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NORTH BY NORTHWEST PREVIEW Courage and Conviction Dave Bazan keeps Pedro the Lion running after his bandmates split, then records a plaintive full-length debut. BY KRISTY OJALA 243-2122 Pedro the Lion Pokerface, 128 SW 3rd Ave., 294-0445 9 pm Thursday, Aug. 20

Here's a common scenario for singer-songwriters: You quit your job and drop out of college to focus on your band, which has released a well-received EP. Suddenly every member of your band decides to take the exact opposite path. What do you do next? If you're Dave Bazan, the lone hombre remaining in Pedro the Lion, you stop freaking and keep writing. When the soft-spoken frontman explains how all four of his bandmates either got married or became too consumed by academia to continue playing in Pedro, he sounds understanding and hopeful about their collective decision. "For me, it got to the point where I didn't want to do anything but this," explains the gentle Bazan. "It became necessary to find out what I like, to just concentrate and ask, 'Do I like this?' If I do and other people don't, I just need to do it anyway." Bazan is a bashful character, both in the everyday world and in the songs he narrates. A staunch admirer of bands like Bedhead, Low and Hayden, he crafts compositions that intertwine light-handed metaphor with his soothing rasp; some numbers are sparse and rattling, others upbeat and atmospheric. His voice is somewhere between Lou Barlow's bare-bones solo work and the lilting melody of Joe Pernice, but tell Bazan that and he'll blush his way onto the next subject. "I'm working on being myself in music," he ventures. "If people don't like it, then that'll maybe hurt my feelings, but I can't live any other way." Bazan's self-consciousness is integral to Pedro the Lion's appeal, making it possible to hear his dissertations on heroin abuse, infidelity and lost ideals with an open ear. This is not an easy task in a community in which the Dandy Warhols tell you "Heroin is so passé" as music fans yawn and add that songs about heroin are as unhip as smack chic itself. Pedro the Lion first sidestepped cliché on last year's EP for Tooth & Nail, Whole, reeling off acerbic pop in the woefully clanging "Nothing," the slow, barely beating pulse of "Almost There" and a song that could have been on the Trees Lounge soundtrack, "Fix." After the mixed epidemic of matrimony and higher education took his band away, Bazan continued recording in the hope that he would gain self-confidence and the ability to create his ideal sound. This transitional period brought him no shortage of teasing from his peers. "I'm kind of the butt of a lot of jokes with my friends," Bazan says. "I try to be myself, but sometimes myself isn't really all that together. They all know that, so when they see me play, it's just an extension of that." The Seattle songwriter's new material is soundly confident, with expanded use of hidden analogies and extremely plaintive vocals. Bazan's growth is most evident on his new 7-inch, "Big Trucks," a clean, acoustically strummed number with upfront vocals and spare rhythms from a fragile snare drum and upright bass. The song has a countrified charm to it, telling the story of a driver being tailgated by an oversized semi while his son sits horrified in the car. "Dad, dad, why did you let that man/ push you around like that?" the teen-aged boy asks, to which the mild-mannered father replies, "You really think that they can go as fast/ As you in your '87 Trans Am?/ They know you're in such a terrible rush/ But they're going just as fast as they can." The song's autobiographical content is actually more of a paean to Death of a Salesman than it is to backseat driving; it stems from an argument Bazan had with his father years ago, when he overheard him accepting harsh criticism from a former employer. The teen-aged Bazan instantly jumped to his father's defense, enraged. "We all sat around the living room, and he was defending his boss," he recalls. "We were arguing, but I was arguing for him, because he got kinda beaten down by the things this guy said--he was really questioning himself." Bazan recently recorded 12 songs in his home for It's Hard to Find a Friend, slated for a September release on the upstart Seattle label Made in Mexico. The sessions spawned a new, electrified version of "Big Trucks"; the somber "The Longer I Lay Here," with its ripple-effect guitars; and the rueful, claustrophobic sound of later tracks such as "The Longest Winter" and the painfully lulling "When They Really Get to Know You They Will Run." A mellifluous and astute songwriter, Bazan hopes his songs will fare well with listeners; after all, his dad even advised him to drop out of school and play music because he obviously wasn't concentrating on studying. As with many musicians, though, Bazan's bank account has seen better days. "I hope I still get money back from my taxes, but I was touring and forgot to send them in until I was like 30 days late," says Bazan. "I could really use the money--maybe the IRS will read this and give it to me anyway."