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(soft synth music)

♪ I was trembling with goose flesh ♪

♪ First time I prayed to speak in tongues ♪

♪ I saw it comin' ♪

♪ And I tried to run ♪

♪ But now I make it up as I go along ♪

♪ I store my flaws in other people's heads ♪

♪ Then I question what they know ♪

♪ The cloud of witnesses ♪

♪ Hover above you like a ♪

♪ A pillar of smoke ♪

♪ Singin' stories, whisperin' jokes ♪

- [Robert] From NPR News, this is All Things Considered.

I'm Robert Siegel. - And I'm Michele Norris.

David Bazan was once known as the first

cross-over Christian indie-rock musician.

His band, Pedro the Lion, sold hundreds

of thousands of records.

- [David] Hey, how's it going out there?

(people cheering)

- [Michele] Then Bazan began questioning the God

he sang about, alienating many of his fans.

Now, he has a new album out under his own name,

and recently, he went on a solo tour,

playing in living rooms.

Clay Masters, from member station, NET Radio,

caught up with Bazan on the road.

- [Clay] It took Bazan four years after

Pedro the Lion broke up to write his first solo record.

In that time, it seems, he was overwhelmed

by his break up with God, and he started drinking heavily.

The questioning of God isn't something new for him,

it dates back to early Pedro the Lion records.

Many music critics called Curse Your Braches

Bazan's break up with God.

Bazan hopes people who buy it will respond

to his honestly regardless of what he might believe.

For NPR News, I'm Clay Masters.

- [Ann] And so, there's two games that are specialty , so.

But I think there's three or four games

that you'll be home for.

So that'll be cool. - That's great.

Well when I'm home, I wanna take him to the

batting cages a bunch.

- [Ann] Yeah.

Yeah, your dad said that he's progressively getting better.

- Great.

- [Ann] Yeah.

- That's so great.

Okay, sorry, I'm turned around.

- [Ann] That's okay, I'll just let you go.

I don't know, it just feels like,

I'm so close to you, I'm tellin' you I'm missing ya, so.

- I'm missin' you too.

- [Ann] Okay. Love you.

- I love you.

- Bye. - Bye.

♪ Other side ♪

♪ Of the road ♪

- Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.

As the Republican nominating battle

moved into the fall with the two outsider candidates,

Donald Trump and Ben Carson, still on top of the polls,

the frustration of the other establishment candidates,

is growing.

- [Man] One of the many surprises this election year

has been the support Donald Trump has received

from conservative, evangelical voters in the primaries.

To build on that support, Donald Trump met with

hundreds of evangelical leaders in Manhattan yesterday

and he suggested that they not pray for

the country's current leadership.

(soft music)

- I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and

we lived a half a mile from the church

that we went to and that my dad worked at

and the school that I went to was a part of that church.

Every single person in my...

- From like Kindergarten? - Yeah.

Kindergarten to sixth grade. - Okay.

- Every single person in my extended family is

Christian and the same kind of Christian

that we were, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God.

And certain kinds of evangelical Christianity, specifically,

there's this push for your faith to be integrated

in your person, in your identity,

and it's not some separate ornament to your life.

It's like the fundamental thing, and so,

that was the mindset that I kind of grew up with,

was that this is, it just permeates everything

and I enjoyed that. I mean, there's like a feeling of fidelity to it

that just, you know, just made you feel good.

(soft music)

(insects buzzing) (soft music)

What's up?

Hey, how's it goin'?

- I'm Micah. - Micah, how are you?

- [Micah] Yeah, I've seen you up in Columbia before.

- Oh right. - Big fan.

- [David] Thanks man.

- What's up man?

Brian. - Brian.

- This is my house. - Right on Brian. - Thanks for playing. - Thanks so much.

- [Brian] Do you want a beer or anything?

♪ Hello again ♪

♪ Oblivion ♪

♪ But it's no good to complain ♪

♪ Of fatigue and existential pain ♪

(soft acoustic music)

♪ On a six week solo drive ♪

♪ While your friends work nine to five ♪

♪ What really threw me off ♪

♪ Is that all these years I thought ♪

♪ I'd work it out ♪

♪ Did you sing it like it is ♪

♪ 'Cause you really thought it would pack 'em in ♪

- [Man] You're so welcome.

Take care of the kiddos and yourself.

- [Brian] Thank you so much, dude.

Good luck on the rest of your tour.

- [Man] I can't believe he came, dude.

It's been a pleasure. - Thank you so much.

These are the download cards.

And then there's seven inch packs.

- How much? - 20 for the vinyl.

These are each 10, and then the pack of seven inches in 35.

- Okay.

- [David] And I take cards if that's helpful.

- Oh yeah? And that is.

Then I'll take the vinyl and the seven.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you.

- This is awesome. - It was a great show.

(soft music)

- [David] Before inventing house shows, you know,

I was at the pawn shop all the time

with my gear in pawn to make ends meet.

And once we got house shows figured out,

I had never went to the pawn shop again.

But all of a sudden, I'm on the road all of the time.

I recently realized I was gone two years and nine months

of my son's first five years on Earth, over half.

And I've been right on that line for too long.

Like, how much can my marriage withstand?

A couple of years ago it became clear

that our marriage really can't stand

this amount of time away.

And watching it crack and seeing it could be over soon,

I gotta get home more. (soft music)

- [Nils] What time is it for you?

- It's after midnight.

- [Eleanor] We're at 9:36 right now.

- I know, I'm at 12:36.

What are you doing, Nils?

Hi.

- [Eleanor] I hate him so much right now.

- He's just looking for love.

I'll be home in a minute.

- [Eleanor] In a minute?

In a minute? - Mhm.

- I love you so much. - I love you too.

I miss you guys. - I miss you too, dad.

- How are dealing with all of that?

(laughs)

- [Ann] I'm gonna go.

- Pew, pew, pew, pew. - All right, bye.

- I love you guys.

