish song or a bluegrassy song, I’ve always focused on the songwriting.” —Jay Cobb Anderson
It makes sense, then, that after getting lost in the grind of life on the road, the forced respite of the pandemic allowed Fruition to find its center again. Anderson, Naja and Asebroek embarked on a series of shows as Fruition Trio, an intimate run of acoustic dates that enabled the three songwriters to hearken back to their busking days, while Leonard and Thompson could focus on their family lives.
The ability to take a break, reconfigure and come back together again are all signs of a band that’s truly matured into its own. The live reputation has always followed Fruition, but “as a band, we’ve always said that we’re a ‘song band’ when people ask what kind of band we are,” Anderson tells. “Whether it’s been a rock song or a soul song or a countryish song or a bluegrassy song, I’ve always focused on the songwriting.”
On Aug. 23, Fruition will release its first album in four years, recorded live as a full band in the studio. After all these years, it’s the first time the five-piece has made a completely live studio album with no overdubs — flaws and all. Aptly titled, “How to Make Mistakes,” the name really sums up the nostalgia-steeped, less-is-more approach to songwriting and recording on the effort.
“Yes, there are moments where we’re off tempo; there are moments where we’re probably a little sharp or flat when we’re singing,” Anderson admits. But the whole band embraced the lyric, “and I’m learning how to make mistakes” from “Made to Break,” a heavy-hearted ode to a former lover co-written by Naja and Anderson.
With two new albums in the can, “How to Make Mistakes” is full of love songs, down-and-out songs, songs of solitude and a tragic tale told jauntily—and you can get your sneak peek of it at the free Munch & Music concert in Drake Park on Thursday, Aug. 1.
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This article appears in Source Weekly July 25, 2024.
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