The DailyER Talks With David Bazan Of Pedro The Lion And Headphones.

Story by Carson Vaughan 

| Published Oct 14, 2008

DailyER: Many fans patiently await the first official David Bazan LP to drop.

When is that going to hit the store shelves and what can we expect, both musically and in terms of subject matter from this new album?

David Bazan: I’m gonna finish it up here in the next couple of weeks/months and it will probably come out in March or April, something like that.

It’s not for sure at this point, but that’s what is tentatively going to happen.

It’s kind of a cross between the different projects that I’ve done before. They’re songs I’ve been playing live a bit, songs that started out on acoustic guitar.

For someone who has been listening to the EP, there’s a pretty big difference between the acoustic guitar versions of those tunes and the electric. So I’ve been trying to massage the arrangements until I feel like they’re good.

Pretty straight ahead rock, folk, pop arrangements of tunes, but I like them so far. They’re compelling to me.

There certainly are a couple of central themes: family—specifically my family—the existence of God and drinking are three things that come up over and over again on the record. That doesn’t feel that different to me, but it’s a little bit more pointed on this one.

ER: Your past songwriting for Pedro the Lion and Headphones shows that a certain amount of spirituality finds its way into your songs. If I’m not mistaken in assuming you are somewhat a religious person, can I ask what has influenced your choice to write about God in certain songs?

DB: I grew up a very sincere Evangelical Christian, so in that sense I am a religious person. My faith growing up was a pretty central issue in my life and even more so than a lot of people who consider themselves Christian.

And so even though now I’m not a Christian and I don’t believe in the ideas of Christianity, it’s still that question and pursuit that defines my identity to a great degree. It’s a complicated “yes, I am a religious person,” but I don’t necessarily know what religious ideas I subscribe to.

I’m interested in them and read about religion and think about religion an awful lot. When it comes to songwriting, that’s just a lot of expression about what’s going on in my brain. That sort of obsession with religion and the nature of religious beliefs and the history of it tends to come out in the music.

ER: How do you feel about thet fact hat a lot of the fans of your original band Pedro the Lion connected with your music originally because they were interested in the spiritual undertones your music takes?

Some could even say that you have an “Angsty Christian” following.

DB: Well, that’s interesting to me.

I get a lot of feedback from people who are ostensibly Christian and some of it’s positive and some of it’s negative, some of it has specifically to do with the nature of the “message” of the songs and some of them are up in arms about it and others comforted by it.

The range of people and beliefs that could be considered “Christian” is so different that I find it fascinating more than anything.

And I find it curious how they relate to the music. It’s really the more deliberate ignorance that somebody approaches anything with—politics, faith, car purchases, anything—the easier for a person’s world view to unravel as they decide to become open to other ideas.

I’m really fascinated and anxious to some degree about people who consider themselves Christian, because I don’t want to derail anybody’s thing; I’m just trying to express my thing, but it does tend to be somewhat hostile to the conventional notions of Christianity.

So when Christians communicate, “Yeah, I really like your records,” I wonder where that’s going to go.

ER: Where do you most often get your information about the world?

DB: I mostly get my news from the Internet. The site that I read the most is the Huffington Post. I subscribe to The Atlantic magazine and I like that very much.

I transferred to The Atlantic from Harpers because while I generally agreed with what was being said in Harpers magazine, it was a little bit too much like preaching to the choir and it made me feel uneasy and I felt like I needed an intelligent conservative voice as a part of what I was consuming, and I feel like the Atlantic does that to some degree.

Certainly there are articles in the Atlantic that make my blood boil as a liberal.

ER: How do you feel about satirical news sources like The Onion and Comedy Central’s offerings?

DB: I think they’re amazing.

I think that we take ourselves too seriously a lot of the times when it comes to these “serious” issues, and I think that shows like “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” take the piss, but they take the piss out of everybody.

They do have their own political leanings, sure, but I don’t feel like anybody is off limits. It’s similar to “The Simpsons,” or how “The Simpsons” used to be.

I think it’s helpful to be able to laugh at yourself and I think The Onion and your paper there and these shows allow us to laugh at ourselves and they cut through the bologna of the institutions and to a large degree the things that are off limits to admit if you’re part of any given institutions.

Those shows don’t have a problem totally lampooning that. I think in most cases it’s a really healthy thing. In a way, it’s one of the most prophetic kinds of voice in mainstream media, that kind of satire.