(soft music)

You have to be really crafty about logistics

and how to make the day to day work

and where to shave things off, you know,

hotel rooms or staying with people.

You know, there are just like a hundred ways

to figure out how to do it.

Being middle aged, having kids, trying to justify

this weird choice that you made when you were 19

and that all of your buddies either got rich doing it,

or have given it up.

And so you're trying to justify all this stuff

and it's easy to lose faith, but if you're finding

that spark, if you're finding that thing

that made the White Album just flip your chemistry

when you were in eighth grade.

And you're not Paul McCartney or John Lennon,

but you're doing something that connects

your brain that same way, then you can keep going

for a long time.

So that's the trick.

If Pedro had put out another record and it was really good

and well received, that was the moment

where it was gonna change, you know?

There had been a string of close buddies

that had been in the band and were now

not in the band anymore.

There was some sort of failure in each of those instances.

They didn't have enough ownership or whatever.

It just didn't work, repeatedly.

All this was happening during the realizations

I was having about Christianity and the Christian narrative

and how it was all kind of falling apart.

I was, you know, just a bundle of contradictions

and so I just thought, well I just need to lean

into all those contradictions just

to be the mess that I am about this stuff.

I mean, Pedro the Lion was a really beautiful thing

and it was really working for a time,

and when that couldn't work, I just thought that

something is wrong, something about the premise

of this thing is flawed and you need to walk

away from that premise, whatever that is.

And to me, the name of that premise was Pedro the Lion.

I couldn't write anything.

I didn't know why it wasn't working,

and I didn't know what I was doing wrong

and so I killed it, and along with it,

I effectively killed my livelihood,

I mean, my career basically, to try to find out

why this was happening and get some clarity.

Just driving around, playing solo shows,

trying to think through it and give myself

some time to figure it out and then maybe by the time

I put out my first solo record,

I would be in a position to have a band again.

For me to be allowed to continue to do this work

of songwriting and interacting with people

and putting out records, while I've been figuring this out,

really, really helped me.

(soft music)

Where is it?

Through here?

- [Yuuki] Third floor.

- With this method of touring, people didn't know

what to expect and so, I got to define what it was

and so it allowed me to be myself more frequently.

It was grounding for me.

It was a pure form of the thing.

There's no lights, there's no stage, there's no pomp.

You're right there, on the same scale.

If it was at a rock club, it wouldn't work the same way,

but you're in this place that you've never been,

they've never been before.

Everybody was just off balance and open and so

that was when I started seeing vulnerability

as the antidote to all this anxiety and self loathing.

It was really helpful to take the problem out

of my head to sort of interact with that work

over and over again and the profound

and vulnerable way of singing.

What it does to your brain when you sing

something that you know and that you love, it heals you.

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

(audience applause)

I'm called Dave Bazan, this is Yuuki Matthews.

Yeah, do y'all have any questions

at this point in the show?

It's kind of early, but, maybe you curiosity

has already been stirred, who knows.

Okay well, we can talk later, also.

We have got a couple more songs that we can play.

(laughing)

What is the definition of what couple means?

- Two, right? - Two?

- [Woman] Three.

- Or three. - Isn't a few

three or more?

- Yeah but when I say go grab couple me a couple of beers,

I do mean three. (audience laughs)

- Are you surprised that people who are religious

are still very big fans of you?

Does that bother you or-- - No.

I care about what happens with Christianity.

I want it to get better.

I want it to quit shittin' the bed so consistently.

So when I hear that, that there are Christians whose

faith is of the sort that you can sit

and listen to me blabbing on for nine minutes,

to me that is a good sign.

In regards to, whoever is going to like this music

is gonna like it. I can't stop it, and I would never want to,

'cause I got a few in my family.

(audience laughs)

(soft music) (people chattering)

I find myself interacting with people that

we have different worldviews,

but I'm trying to find common ground and I say,

when you say God's kingdom, what do you think about?

And they say, oh well justice and these things,

and I was like, me too.

I think that's important too.

Let's join together and do that.

Because partially, you're scared of burning in hell

for all eternity, me just 'cause I think it's a great idea.

But let's do it, you know wat I'm saying?

The fruit on the tree, that's the thing.

People can claim all kinds of things,

but what's the fruit, you know, in the end?

That's the myth of a powerful movement

like American Evangelical Christianity.

That there is one way to think about a thing.

That the interpretation that seems universal

is the real thing.

And so in the end, I realized that I was

challenging nothing more than an institution.

(soft music)

I think my brain always was kind of deconstructing things,

even as like a kid.

Seventh grade, I remember we were at this church

in Lake Havasu City, Arizona,

and it was Fourth of July and my dad

was the music pastor this church and they had

a color guard that came in and had flags

and I think fake guns, walking up the aisle,

and we sang a bunch of patriotic songs.

And I remember thinking, like,

I think these guys are getting some things mixed up.

I wouldn't have known the world conflate

but that you're conflating two things with one another

that don't go, that aren't the same thing.

That day I mentioned it to my dad, like,

yeah, I don't think those things go together.

His response was, "Oh, interesting.

"Tell me more about that."

(cars passing)

(tense music)

Yeah.

What did she do in that last race?

Was it an IM?

Did she do okay?

Two seconds?

Oh man, that's so great.

Oh, that's so good.

(drill whirring)

♪ Ooh, ooh ♪

(soft acoustic music)

(audience applause)

You all wanna talk about anything

at this point in the show?

- [Woman] So the Whole EP was one of the first albums

that I listened to by you.

It's a lot different. - It is different.

- [Woman] Than what you have recently produced.

What made you so bitter?

- Whoa, I'm not even a little bit bitter.

(audience laughs)

I changed a lot since the time I was 18 until now

and I just did it in front of people.

- I have a question. - Yep.

- [Audience Member] Are you tired of talking about Christianity?

