
Pedro the Lion invites you to 'Santa Cruz' (out 6/7) – watch "Modesto" official video + North American tour dates
In 2019, after a 15-year break filled with solo records and side-projects, David Bazan returned to the moniker under which he had become one of indie rock’s most identifiable voices and incisive songwriters: Pedro the Lion. Marking the beginning of a five-album musical memoir, he sort of stumbled into Phoenix, a charged chronicle of his childhood, before his fated move to Havasu, untangling all the ways his past had both shaped and misshaped his present inside some of his best songs ever.
Today, that past treks even closer to present as Pedro the Lion announces his most fraught and frank album yet… Santa Cruz - out June 7. Rippling with the anxious excitement of teenage awakening, this record covers nearly a decade, from just after he turned 13 years old until the cusp of "adulthood" around 21.
The first single, “Modesto,” chronicles a six-month stay in the titular city that would prove to be among the most transformative experiences of his life. After he quits selling vacuum cleaners to sad women, he nabs a gig at a guitar store where he hears a crisp piece of lo-fi wizardry from a local band. In a moment that feels almost like a Beatles-sized revelation, a permission slip that says he can, in fact, make music on a scale as small as he wants, he writes the first Pedro the Lion songs. In this cathartic and gorgeous climax of a track, he vows to return to Seattle, to be in a band, to fall in love, to be himself.
Watch the music video directed by Cody Cloud below and pre-order your copy of Santa Cruz on limited edition Cloudy Clear w/ Sky Blue & Pine Forest Green Splatter vinyl today.
Plus, catch Pedro The Lion headlining across North America this summer - all dates on sale Friday, April 5 @ 10 AM local time.
"Of all the tunes on these records, I can’t think of another tune where I was really expressing my own agency. It was the first time where I really had a choice of what I wanted to do. It became really clear in those 6 months when I lived in Modesto that I didn’t want to work any other job - I wanted to try and make music. This song definitely feels like the launch pad for what became the life that I chose." - David Bazan (Pedro the Lion)
Santa Cruz Tracklist
1. It’ll All Work Out
2. Santa Cruz
3. Little Help
4. Tall Pines
5. Don’t Cry Now
6. Remembering
7. Teacher’s Pet
8. Parting
9. Modesto
10. Spend Time
11. Only Yesterday