| David Bazan is sitting in a hotel room in Hawaii after attending his sister-in-law’s wedding. The airline lost his luggage and he has to do press while on vacation.
But Bazan is one of the happiest guys you’ll ever meet.
This may come as a bit of a shock to fans of his Seattle-based band, Pedro The Lion, which isn’t exactly known for being particularly upbeat. In fact, his previous albums have been downright spooky, combining disturbing subject matter with playful melodies. Bazan wallows in the beauty of sorrow like no other and has the uncanny ability to capture the darkness of life. He dives into the depths of the human condition, using first-person narratives to tell tales of
murderers and degenerates with the ease of Houdini getting out of a straitjacket.
Which makes his giggling a bit unnerving.
Bazan has agreed to undergo some amateur psychological analysis during the interview as a way to figure all this out. A little Pedro Regression Therapy if you will.
"When I was two, I had one of those Fisher-Price record players with the little plastic discs. It’s basically just a music box," Bazan says. "I got it for Christmas and there are all these photographs of me on Christmas morning that are pretty hilarious. It looks like my face is going to explode, I’m smiling so big."
Let’s open the music box to one’s soul. The toy record player contained a few discs: "Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give Your Dog a Bone," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "London Bridge Is Falling Down" and "Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?" Please, continue.
"For some reason I had sort of categorized them and that last one (‘Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?’) was like the sad one," Bazan pauses thoughtfully. "I wouldn’t play that one very much but saved it for times when I was feeling sad. I’d put that one on and listen to it over and over again. That song was kind of sad and the others weren’t. I compartmentalized them."
So even at the tender age of two, Bazan coddled his sadness and acknowledged his feelings with haunting musical choices. Today, he
continues to isolate his melancholy. Instead of taking it personally, Bazan puts his anguish into song. He’s a happy guy who makes sad music. Interesting, very interesting.
Pedro The Lion releases his new album Achilles Heel May 25, 2004 |
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