Work In Progress

David Bazan has a knack for turning his struggles into compelling music. As the only constant member of Pedro the Lion, Bazan’s struggles with faith and his place in the world were probably best documented in his group’s 2002 album, Control. While this collection of harrowing dirges might have painted its auteur as a deeply troubled man, talking with Bazan reveals something much different.
While the songwriter admits that he may have taken himself too seriously in the past, on his latest album, Achilles Heel, Bazan ventured to take a more laid-back approach to his songwriting, remarking that, “When I don’t take it so seriously, it’s just a ton of fun to write.”
The results are instantly noticeable; the music on Achilles Heel is a whole lot brighter than Pedro the Lion’s previous effort. But Bazan’s sunnier outlook isn’t the only difference. While past Pedro the Lion albums were mainly the work of Bazan alone, Achilles Heel is more of a group effort, and the songwriter is excited to “be in a band.” Bazan’s main collaborator TW Walsh not only shares writing credit on one of the tracks, but penned another entirely on his own. This partnership, much like Bazan’s own song craft, is constantly changing, but while the artist admits he’s not sure which direction he’s headed, he’s happy with how things are progressing. Recently, the Synthesis had the opportunity to talk shop with the Seattle-based songwriter, who revealed why he has tried to make his songwriting more of a subconscious act.

I was checking out some of the lyrics on the Achilles Heel Web site, and there seems to be a good mix between first-person point of view and third-person narratives. Which mode of songwriting do you find the most expressive?
I think it would depend on the moment and what it was I was feeling like expressing. There are things that serve different purposes. I guess I don’t know enough about the overview of what I’ve done or what I will do to know what tone I really prefer. I think I like them both for different things. Usually, I’m not making a decision about that as I’m starting. I just start writing, and then later on — if someone were to ask me how many songs on the album were first person and how many were third person, I would have had to go back and figure it out, because I don’t really pay attention to that stuff.

The lyrics that struck me in particular were those to “Foregone Conclusion.” Is that a stab at interviewers or critics of your work?
No, not specifically. Although, I’m really pleased that lyrics in general mean so many things to different people. I’m becoming comfortable with, and enjoying the fact that people read so many different things into them and they mean so many other things than I meant them to. And I really like that. But as far as what I sort of had in mind, there’s just so much information — particularly with politics — that people are so polarized with their ideas. And both parties are so convinced that they’re right, and how it’s just really difficult to have any kind of substantive exchange with somebody, during which you’d be open to changing your point of view if they were to provide the right proof or information or whatever. That’s what it’s about — living by assumptions, unchecked assumptions for the most part, regarding faith and politics.

Were current world politics part of the impetus behind the songs on this album?
I’ve definitely been concerned about it the whole time. I’ve tried to make the creative process a lot more of a subconscious one so I’m not making decisions very deliberately about what each song is about. I can’t say that these songs are about politics, but I imagine that a lot of them come from moods and things that I have in politics, because it’s a pretty big year for that.

The last time you passed through Chico, CA, you did a few Q&A sessions between songs, and during one of those, you mentioned that you noticed some of the lyrics on Achilles Heel had sexist undertones. You just mentioned that you’ve made it more of a subconscious process recently, and you weren’t really thinking about it after the song was written, but what do you think inspired the sexism in those lyrics?
I think that the album, without really meaning to be, was sort of concerned, if not obsessed, with manhood in a modern context, and what that means to traditional roles like fatherhood and being a husband. I think it came from a lot of the characters on the record being a little bit on the extreme side on that end of things. I think when you start to become insecure in your position as a man that you tend to lash out, belittle other people, particularly women. I think it had to do with a lot of the characters being in that position, and, I suppose potentially to some degree, me being in that position. Though I think that all the times that I was writing those lines, I usually thought that they were either funny, or that the characters were just a little bit biting or something like that.

Was there anything in particular that contributed to that tone of the lyrics?
I don’t think so, beyond the fact that I’m a 28-year-old male who’s married and trying to make a living and trying to figure all that stuff out. All of this is total conjecture, because I really have no idea. I do wonder about my place in the world and whatnot. It’s not a crisis, certainly, but it’s something that comes up.

Why is Achilles Heel a good title for this collection of songs?
One of my favorite moments in the record, before we named it and even still, was that song “Transcontinental” and how the character meets his end sort of unexpectedly, and that idea is really interesting to me, where people will be married, and then all of a sudden they’re divorced. There are all sorts of little disasters just waiting around the corner for us all, and that sort of element is really compelling to me. No one chooses to lose their job and become a drug addict, but it’s the little decisions that we make that end up becoming our fatal flaw. That idea was just really interesting to me, but I also like the way the words look and sound. Achilles Heel — it’s really weird, and I kind of like it.

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