The Dodos

The Dodos
The Dodos performing at The Faversham, Leeds, 6 September 2008. Meric Long (top) and Logan Kroeber (bottom)
Background information
Also known as	Dodo Bird
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Indie folk Psychedelic folk Baroque pop
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Polyvinyl Dine Alone Records (Canada) Frenchkiss Records Wichita Recordings
Website	Official website
Members	Meric Long Logan Kroeber
Past members	Joe Haener Keaton Snyder Christopher Reimer (deceased)

The Dodos is an American indie rock band consisting of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber.

The Dodos began playing music together in 2005, when musician Meric Long, who had been gigging steadily in San Francisco as a solo singer-songwriter, was introduced to Logan Kroeber through a mutual friend (a college acquaintance of Long's that happened to be Kroeber's cousin).

Long self-released a solo EP titled Dodo Bird in March 2006, in which Long played all the instruments. While they performed the songs from this release, Long and Kroeber met and started playing together. They worked to blend Kroeber's training in West African Ewe drumming and Long's experience in metal bands to create music in which "drumming could be a center role and help bring out the syncopated rhythms coming out of the acoustic guitar."

The duo released the 2006 album Beware of the Maniacs, which was self-released under the "Dodo Bird" moniker. In support of the album, Long and Kroeber toured relentlessly for most of 2007. The band began to receive critical attention and developed a growing fan base. Fans began referring to Dodo Bird simply as "The Dodos", and the band decided to change their name accordingly.

In December 2007, the Dodos were signed by Frenchkiss Records and they released their second album Visiter in March 2008, to critical acclaim.

In an April 2008 interview in the L.A. Record, Long revealed the origin of the name of Visiter. "The reason it’s misspelled is because it’s from a drawing this kid gave us. We played a show for a bunch of kids in South Central L.A.—Dorsey High. A friend’s sister [Barbara Lempel] is a special-ed teacher there, so we went down there to her class and we played for the kids and it was super fun. Then it came to the kids asking us questions and then one of the kids came up to us and he gave us a drawing with that written on it. The drawing is the cover actually of the album, and just—I dunno we liked it. Actually we used all of the drawings that the kids made in the artwork on the album. It was definitely a fun, interesting venture for us. We’d never played for kids before—we didn’t know what to expect but they were clapping and dancing."

In 2009, the song "Fools," also from the Visiter album, was featured in an advertisement for Miller Chill.

After the release of Visiter, the band included Joe Haener (formerly of The Gris Gris and Battleship) in its touring line-up, playing xylophone, toy piano and additional percussions.