In a music industry where negative themes are becoming the norm, the Presidents of the United States of America have reintroduced the country to the lighter side of music. The band, who is currently touring the US, has successfully broke out of the depression-filled music scene of Seattle to take the country by storm with their own geeky brand of fun rock and roll. Instead of songs about suicide, drug addiction, or the hardships of life, the Presidents instead prefer to sing about such themes as feisty cats, boll weevils who won't leave home, and blind spiders driving dune buggies. And aparently, America likes to listen.
The Presidents' debut album went platinum, garnering the trio a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance. Drummer Jason Finn, who recently talked to Brainchild, described the band's chances of winning as "small to nill, but we want to go to the party and have a good time." (They were right...Nirvana won.) Such is the mindset of Finn, vocalist/bassist Chris Ballew, and guitarist Dave Dederer. "When we first started we didn't even own our own equiptment," explained Finn, "The whole reason of the band was to just have fun and rock."
Ballew and Dederer attended junior and senior high together in Seattle and have been playing music together since 1985. The two pursued other projects as well, with Ballew bouncing between Seattle and Boston collaborating with Mark Sandman (now of the band Morphine) in a band called Supergroup. It was here that Ballew was introduced to the "basitar," a two string bass that he now uses religously. Following a tour of the United States backing Beck on his "One Foot in the Grave" tour, Ballew and Dederer reformed a partnership. Finn meanwhile was busy playing in the Seattle combo Love Battery when he discovered the two.
"I saw an old band they were in and loved them. I asked if I could play with them, and they said 'No.'" After a year of near constant begging, the two agreed to make Finn a member and the Presidents were born.
The band has always tried to keep a positive outlook on life. "One thing we did very early on when we were playing coffee houses was just try to have a good time," said Finn. "We knew we could connect with people. They'd come up after shows and say, 'That was great, we could actually understand the lyrics.'" Ballew has been writing these type of lyrics since he was a child (in fact, their second single "Kitty" is about a cat Ballew and Sandman had at their appartment in Boston). The band has managed to stay humble now that they've achieved such a large degree of success. "We're consistantly freaked out and floored by the reaction to us," laughed Finn, noting that even after putting out the album, he continued his day job of bartending.
Part of the Presidents' success has been their videos for their breakthrough hit "Lump" and their current single, "Peaches." While both videos were directed by Roman Coppola, "Lump" was completely the Presidents' idea, although Finn insists that "standing up to your crotch in a suit in the middle of a swamp can be a little chaffing." The band did come up with the plot of the video, even using Dederer's stepdad's barge to play on. The band had much more fun making "Peaches," which included jumping in and out of trees, bouncing on trampolines, and...ninjas? "We were all throwing around ideas and were totally stumped, and Roman came in and said, 'Hey, I've been watching these Japanese ninja films,' and we're all like 'Cool, we can fight off ninjas.'" The band also made a video for "Kitty," but after "spending a ton of money" on it, they decided not to release it.
"Songs just come pouring out all the time. If they don't inspire all three of us, then they will disappear," Finn said, noting that over twenty new songs were recorded for use for their latest album and various B-sides. "We exceeded our expectations for the band about a week after we put the album out," said Finn. "It's all been gravy since then."