For thirty years, David Bazan has been writing about what it means to believe insomething—and what it means when those beliefs fray. When Pedro the Lion releasedIt's Hard to Find a Friend in 1998, Bazan was already a keen observer of moral andexistential conflict, capturing minor human disappointments with devastating attention.By the time Control came out, his writing had sharpened, slicing through suburbanpoliteness and the American dream with pinpoint precision. For over a decade, he builtPedro the Lion into one of indie rock's most quietly radical projects, chronicling doubt,faith, guilt, and the messy pursuit of grace in a way that felt both deeply personal anduniversally resonant.Then, in 2006, he retired the Pedro the Lion moniker, as if setting down an old burden.Bazan kept writing, releasing the synth project Headphones and five solo albums thatwere blunt and revelatory in their own right, but the decision to retire the name feltdefinitive. Until, suddenly, it wasn't. In 2017, after being dormant for more than adecade, Pedro the Lion was back. The deeply autobiographical albums to follow,Phoenix, Havasu and Santa Cruz, marked a return to the places that shaped himliterally and metaphorically, tracing the lines of the past to understand the shape of thepresent.Now, on the occasion of Pedro the Lion's 30th anniversary, Bazan is doing what hedoes best: stepping onto a stage with long-time musical collaborator, Erik Walters onguitar and backing vocals, along with recent addition to the band, Andrew Rudd ondrums, and making these songs feel brand new again. The anniversary shows are lessabout commemoration than they are continuation, a chance to revisit their 30-yearcatalog in a way that is still active, still evolving."The name felt like an imaginary friend for me," he says, "a way to have a relationshipwith myself." But if Pedro the Lion was once an imaginary friend, it is now somethingelse. It is less like a ghost from the past and more like an old companion you fall backin step with, no matter how much time has passed.For all the sorrow and searching that has shaped it, the music has always had anessential warmth—a belief in people, in possibility, and in the redemptive power ofbearing witness to your own life. Three decades in, Pedro the Lion remains a projectabout faith, even if that faith has taken on new shapes. It's the persistent hope thatthere is meaning in the telling: if you lay it all out, every doubt and devotion, everyfailure and flicker of hope, something honest will emerge.- Danielle Dietze