Deciding Where To Fall
By: Tyler Ross

If you were a part of something so influential, touching large numbers of lives, and you decided to turn your back on these influences, how would this affect your future?  For David Bazan (ex. Pedro The Lion) and his fans, that was the Christian religion.  Near the end of Pedro The Lion, Bazan started to feel himself questioning his faith and slipping further and further away from what he used to believe.

Now with a solo career, he recently released a new record, Curse Your Branches, which has been considered the album that answers, why the severance from God.  The album plays as a truly personal insight to his current outlook on religion from the outside looking in.

With a large crowd in full support, the Troubadour in Hollywood, California displayed a mellow-mood sentiment, which occasionally broke out into head-nodding, groove-rock jams.  Even without faith, Bazan doesn’t appear to have lost his fan base.

In between songs, he always sets aside time to interact with the crowd and answer any of their questions.  While playing along with his new band, it’s as if they had been doing this solo project for years.  Although he continues to maintain a solid following, the likelihood of maintaining all the original fans is something Bazan mentioned as being out of his control.

His presence on stage tends to appear awkward, but as the show proceeds, the lyrical content grabs the attention of the audience with ease, and soothes the soul with catchy melodies.  With a lengthy tour that kicked off in San Francisco in early October, Bazan and his band-mates set out across the Bible belt, the East Coast and the Midwest, before returning to his home state of Washington.

“I don’t consider myself a Christian.  I would say I’m more agnostic.  Some of the time, I believe God may exist, but I’m only about half the time comfortable with that perception,” responded Bazan through an Amplified video interview.

Ever since the release of the new record, which could be viewed as a direct shot against religion, Bazan’s music has spawned many debates which appear on numerous blogs and websites.  Occasionally, you will find a few supporters, but most religious sites have tried to pinpoint a reason for his words and why he turned his back on his faith.  One might question why, after all this time, it wasn’t until recently that he decided to voice his innermost feelings in such a public manner.

“I’m open to the possibilities, but at this point, I don’t believe the narrative about ‘capital G.O.D.’ that the Bible or Christianity sets forth,” said Bazan.

No matter the situation, religious or not, Bazan continues to provide touching and harmonious, melodic rock to his growing audience.