David Bazan – interview

by richard abrahamson
Seattle-based singer-songwriter David Bazan made a name for himself in the indie rock world for the epic faith-inspired stories he told as Pedro the Lion from 1995 until 2005. Today Bazan has dropped the moniker and has parted ways with the God he once sang so passionately about. We spoke with David about his music, his spiritual shift and his latest record, Curse Your Branches.
EU Jacksonville: How did you get your music style to begin with?
David Bazan: It’s interesting figuring that part out. I grew up in church, so a lot of the music I consumed and played were church songs. I’ve heard guys say that I tend to write in that way, like old hymns, and there’s a similarity in the way I write chorus melodies and the way some of my favorite hymns kind of went. Ever since I was in 8th or 9th grade some of my favorite bands were the Beatles and Fugazi… Then I really liked a lot of Tom Petty and Pavement. So I don’t know exactly which of those has directly influence me or which of them is the most obvious.
Part of my sound comes from the physical quality of my voice and my body. Like, I really like Fugazi and I wanted to sing heavy music but I can’t sing that way so that kind of limited where I was going to go. I kind of have that Eeyore voice. So that is part of what works musically for me; just the way that my voice sounds.

EU: I know you went through a rough time a while back. Is dropping Pedro and going by David Bazan the result of what came out of that period?
DB: Ah, yeah, you know that feels like coincidence to me too, where if I kept the band name Pedro the Lion, I might have had that rough time that I did. You know, that started in Pedro the Lion and maybe I wouldn’t have come out of it or I would’ve even if I kept that brand name and new Pedro stuff would have been a product of getting my life in order just like whatever it was that went wrong got straightened out. But coincidentally it just so happens that all the Bazan material has come out as a product of working through those personal issues. It makes for a pretty good story I think. It seems to.

EU: Curse your Branches is a personal album where you talk about your struggle and realizing that something had to change. Was there a specific moment were something clicked or was it a progressive thing that you struggled with over a period of time?
DB: It developed slowly over time as far as the problem aspect of it and I think my awareness of it being a problem developed slowly and also the repair happened slowly. In each of those cases there were a couple of events that happened were I was like “Oh sh*t, I think I have a drinking problem.” But I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. It was just like this is pretty serious and a couple of events where the people around me said “Hey man, you’ve got a problem and this is a problem with us” and that’s when I made some major changes. But because I did not quit drinking all together, it’s been a slow process of understanding and becoming more mature… It’s been a gradual learning process.

EU: When you were going through that period did it have anything to do with your spiritual status?
DB: There does tend to be some correlation, it’s tough to say exactly. I had a lot of cognitive dissonance about my faith. I thought about it a lot over the years and the best thing I can come up with is… There were conventional rules you had to fit into, either you were a Christian or you were a progressive Christian or you were an Atheist or agnostic and I think while I was in those kind of conventional rules none of those really fit. So that was where some of the dissonance came from and I think that combined with the fact that I really liked to drink a lot. I turned to drinking to sort of swallow those very dissonance feelings. It didn’t necessarily help but it felt cool and it’s fun and in the end I just kind of, not to borrow from the record too much but at a certain point I just had to bear witness to what was my situation seemed to be to me, as contradictory as it felt. I just had to be really honest with myself and sort of deliberately, not living concerned with what system I was signing on to or anything like that. At that point it became much easier for me to not want to get black-out drunk all the time. There was a period before that where I was trying to escape the dissonance pretty consistently. It’s after that to think, I do feel like God exists but I don’t subscribe to this, this and this. Just started to catalog what actually I did feel and things got a lot easier. I think the freedom to just be honest with myself and to sort of admit that I was inconsistent with my belief system; it really made me feel a lot better so I didn’t have to get f*cked up all the time. It was really a nice change… Taking ownership over my own ideas and allowing myself to just think what I actually think. I grew up in a belief system that was dogmatic enough where you couldn’t really think for yourself. Like if you thought the virgin birth sounded kind of far-fetched, you couldn’t believe that and still be part of that community or if the crucifixion seemed interesting but the resurrection sounded like a bunch of baloney you couldn’t really do that. I think for me it was just a process of saying “I don’t know about any of this stuff and I’m just going to have to go with my gut. You know, Jonah and the whale, that’s something that sounds like bullsh*t to me.” Just call a spade a spade. Just allowing myself to call it like I see it and do it humbly but not apologetic.

EU: As far as your spiritual walk, are you still searching for answers or have you found what you were looking for?
DB: Oh, no I’m still in the process. I imagine most honest people are trying to figure out what’s what. I do know enough to where I can kind of function as a moral agent in my family and in my community. But as far as cosmic truth, I’m collecting data and trying to make sense of everything.

EU: What can we expect from this tour? Are you going to focus on newer stuff or will you be mixing it up?
DB: There’s a lot of Pedro songs we’ll be playing, we’re playing stuff from each Pedro record and Headphones and the David Bazan EP and Branches. It’s the third tour we are doing on Curse Your Branches so we don’t feel like we’re going to piss anybody off by not playing every single tune on that record. We want to reward the long time fans by playing some Pedro songs.

EU: What are your plans after the tour is over?
DB: I will be making another record, hopefully that will come out in the spring and then we will tour again in the spring. We will probably do a house show tour in January and February.

David Bazan will perform at Jack Rabbits on October 1st. Tickets are $10. For more information visit www.jackrabbitsonline.com or call 398-7496. To read our complete interview with Bazan, visit www.folioweekly.com.