ER: You have a very dedicated fan-base all across the country and the world from all of your various projects in the past (Pedro the Lion, Headphones). As an artist who doesn’t necessarily get much attention from the large media outlets. How do you stay connected with your fan-base?

DB: Well, because of the nature of the fan base it’s pretty easy to stay connected with them. I’m in peoples’ town once or twice a year, so there’s the direct connection you have with them in playing shows and hanging around at the shows.

The Internet, MySpace and email lists and the like. I feel like we have a really direct connection to the core group of people that care about the records I’ve made.

So if we have something that’s getting ready to happen, we can let almost every one of them know what’s happening via Internet. The Internet and playing live really don’t leave me wanting for much more.

ER: Can you explain the objective of your upcoming DVD release? Whose idea was this? Is it more than a moneymaker? We understand that sometimes you have to sell yourself a little bit to make ends meet.

DB: There are a couple of things. Bob [manager] has been wanting to document the solo thing for a while because I’ve been doing it for three years.

As my manager, he’s seen an arch where the first solo show he was maybe a little worried about how things were going to go because things were kind of rough.

Then, over the course of three years or so, he saw a change that he was impressed by and so he wanted to document that and wanted there to be a document of that because once the new record comes out I’ll start playing with the band again a lot more often.

Another objective was that we’re in-between records and there’s not a lot of money because I’m not touring again until the next record comes out.

We needed to find a way to make a little bit of money. We made it ourselves on the cheap, which you can do these days and not have to compromise quality.

Barsuk [record label] was kind enough to let us put it out on our own, so we get to retain all of the profits from it.

We’ll sell a pretty modest amount of them, but that will go a long way in putting food on the table and keeping the lights on here at my house.

Certainly there are plenty of times we need money, and there are plenty of ideas that serve no other purpose than raising money, and that just feels horrible and there’s no way we could pull that off and look ourselves in the mirror. With this case it’s a little bit of both.

Like you said, I can’t lie—we need a little bit of money.

ER: You recently played a show in Barcelona, Spain. What is it like playing for a foreign crowd, and how is it different than playing at home?

DB: It’s interesting, American bands going that direction. Because American culture has consumed the world over, it’s a lot easier for us to do because people are interested in that.

If a Spanish band came over here we wouldn’t give two shits about it. That’s kind of the cultural arrogance of it.

It’s easier to export American music. I feel like that’s on my side when I go over there. When the little voice that says, “What are you doing here? The songs are in large part about the lyrics and these folks don’t speak English? Your stuff is going to be horrible to them,” I just think, “Well, that’s fine.”

They like American bands and these are songs with melodies and I like singing.

There’s a little more self-doubt than normally crops up. It usually works out fine because people really like music and music is a really magical thing in almost any situation, so it worked out just fine.

ER: Last May you played a small show in Lincoln, Neb. How was your experience in our town? Anything notable? Do you enjoy those types of shows, or would you rather skip to the bigger gigs?

DB: I like it a lot. I have a couple of buddies there: AJ Mogis and his wife and another dude from the band Criteria.

It was really nice to hang out with them and we did a little drinking afterwards because AJ is from Lincoln. It seems like a great little town and the show was awesome, and I got paid well, which is wonderful.

ER: Have you played with Grand Archives since first playing with them in Lincoln?

DB: I ran into Grand Archives at Sasquatch [music festival]. I played on the same stage as them. Those guys are neat dudes.

We ended up at the same bar just randomly at the end of the night. We were sitting there having a drink and those guys rolled in so we got to hang out with them that night in Lincoln for quite a bit more.

ER: How has your budding family changed your career?

DB: When it comes to touring, I’m not as free, and I don’t have the desire to be out for as long at one time.

Shorter trips are usually better now. We have a daughter. Whereas before there would be no reason not to do a 40 or 50-day trip, now I try to do no more than about 20 days at a time.

ER: How was the Australia Tour? Any fun stories, crazy tales, folklore?

DB: The shows were good. The biggest show was about 100 and the smallest show was about 40 people, so it was the hardcore kind of fans.

Not a lot of people over there were aware of me playing except for the people that have been listening to the records for the last 8-10 years, so that was great.

The first show I played in Brisbane I started with a song from an early Pedro The Lion record and you just heard four or five people gasp because they didn’t think they’d ever hear that song live because Pedro The Lion never went there.

It was pretty neat for me. It made me feel really kind of special, actually. It was really fun hanging out with those guys, to tie one on. I had a blast the whole time.