- Oh no, it's so fascinating. (audience members laugh)

Christianity is still creating so many problems

all around us, like I'm dying to talk about it.

Dying. (laughing)

(soft acoustic music)

- Growing up in church, listening to Christian rock

and this and that, or even somebody

who was like, within the church.

As soon as you found out that somebody left the church,

you're done, I'm never listening to your shit again.

- Yeah, right. - I find, you seem to be

an anomaly, which is a positive thing.

That you do this and you have this large majority

of your fan base are still young believers

that still continue to support you

and they're here tonight.

And you're the only person that I think I can name

that has that type of support.

- What I hope is happening is that there

is a space, more of a middle ground,

for people to remain Christian, and for their faith

to become faith and not a militant sort of,

you're either with us or against,

like an othering kind of thing where there's

a vulnerability to actual faith that isn't just, like,

a club that you're beating people with.

- Right.

- Would you say that there's stuff that's out there

that you've written and that you used to believe in

that you don't believe in anymore?

- Yes.

- And, um, so people find this music by you,

and they're like, oh this is David Buzan, but,

is it really?

- It's David Buzan from a certain point in time.

At any given point, it's always been totally in earnest

so yeah, I changed my mind about certain things,

but it was genuine at the time.

- That's understandable.

- Sure. (woman laughs)

I think it's commendable. - It's very commendable.

(soft acoustic rock music)

- [Justin] In the same way that is often communicated

of you, this sort of like, departure.

- [David] Departure.

- Or stepping out. - Yep.

- Those words don't connect emotionally

with what you believe or feel like is a place for you

in a broader cultural context.

- I don't believe in the Resurrection,

I don't believe in the fall, I don't believe in the trinity.

I don't know if there is God at all,

but I know that document pretty well

and I see a thread in it that one could follow

and the fruit of one's life and one's community

and everything would be something really different

that what we see in America.

There is this thing that I think,

if we all pay a little closer attention,

could go better than it's going and so if I can help,

then I'm gonna.

I am participating in a larger Christian tradition.

That's what I was born into, that's the language I know,

that's how I understand ethics.

I'm a son of Evangelical Christianity

and I'll never not be that. (soft music)

In high school, God was church.

And then once I got out of high school,

I realized that I wanted to take my faith more seriously

and for me, that meant having a

more regular devotional time.

Reading more and more books, praying more.

I would try to spend an hour or two every day

reading the Bible, doing some Bible study devotional book,

praying, and trying to sin less.

To do Christianity in the most devoted

and thorough way that I knew how.

I always thought that I was gonna be

a pastor when I was growing up.

It was just in my head, eventually I'll probably

be a pastor, like start a church or something like that.

♪ You came from heaven to earth ♪

♪ To show the way ♪

♪ From the earth to the cross ♪

♪ My debt to pay ♪ The first time I ever

played guitar in front of anybody,

I was leading the two and three year old

Sunday school class and like, you know,

if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.

And then shortly after that, in 10th grade,

I started writing songs of my own.

And then when I started writing songs,

I thought that this is what I wanna do.

I just wanna write these songs

and drive around and sing 'em, you know?

Thanks for being here.

♪ And all the way to grandma's house ♪

♪ I stayed on the narrow path ♪

♪ My younger brother wandered off ♪

♪ Deep into the woods ♪

♪ Bitten twice by rattlesnakes ♪

♪ Tangled up in poison oak ♪

♪ He fell down and broke his legs ♪

♪ Into a great ravine ♪

♪ When I arrived at grandma's house ♪

♪ She had made us tea and cake ♪

♪ She asked me where my brother was ♪

♪ And I said I don't know and ate ♪

- [Man] NPR's Sarah McCammon reports

from Richmond, Virginia.

- [Sarah] Since the band's inception, Pedro the Lion

has always towed the line between indie rock

and Christian music.

One of the things that stands out to me

as I hear even some of your very early work

as Pedro the Lion, a lot of these songs

are riddled with uncertainty and doubt

and criticism of religion.

And so this has been a long process for you.

What do you think made the band

so successful in the early 2000s?

What is it that resonated with people?

- I don't totally know, but I can guess.

I think there is an earnestness that I wrote with

and an openness with which I sang about doubt

and faith at a time when I don't really

think that was going on much.

I think I did it in such a way that it wasn't

slogans or trying to convert anybody.

It was just me trying to process what was going on

inside my head, and I guess that worked for some folks.

♪ When I get to heaven ♪

♪ I'll be greeted warmly ♪

♪ Surrounded by the angels ♪

♪ As Jesus takes my hand ♪

There was a sense early on that, like,

there's a version of Christianity that is

kind of pure and based on scripture that the people

in the culture that I'm a part of

are just barely paying lip service to

and that was a lot to think about forever until I was 28.

My thinking was more reform the church, just be better.

(audience cheering)

Thanks a lot.

There's a lot of different factors that come to play

and have caused a pretty severe ghetto of thought

and creativity and artistic expression

in the Christian church.

We should be creating things that are risky and new,

attempting to sloganize the gospel I think

degraded it to the point of making it the most unprofound

thing that there is so I just encourage you guys,

throw off the shackles of Christian culture

and the Christian industry-- (audience cheers)

And attempt to do something that's not down or whatever.

I wanted to be able to be a band that was on

general market record labels and Tower Records

and play in clubs.

Not play churches, not have my records distributed

on a Christian label and not having them sold

only in Christian bookstores.

I wanted out of that subculture...

musically.

I wanted to just sink or swim by my merits

if I was allowed to do that in the world at large.

When It's Hard to Find a Friend came out,

that's exactly what happened.

It got critical acclaim and got played on the radio

and played in rock clubs with bands who

we didn't know from church.

That's exactly what I wanted was just to be allowed

to be out of the bubble and just be,

and just hock my wares the best I could.

(audience clapping)

Does anybody have any questions at this point?

- [Man] How important is Jesus to you?

- That's like a private conversation.

