Acclaimed songwriter David Bazan is coming to New Orleans on his whirlwind, coast to coast summer tour, promoting his new record, Strange Negotiations. Bazan + Band will perform at One-Eyed Jacks tonight.

Known for his former Christian indie rock band, Pedro the Lion, Bazan rejected his evangelical Christian beliefs in his 2009 solo record, Curse Your Branches, creating a mixed bag of fan reactions. “Even with there being a vocal element of former fans, or you know, the evangelical Christians who felt betrayed by Branches, I was really surprised to see evangelical Christians who found the record to be compelling and encouraging in a way,” says Bazan. “So there are a lot of those people at the shows. There are people who have expressed relief that I no longer believe. They were just waiting for me to come to my senses, which of course, is condescending to people who do believe. And then there’s everything in between.”

Prior to this summer tour, Bazan performed intimate living room shows across the country, with question and answer sessions from the audience regarding Christianity and evangelical beliefs.

“For me, at house shows, it’s a lot easier to take stock of the viewpoints that are represented in the room because of the way that the question and answer time goes,” says Bazan. “Some nights, there will be a room full of people who don’t believe, and a couple of questions from people that do believe are met with kind of disapproval by the rest of the room. And then there are other nights where there is not a single person in the room that does not believe, evidenced by the sort of chemistry in the room when the questions are asked.  So, it’s all very interesting.”

Bazan says he had always assumed that this handful of basic, evangelical Christian beliefs were true. But once he took a really hard look at them, he wasn’t compelled that they were actually true. Curse Your Branches screamed that message.

“A lot of times the songs are a discovery process,” says Bazan. “And with Branches, I remember getting asked a lot – what are you hoping to convey with this record? With every record, I’m hoping to convey what is, in a sense that, even if it is something that is a little distasteful about me, or something complicated and not so streamlined. I want, through the vagueness of songwriting, to represent the complex picture of what is.”

With his new record, Strange Negotiations, Bazan’s message takes a different tone. The lyrics send a call to look within oneself for truth. The musical composition and structure is purposefully more simplistic, according to Bazan. The songs are thoughtful and laced with meaning. But clearly, Bazan is still struggling with what he defines as truth.

“A lot of times,” said Bazan, “I look at the record, once it’s done, and evaluate it and say, ‘what am I actually all about here, and how did that compare with what I think I think?’ So I’ve done that with Strange Negotiations, and I’m happy with it. I do feel like it is representative of me and my take on things.”

Bazan says he lives by two major governing notions: “Treat others how you want to be treated, and the second one being, everybody makes mistakes. If you want to learn from your mistakes, you have to hold them up when you make them, when you screw up.”

David Bazan’s One-Eyed Jacks show begins at 7 p.m. with S. Carey opening.