Pedro the Lion

From the self-mutilating lunacy of G.G. Allin to the feminist explosion that was Bikini Kill to the DIY ethic of Fugazi, the punk / indie rock scene has traditionally been a refuge for alternative thinkers. It’s a scene where the hippest cats sip lattés while dropping names like Nietzsche and Camus. Enter Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan, a man just as likely to drop the name Jesus when discussing his influences. His lyrics, however, run more along the lines of Johnny Cash than the horrible rantings of Amy Grant or DC Talk. Murder and death are topics covered in many of his songs, like in “Never Leave a Job Half Done” from 2000’s Winner’s Never Quit: Blood stains on the carpet / blood stains on my hands / drag her toward the kitchen / hide the evidence. The Synthesis caught up with Bazan recently as the band made their way across Georgia for a show in Florida.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you went from being in harder, more aggressive bands to doing Pedro the Lion? How did you decide to make that switch or was it just a natural progression?
Basically, in the more aggressive bands I was playing the drum set and when I started writing songs on guitar I really would have liked to have written aggressive music, but my voice wasn’t really of the sort that was good for screaming. And I just felt really uncomfortable doing it, so it just naturally happened that I would just write sad like ballad-type songs.

So the reason you’re not playing hardcore music is that you can’t scream?
Pretty much. I mean, I think I would’ve grown out of it at a certain point anyway. I do listen to some heavy bands, but things that are just not all the time heavy and emphatic. I like variation a lot and the tension and release of that variation is what’s pleasing to me musically.

Is that something you were into growing up or were you always into more aggressive bands when you were younger?
When I was a little kid I wasn’t really allowed to listen to music that wasn’t Christian music, so I listened to a lot of bullshit growing up. Slowly, when I got into high school or in eighth grade, [or] seventh grade I started getting into music that was more aggressive and all that I had to choose from was Christian music that was more aggressive. Pretty soon after that, I was listening to a lot of the Beatles. In high school I started listening to Fugazi, [and] Nirvana started breaking then and from there it was just all sorts of different stuff.

So how does your family look at your music now - do they feel that it’s Christian music or what do they think of it?
I think they’ve got a pretty good handle on the situation. We talk a lot about that whole issue: Christian music. Just the way that Christianity has interacted with culture traditionally. I think that they respect where I’m coming from on it. We don’t necessarily agree on every point. Probably my dad and me agree on a few more things, but even then we don’t totally agree, but we have totally good debates about it on a pretty regular basis. So it’s really friendly. They respect me and I’ve come to respect their views, and respect them more and more all the time as I see them taking factors into consideration and mulling them over and coming up with revised ideas, which I think is a pretty positive trait of people in general.

I read an interview with you where you were comparing the mainstream Christian music with propaganda and just in-your-face blatancy. How have you been able to incorporate your own beliefs into your music without doing that [propaganda] and have you had other artists that inspired you in what you’re doing?
I feel like anytime somebody delves into an artistic endeavor and has a pretense of trying to put this thing forward or that thing forward it can be destructive. I think that this has been especially so in Christian music, it’s pretty complicated as to why, but it happens a lot and I’ve even done it since then with different things. I think that art is at its best when it exposes the tension and the complicated aspects of whatever issue it’s addressing or whatever its subject is. Because of that it can be relevant for longer and also, it just is far more open-ended and it can create that much more tension in the consumer or the listener, depending on the medium. There’s something about performing the songs that do that that I enjoy. I enjoy performing them for far longer on a regular basis than songs that are simplistic and assume a lot as far as the subject is concerned. Things that are more conflicted and open-ended, it’s more gratifying to me to perform those songs. There’s tension that lasts for a longer period of time.

How are you guys received in the scene in Seattle? Have you guys felt any backlash against what you’re doing?
Well, yeah. I mean there definitely is that that exists. I think that the press in general has been pretty favorable, although there are several jabs here and there that people like to make regarding the Christian thing. There’s also some backlash from Christians that are just like, ‘Well, that guy is just clearly off the wall.’ On an individual level, there’s a lot of reports of people being in record stores with their friends and going to buy a Pedro the Lion record and their friends are like, ‘Dude, you don’t want to buy that record.’ And they’re like, ‘What do you mean? I think I like it.’ And they’re like, ‘Those guys are a fucking Christian band!’ Like, ‘What’s the deal? Why would you buy that?’

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