- I'm sorry man. - That's all right.

I'm gonna ask for a different one, yeah?

(soft, tinkling music)

It wasn't until after high school that I really

had the bandwidth to start to really take it seriously

and so then I went to Bible college

and just epiphany and paradigm shift after epiphany.

And then some of these deeper questions started

to come up where I had realized that I had

not ever evaluated the fundamental truth claims

of Christianity and that I was just sort of

rolling along with these premises that were

un-sort-of-substantiated at the root

of my entire system of belief.

And I thought, well it makes sense that if I'm gonna

really do this right, I need to evaluate those.

The faithful response to them is not to hide from them,

because these questions can't hurt God.

I certainly was reading the Bible a bunch,

like trying to read it like I had never seen it before

where I didn't have a bunch of assumptions.

But I was just like, really reading it,

and so as I mulled it over more and more,

it just seemed less and less likely that...

That the picture of God that I has accepted

from Christianity was true.

I think hell was one of the first things to go,

and errancy followed pretty soon after.

Original sin came up pretty quick.

Moving from assuredness to anything else,

no matter what it is, is,

is pretty destabilizing.

At that point in time, the way that my faith had developed

and the way that God functioned in my brain,

it was the same as me.

I mean, it was like this God was inside of me

and knew me intimately, knew all of my thoughts.

I was losing this tremendous resource, a friend,

a confidant, somebody who made my identity what it was.

While I was doing all that processing

and falling away in kind of slow motion,

I would have the impulse to like, pray to God about it.

And then other times, I felt the strong need

to just guard myself against any kind

of sentimentality or God, really,

and so then I would do that.

Sometimes both things would happen in the same day.

There were a few moments, one of which I was in church

and it was Christmastime and we were singing

all of these really rad, old hymns, Christmas carols,

and I was doing the work.

Like, you know, one stanza of lyrics,

I would sing and I would think to myself,

I believe that, that's real.

And the next stanza,

you know I was doing like a line item veto

of these songs and really doing the work.

Just sitting there and engaging and wrestling with it,

and it was cathartic and it felt like,

it felt right to me, and then I sat down

and the guy who was speaking spoke and I hated him.

I hated every moment of, it was just so unserious to me.

It was like pandery and just was the epitome

of what I wasn't interested in.

I'm sort of wrestling with this and then he says,

"Okay, now we're gonna take communion."

And I thought, I can't take communion.

I'm so not in community with this.

Like, I've just sat here and judged it so negatively

for 30 minutes.

I hadn't been to church, more or less, for years,

but I had never not taken communion.

And I had just, as they started passing out the omens,

I just stood up and left.

I just, I can't.

I just told my wife, I was like, "I'm gonna be in the car."

And what I did was I walked down to a bar

and had a shot and a beer and kind of had

my own little communion ceremony.

And then we went to lunch and I just,

I stayed in the car and just sobbed for like 40 minutes

and then met them in lunch, it was already going.

And I was devastated, I just thought,

it felt like...

Yeah, it was gradual, but there were these moments

where there was big shifts.

And that was one. (rock music)

♪ Wouldn't it be ♪

♪ So wonderful ♪

♪ If everything were ♪

♪ Meaningless ♪

♪ But everything is so ♪

♪ Meaningful ♪

♪ And most everything turns ♪

♪ To shit ♪ (rock music)

♪ Rejoice ♪

♪ Rejoice ♪

♪ Rejoice ♪

♪ Rejoice ♪

♪ Rejoice ♪

♪ Rejoice ♪

(rock music)

(wind blowing) (soft music)

I think I continued to kind of wrestle with it

for a long time, and in some ways, I still do.

I mean, you know, God ridden me of God,

it's a powerful idea.

And was it just the false,

you know, deity that I was shedding,

and there's a real deity

that looks totally different in the

nooks and crannies somewhere?

In the dark matter, you know?

I don't know.

It feels impossible most of the time,

but sometimes, so yeah, it was very painful.

The loss and the grieving and all that stuff

were really pretty real and profound.

Particularly when I attempted to suspend

my belief that God existed, I didn't know that

it was happening at the time,

but only could kind of put it together.

But man, that habit of drinking,

as much as we were,

was real bad.

It was a dissonance, I think, that my mind

just couldn't deal with.

I was just looking to get, I was just looking

to lose time, I just wanted to,

to blackout for a while....

As confused as it was, even at the time,

my identity was still based a lot on

some form of my faith.

- [Marianne] Some of your songs now that you talk about

as being more autobiographical, talk about drinking.

How is that sort of path gone?

I mean, have you...

- Well, in Pedro the Lion...

Well, then let's talk about drinking.

- [Marianne] Yeah, maybe we should.

'Cause you've actually made it a little bit

of a public issue. But then you tend to make some of your

private stuff pretty public. - Yeah.

- [Marianne] And, um...

- Mhm.

These habits that, at the time, weren't particularly dark,

but they were, then, it just was that habit

was a place when things did kind of turn a little dark.

Then, you know, drinking 15 or 20 a day wasn't

an expression of all the good things that we were feeling.

It turned into an expression of all of

the bad things that we were feeling.

(soft, melancholy music)

On that tour, I think, was the moment when things

really started to shift.

My drinking was at kind of an apex.

We haven't checked in yet.

We're in the band Pedro the Lion,

we checking in right now.

- [Man] Oh man, this is crazy.

- [David] I can't believe that not even,

I mean, Cody's the only one that's been here.

- I've never been here.

- You know I've never seen this one.

- And once we got onto the festival grounds,

I switched to a jug that I had prepared,

poured like a third of the water out of this gallon jug

and filled it up with vodka.

We had to be to the festival grounds because

I had an interview and it was with this guy,

Andrew Beaujon, who was writing a piece

for the Washington Post.

Whatever you want. There's the uh, they're short of the hospitality trait.

I mean, he's a grown person.

He could tell a drunk person when he sees one,

and he also could tell that I was drinking out of

a water jug that was a lot of vodka, so,

that was part of the texture in his piece was that.

And so, later I think, once the piece came out,

maybe a week or two later, that was when Cornerstone

realized that I had been on the grounds

and I was hammered and drinking on the grounds,

and that's expressly forbidden.

In a way, I have, I'm living a double life.

I mean, I have these two very different spheres

that I'm existing in at almost equal times.

- [Ann] Who is that?

- Is it all the way zoomed?

- [Ann] Who is that Eleanor?

(Eleanor babbles)

- There was a lot of room for me out here,

especially if I'm on solo tours

and I'm staying in hotels.

You know, after the show is over,

after I've done my job for the day,

there's five or six hours that I just have

completely to myself, and so that was a factor.

Like I would just go back to the hotel

with a bottle of booze and a six pack of beer

and kind of say good night while I was still

a little bit reasonable.

No one even knew about it.

(soft acoustic music)

♪ When I woke up the next morning ♪

♪ You looked right through me ♪

♪ Through your eyes, cryin' I could finally see ♪

I would just keep on and keep on

until I just was passed out and throwing up.

There was no voice in my head that said

it's time to stop tonight.

I had really crossed a line that made Ann

feel pretty unsafe.

She was scared for my safety and my life,

so she got really upset and asked that I stop drinking

for a time or whatever.

And I was getting ready to leave on tour

and I remember it being really hard.

And I did call her and say,

"May I please just have one drink?"

♪ When I called you from Atlanta ♪

♪ You refused to speak ♪

♪ Not three days sober ♪

♪ Beggin' for a drink ♪

♪ I said please baby, please baby, please ♪

♪ I said please baby, please ♪

♪ I said please baby, please baby, please ♪

♪ I said please baby, please ♪

♪ Those two pairs of big, blue eyes ♪

♪ Stare me down, watch me fall ♪

♪ What makes a man realize ♪

♪ That he is about to lose it all ♪

Once I was able to kind of make some peace with

leaving Christianity and just being myself

and owning my own thoughts,

the really intense,

sort of seed of that compulsion to get blacked out

just kind of went away and then I was just

a guy with a drinking problem.

But it wasn't this hopeless spiral that it had been.

And that's taken a lot of years to sort of

negotiate with, that, you know, maybe somebody else

would've just stopped drinking all together.

I did not do that, but yeah, it's not a problem anymore.

(soft music)

- [Debbie] Who should decide what the state flag is,

or is not.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Jackson, Mississippi.

- [Woman] One of the groups that helped push

Trump over the top in Indiana was white evangelicals.

The question is, now that Kasich and Cruz

are out of the race, will Republican evangelical voters

coalesce around Trump in the general election?

- Hi. - Hi again.

- Thanks for having me back. - Yeah.

Thanks for comin' back.

♪ All the fallen leaves should curse their branches ♪

♪ For not letting them decide where they should fall ♪

♪ And not letting them refuse to fall at all ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

(audience applause) (cheering)

- [David] Hi, hi, hi.

You guys wanna talk about anything?

- I have a question. - Yeah?

- [Woman] Do you realize the amount of people

that are recovering evangelicals?

How do you feel about that, that kind of follow you?

- And the answer to that question could be kind

of loaded, like yeah, everybody needs to

stop being Christian or whatever, but,

I certainly don't feel that way.

So people who are allowed to sort of land

where their brains really are in their life

and in their kind of view of the world,

it just makes me happy.

I feel like history, as it's unfolding everyday,

it's forcing a lot of people to really

pay closer attention to what's going on in the world.

And how their faith relates to that

and how their faith relates or doesn't relate

to the teachings of the thing that they

ostensibly ave faith in. (soft music)

I didn't want to write "Curse Your Branches" like it was

but what came out was all these tunes about

can the pot say to the potter,

why have you made me this way?

And it wasn't until people started talking to me

about how they understood the record

that I realized what was really there.

You know, there were a lot more people

in that gray area than I thought were there.

It was one of the 10 best records in Christianity Today,

and I just, it blew my mind.

- Now I'm in my mid-30s and I know that there

is a large generation for which you spoke to that kind of

spiritual space that was hard for many of us to express

really clearly and succinctly.

So I'm curious how you recognize your place, kind of,

in that space in this big transition that many

of us are going through.

And we find you on tour yet again.

- I sing these songs in people's houses

and at rock clubs and things and

officially that's what I have to offer,

and Twitter rants, you know. (audience laughs)

Here's what I would say to that,

I feel like the little things that we do

that we don't think matter, I think the evidence is

all around us, that especially when we kind of

fudge those things, it matters, you guys.

How do collapses like the one

we're experiencing now of judgment, happen?

It's those lapses in the little things.

You pee on the seat and you don't

wipe it up in a public space? (audience laughs)

The aggregate is computing, you know what I'm sayin'?

Everybody's still suffering.

Why so much suffering?

It's unnecessary.

We have the resources to not suffer

if we just wipe the seat.

(soft music)

(people chattering)

- I went from a solidly Pat Robertson Christian

to a liberal, 'cause I'm gay, I came out 10 years ago.

To an agnostic, to a full on atheist humanist.

So, it's been a long journey.

- You're welcome.

- I miss church. - Yeah.

- But I won't go back to a church that tells me

that I have to believe in something

that's beyond nature or that is condemning of things

that I know aren't bad. - Right, are not bad, yeah.

- It was a spiritual nourishment,

and if I had this every week,

not necessarily from you. - Yeah, right.

From various places. - But just in general,

I would be a more invigorated human being.

- So then that's how you reconcile, like,

what you're doing with what you're doing,

is by touching people and talking like this.

- [David] Yeah, yeah.

- [Man] Yeah, I'll be a more active human being

because of what I experienced tonight.

- That's all I wanted.

Hey. - Hey, thank you, thank you.

- Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

- Yeah, thank you for coming, cheers.

- Come back sometime. - All right.

- You're doing good work. - Thank you so much.

- [Man] I'm sure you know.

I hope you know.

(soft, tinkling music)

- [Nils] No, not exactly.

No, not exactly. (David chuckles)

- [Ann] What is it then?

- Almost exactly. - Measure it.

- Sometimes there's music in the world,

there's a lot of music that when you hear it,

it's possible to think that everything

is okay with the world and I don't want my

music to be like that.

I feel like when you hear my music,

even if you really enjoy it and are sort of like

lifted up by it, that there should be some sense of like,

there's a wrinkle in there that means, like,

it's the Men in Black, or whatever.

Until everything is okay with the world,

there's always gonna be that wrinkle in there

that it's just not, it's not okay to give the impression

that everything is fine, like half mast.

(soft, tinkling music)

The values that I think are what

makes Christianity worth while are missing

from the politics, it's just not there.

And that's compassion and care for poor

and people who can't care for themselves.

All of the minor Prophet books and the Old Testament

are about God getting mad at Israel because

they have forgotten their obligation

to the poor and to justice.

They're theoretically connected to this

source of power and wisdom and love that

would be able to help them come out on

the right side of a lot of this stuff.

On Jesus side of a lot of this stuff.

But it's not working, so.

And it's there, right there, for people to see

if preachers were to preach that.

♪ Surprise, they took your money ♪

♪ They ate your kids ♪

♪ And they had their way with your wife a little bit ♪

♪ While you wept on the porch ♪

♪ With your head in your hands ♪

♪ Cursin' taxes ♪

♪ And the immigrants ♪

♪ 'Cause you're a goddamned fool ♪

♪ You're a goddamned fool ♪

♪ You're a goddamned fool ♪

♪ And I love you ♪

♪ Of course I do ♪ (soft acoustic music)

♪ I love you ♪

♪ Yeah, I love you ♪

- [Woman] It was an election for the ages.

Donald Trump broke all the old rules

of presidential politics and made an almost

clean sweep of the American rust belt.

A lot of different kinds of people

helped elect Donald Trump.

White working class voters, yes,

but also some Hispanics, white women,

and an overwhelming number of

white Evangelical Christians.

About 80% of white evangelicals voted

for President Donald Trump, despite Trump's three marriages,

his anti-immigrant rhetoric,

and accusations of sexual harassment

and assault from multiple women.

The continued alignment of many leading evangelicals

with Trump has caused some to question

whether their movement has lost its way.

- If there's any question that we've been

doing Christianity fundamentally wrong

in the United States for our entire history,

I don't think that there, if there ever was,

there just can't be none.

In the face of this cry from the black population

that again, you guys, it isn't fixed yet.

And the response from Christianity is Donald Trump?

It's, it's pure sadness. (tense, dramatic music)

Until the election, I was under the impression

that the white American church was not a lost cause.

I thought I saw it maturing and evolving

and even if I couldn't participate as a believer,

I wanted to be a helper in that process if I could.

But the fruit that showed up on the tree was,

for me, very much the cut the damn thing down

and throw it in the fire kind of fruit.

It's not a pruning issue, it's just the wrong seeds.

I've heard so many people say that no matter what happens,

I'm not changing my mind.

It's all worth that Supreme Court seat.

It represents only abortion to them and

if somebody believes the ends that they're going for

justify the means that they're using to get there,

that is idolatry.

I mean, most of Christianity is apparently

cool with that way of thinking.

For everything Christians claim to believe,

the election, I think, laid bare what they actually believe.

They reliably work against the best virtues

of their traditions.

The people that taught me how to be a decent person are

losing their minds.

That's where I came from, and so it just

hit like another deconversion experience.

I don't totally know how to proceed still.

(tense, dramatic music)

♪ We turn to go ♪

♪ The angel shone ♪

♪ Said don't go back to Harod's throne ♪

♪ Take the long way ♪

♪ Around the sea ♪

♪ Take the long way ♪

♪ Around the sea ♪

♪ Take the long way ♪

♪ Around the sea ♪

(cars passing)

- Isn't it pretty? - I like that.

It is just-- - I wanna get it framed.

- Well it's weird to figure out, like, what it is.

- [Woman] Mhm.

It's cool. - [David] It's really neat.

Beautiful brain that guy has.

(people chattering)

(soft music)

- [Jonah] So you have a new record.

- I do. - I guess, do you feel

like you get something out of making yourself vulnerable?

'Cause it seems like that's the direction you're moving.

It's like, from a band and now it's just

you standing there, and now it's just you

sing songs about your family by yourself.

- Yeah, I think so, I mean I think slowly I've been,

I've been looking for that because

there's a lot of emotional pain.

I wrote about it on the whole record.

So much of the drag in my life that has hurt

my relationship with my wife or just affects

on my career and my family, and you know, myself.

That I don't, sorry...

(soft music)

♪ Somewhere else ♪

♪ I have kids who love to splash in the waves ♪

♪ Who take the boardwalk by storm ♪

♪ And eat pizza all day ♪

♪ And digging in the sand ♪

♪ Shooting with straws ♪

♪ And rubber bands ♪

♪ I'm wishing you were here ♪

(audience applause) Well thank you so much.

What's that? - How are the kids?

- The kids are doing great.

Seven year old decided that last week

he'd ride a two wheeler by himself

without training wheels. (audience cheers)

We waited a long time for that.

- [Woman] Were you there for that?

- Nope. (audience laughs)

It's okay, here's my theory on that:

I just want it to happen.

I don't have to be there for it,

although it's important that he knows how excited I am,

and I think he does.

(soft music)

- [Ann] Yeah it's feeling, um,

this one's feeling long to me.

- [David] Yeah.

- Like kind of, I don't know if it's just 'cause,

I don't know if we're just tired.

We're gonna go up to Art Darlington art show today.

Gloria's got stuff on display.

- Oh yeah, she's really good at that stuff.

- [Ann] Well I'm gonna take them first.

- All right.

- [Woman] Talk to you later.

- I love you. - Love you, bye.

(soft music)

(child chattering)

All right, shug, let's see you start here.

Yes. (soft music)

Hurray. (soft music)

How do you start?

Two hands.

There you go.

How do you start?

Leg over, uh huh.

Uh huh. (soft music)

Now take off.

Okay, stay to the right.

Stay to the right, you got it.

(soft music)

- The sands are just racing through the hourglass.

Eleanor, she lives in our house for 18 years,

like she's two thirds of the way there.

And I've been gone for half of it, and it's not okay.

It's not getting easier.

It's getting worse.

The cracks are showing all over.

I have to rework this whole thing.

And I'm looking at all this time that I've put into

these musical relationships that I've had

with people that just haven't worked out

for one reason or another.

And honestly, with all the good and all the

fun and joy that I experienced with that stuff,

it feels like I'm trading that fun and that joy

and whatever benefit that was for

the fun and joy that I could have been having with my family

because if I just had never invested in that,

I would be only out 75 days of the year.

I would've been able to work with Nils on his

batting the first year that he was in little league

where he didn't get a hit.

I could've helped more, but I couldn't 'cause I was gone.

I didn't realize I was trading that for

driving my daughter to swim every morning like I have

in certain summers where we just have

this really sweet time.

And her getting to kind of be herself.

You know, I'm out here on I-95 again

instead of doing that.

I like it out here, but not that much.

(soft, melancholy music)

My wife and I are growing old and we're

only growing old together half way.

That doesn't feel very good to me.

I wasn't all wrong, but there was a miscalculation.

Yeah. (soft, melancholy music)

(rain pattering) (soft, melancholy music)

(humming)

♪ A sinking feeling has been lurking at your door ♪

♪ That it is real, you can't deny ♪

♪ You must ignore ♪

(humming)

You go to bed then.

You got you jim-jams on? What'd you guys do today?

So did you do chapter three yet?

Well, I gotta finish packing up.

Love you too, kiddo.

Mwah.

♪ Sing like the angel ♪

♪ That you know you'll never be ♪

♪ And try to pin the blame on me ♪

Everybody have a good time?

Wish I was there.

It's scary to me because I don't even feel like

I can take full responsibility in what happens

at the show because there's just aspects

of my emotion that I can't modulate.

I can't come back from the verge of tears feeling.

I don't know that I've ever felt lower in my life.

♪ The heart that beats inside your chest ♪

♪ The awful need ♪

♪ It burns with holy fire ♪

♪ Righteousness and greed ♪

♪ Sing like the angel ♪

♪ That you know you'll never be ♪

♪ And try to pin the blame on me ♪

♪ Like the angel ♪

♪ That you know you'll never be ♪

♪ But you still try and pin the blame ♪

♪ On me ♪

(humming)

(people cheering) (clapping)

(people chattering)

Watch the batter, bud.

Oh.

- [Eleanor] Hey dad, do you have money?

I'm gonna go get mom and pretzel and just

have a few bites of it 'cause I'm hungry.

- [David] You want a couple of corn nuts? Are you doing all right? - Not right now.

- All right, good. - I have gum.

- [David] Great, good to hear it.

Get back over to your spot.

- [Child] Let me hear your music voice.

- [David] Okay, I'll play it right now.

- [Child] Okay. - [David] On your mark, get set.

(child laughs) Do you hear it?

- No. - Oh man, it's so good.

(children laughing)

Hey, sit down you guys.

That was my fault coach, sorry.

(people chattering)

Almost. (clapping)

Oh man. - Good try, Nils. - I love that guy.

He's always the last out when the bases are loaded.

Poor guy.

(people chattering)

(water spraying)

(leaves rustling)

(laughing)

You ready?

(soft, upbeat piano music)

(birds chirping)

(Ann and David chattering)

(birds chirping)

(soft music)

- [Ann] Go ahead and go.

- When I stopped drinking, I started to be

able to see myself more clearly and the things around me.

Right away, I was aware of a very overwhelming loneliness

and I realized that my native spot as a human

was behind the wheel of a car, on an interstate,

somewhere in the United States, alone.

If you just picked any moment in my life at random,

the odds were that that was what I was going to be doing.

♪ I climb the rock ♪

♪ Still make my home ♪

That was the basic unit of my career.

It all reverted back to, I play solo house shows.

And solo house shows were amazing in the sense that

I could interact with fans in a totally new way

and to continue to do this work

while I've been figuring this out.

(soft music)

And so I was looking down the barrel of just

kind of doing the back half of my life

as a solo traveler primarily and that killed me.

Sitting with that just really brought me to my

lowest place that I had been.

I hit bottom, basically.

In 2016, I'm on tour playing these club shows solo.

It just caused me to start asking myself questions,

like okay, well then what's it gonna be?

Like, if you had a million bucks,

it's kind of like that question.

Like okay, if you could anything, what would it be?

And it's like, I wanna be in a band.

That's what I've always wanted to do.

I love playing solo but that wasn't what

I set out to do.

You know, when I sat and dreamt of what I wanted to do,

I didn't picture myself alone in a car.

I didn't picture myself alone on a stage.

It was drums and it was bass and it was electric guitar

and that's what I wanted.

That's what I've always wanted to do.

(soft rock music)

I asked myself, what's the way that you have access

to right now, to do the band thing?

And I realized when I was a kid how I did it

was I wrote the drum parts and the guitar parts

and the bass parts and I wrote the vocals

and I had people play them. (soft rock music)

♪ I saw in your bedroom ♪

♪ The drawers had been emptied ♪

I had to return to the process that I knew

and that I had been personally successful with.

That's where I had come from and so I thought, okay,

I gotta find my way back to that.

And it was a revelation, it was just like riding a bike.

It felt like home.

It also felt a lot like Pedro the Lion

and it occurred to me, oh, this is Pedro.

And as soon as that clicked, it really felt like home.

Like a bunch of myself just came right back to me.

(soft music)

Everything clicked into place and I had a vision

for the future of the way that the band sounded

and for the way that the shows were gonna go.

I had people around who were willing to do a band

like that with me.

Coincidentally, Pedro the Lion, because it was a brand name

that I had developed for a decade and that people knew,

would allow me to go out on tour and play fewer shows

and make a similar living.

Instead of being six weeks on, six weeks off all year round,

I could be three weeks on tour

and 10 weeks home and do that four times in a year.

That would revolutionize my life

and my ability to connect with my family.

- [Man] A little less, check check.

That's fine.

- [Woman] Any questions?

Anyone have any questions?

Well thank you for being here, enjoy.

- [Audio Engineer And Man] Five, four, three,

two, one.

- [Man] And roll out.

- It is 90.3 KEXP.

My name is Troy Nelson and we have some

Pacific Northwest legends in the KEXP live room right now.

I am very, very pleased to bring to all of you,

Pedro the Lion.

Thank you so much for stopping by and doing this.

- Yeah, thank you for having us.

- Absolutely.

So you have reformed?

- Yeah. - This is exciting.

- It's pretty fun.

- You're playing three nights in Seattle

at The Tractor.

You have a busy 2018 ahead of you,

and 19, and 20, and beyond, I'm sure.

- If the universe will, as they say.

- Well thanks for all the years of great music

and looking forward to many more.

(acoustic music)

♪ I shut off the radio ♪

♪ To fix my eyes on the road ♪

♪ Pushed past the window glass ♪

♪ And let it flow ♪

♪ How wonderful, how strange ♪

♪ How invisible the change ♪

♪ Everything's staying the same ♪

♪ Except my brain ♪

(people chattering)

♪ All the way ♪

- Yeah, I got it.

(humming)

(soft acoustic music)

This is gonna be fun.

(people chattering)

Do you wanna come back?

- [Ann] No, I think I'll just right here.

We're just gonna park right here.

- [David] Sounds good.

- I love you. - Love you.

(kissing)

(people chattering)

♪ Postpone the unavoidable ♪

♪ And prolong the pain of being alive ♪

Let's go.

(audience cheering) (clapping)

Hello everybody.

(audience cheers)

Okay, so, we're called Pedro the Lion.

(audience cheers)

And this is very nearly the 20th anniversary of a show,

my very first club show ever in Seattle,

here at The Tractor, in 1997. (audience cheers)

Any questions at this point in the show?

What's that?

- [Woman] Are you going to do more living room shows?

- There will be more living room shows,

but it will be a minute

because we're trying to do a thing where I make

a slightly better living and stay home more also.

(audience cheers)

No, I only tell jokes from stage when I'm blackout drunk,

and uh, not tonight. (audience laughs)

I've done that for years on end and that wasn't

as cool as this, I don't think.

- How do you like your band? - For real.

What's this? - How do you like you band?

How do you like playing with a band?

- Well, playing with a band really feeds my soul, man.

All these shows sold real quick

and that was really fun for us,

because we didn't know what was gonna happen.

And uh, thank you so much.

I'm really glad to be back playing

Pedro the Lion songs as Pedro.

And Sean Lane and Erik Walters, we're all very grateful

that you came to the show. (audience applause)

(rock music)

♪ All the way to grandma's house ♪

♪ I stayed on the narrow path ♪

♪ But my brother wandered off ♪

♪ Deep into the woods ♪

♪ Bitten twice by rattlesnakes ♪

♪ Tangled up in poison oak ♪

♪ He fell down and broke his legs ♪

♪ Into a great ravine ♪

♪ When I arrived at grandma's house ♪

♪ She had made us tea and cake ♪

♪ She asked me where my brother was ♪

♪ And I said I don't know ♪

♪ And ate ♪

(rock music)

(soft music)

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Cha cha cha ♪

(cheering)

I still find myself reaching out for something.

It really doesn't feel like my consciousness

is a closed system.

Things feel connected somehow.

And I don't know, I don't know why or how come,

but I know what it feels like and it doesn't

feel like a closed system.

So I don't know what that means.

At a certain point, I thought,

what if the divine is just balance and harmony itself?

That in harmony, that's where you experience transcendence.

Whatever metaphysical reality is that

is the thing that's happening all around us.

Harmony is wanting to be had.

Ways of interacting with other humans

just waiting to be unlocked.

And in a way, crying out to be unlocked.

Justice just waiting to be balanced.

I've had impulses to put a name on it at times

and I just thought, no man.

Not because I don't wanna arrive anywhere.

Not because I don't wanna understand.

But because it just seems like that's where

you get into trouble. (chuckles)

(soft music)

You have that one cup of...

(soft music)

♪ It goes ♪

♪ On and on ♪

♪ It goes on ♪

♪ On and on ♪

♪ It goes ♪

♪ On and on ♪

♪ It goes on ♪

♪ On and on ♪

(rock music)

♪ Right here ♪

♪ I'll be ♪

♪ 'Til I can ♪

♪ No longer breathe ♪

(rock music)

(soft, tinkling music)

♪ You blew all your inheritance ♪

♪ And now you're trying to pin the blame on me ♪

♪ I could write you off to easily ♪

♪ Except a hundred million other people agree ♪

♪ So you kick and scream to get your way again ♪

♪ But the writing is on the wall ♪

♪ Any minute you'll on to your reward ♪

♪ And someone else is gonna make the call ♪

♪ In these strange negotiations ♪

♪ Man they really are getting me down ♪

♪ Strange negotiations ♪

♪ Feel like a stranger in my home town ♪

♪ Strange negotiations ♪

♪ You got me looking for a way around ♪

♪ All these strange negotiations ♪

(soft music)

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

(soft, tinkling music)