There's only one thing tougher than walking away from a multiplatinum band at its peak:
re-forming for a show five years later and trying to remember your old songs. That was the dilemma facing the Presidents of the United States of America when they reunited for a special New Year's Eve show in Seattle in 2002. "We felt like we were in a Presidents cover band," laughs lead singer and 2 string-basitarist Chris Ballew. "It definitely took a few rehearsals and listening to the old albums to jog our memories. I remember putting on those records and feeling like I was listening to someone else's songs. I thought, 'Wow, that's a really great band.'"
The Presidents' constituents had been reminding them of that since their amicable split in December of 1997. They sent letters and e-mails urging the band to reunite and asking why they broke up in the first place. Truth be told, their decision to disband came as a surprise to just about everyone. Twelve months earlier, the Seattle-based trio had released II, the follow-up to their wildly successful 1995 self-titled Columbia Records debut. Recorded for $8,000 and initially released on indie label PopLlama, The Presidents of the United States of America went double platinum, rocketed all the way to #6 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart, produced three Top 40 hits ("Lump," "Kitty" and "Peaches") and a #1 single on Billboard's Modern Rock Chart, and garnered two Grammy nominations and a gaggle of critical praise for its sense of pop savvy and quirkiness. Their videos blanketed MTV, they toured the planet, played a live MTV concert at Mount Rushmore, and appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Howard Stern Show and Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. As if that weren't enough, II spawned another top-ten Modern Rock hit, "Mach 5," and the band contributed a rocking cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star" to the platinum-selling soundtrack to Adam Sandler's The Wedding Singer. At the end of the line, Pure Frosting, the band's swan song for Columbia, included a cover of the Ian Hunter song "Cleveland Rocks," which was used for many seasons as the theme song to the Emmy-nominated television series, The Drew Carey Show. For the average artist, such achievements usually mark the summation of a long and healthy career-if they're lucky. The Presidents, however, accomplished all that and more in just a couple of years.
"It was an amazing time and we're proud of how hard we worked," says guitarist Dave Dederer. "But as difficult as it may be to comprehend, it all became a bit overwhelming. It's sort of a 'be careful what you wish for' kind of thing. We went three years without a day off and worked ourselves to exhaustion. Eventually, we reached a point where we had to take a break." In the five years that followed, each President worked on various projects: Ballew formed a band with Young Fresh Fellows drummer Tad Hutchison, cleverly titled Chris and Tad. In addition, he built his own recording studio, where he writes and produces music for advertising, film and television. Dederer played with former Guns N' Roses and current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagan in a duo called The Gentlemen and in McKagan's band, Loaded. The guitarist also worked on a benefit for Seattle non-profit YouthCare and served as a public relations consultant to Experience Hendrix, LLC. Drummer Jason Finn became a much-sought-after Seattle stickman, serving time with The Fastbacks, The Nevada Bachelors and the Gentlemen, among others. In between, the trio collaborated on a project called Subset, which featured famed "Baby Got Back" rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot. Though the three friends recorded an album (2000's Freaked Out and Small) for Internet startup Musicblitz.com, the Presidents did not perform publicly for almost five years, until the aforementioned New Year's Eve gig at the Crocodile Café in 2002.
"That show was the most intense performance of my life," recalls Ballew. "I expended so much energy over the course of two hours that I was practically comatose the next day. But it was a good feeling." "I was doubled over with pain for 45 minutes afterward," laughs Dederer. "I remember thinking, 'I can't believe we used to do that six nights a week.' But it was a wonderful homecoming. The audience was so happy to see us again. The combination of the fun we had onstage coupled with the crowd's reaction had us thinking, 'Hmm, maybe we should do this again.'"
Which they did, spending 2003 playing a handful of shows to packed-house crowds, including a very enthusiastically received gig for 10,000 under the moonlight at SXSW in Austin, TX. "Every show has been great and the fans have been really supportive," says Dederer. "There are no expectations now. We just play and have fun and there's no pressure to live up to the hits. We couldn't escape that before. It's incredibly liberating to have that monkey off our backs."
The Presidents are at work on a new record, due out mid-summer, 2004. The band recorded basic tracks at Egg Studios with Conrad Uno (Posies, Supersuckers, Young Fresh Fellows, et al.) and at Jupiter Studios with Martin Feveyear (Mudhoney, Mark Lanegan). Ballew's home studio, a shack in his backyard, is the band's choice for polishing and rough mixing the new tracks. The record will be finished by late March, 2004. The new songs run the gamut, though one tune, "Some Postman," has already proven itself after being leaked onto Seattle's KNDD and subsequently turning into a highly-requested local hit. Says Dederer, "I was blown away when we played two sold-out shows recently at the Showbox (ed.: a 1200 seat club in Seattle). I expected it when people sang along to the songs from our first record, but the whole crowd was singing along both nights to "Some Postman," which isn't even commercially available yet."
The band will also re-release their eponymous debut this fall. "We gained back the rights to the record and thought it would be fun to put it back out there on our own terms," says Ballew. "Rather than just release it as a catalogue item, we decided to expand it with more songs and possibly a DVD. It makes it a little more of an event than just a reissue."
Nine years later the songs-smart, tuneful and exhilarating-from The Presidents of the United States of America still hold up. The album will be amplified by the addition of a number of tracks, including "What the Hell," a thick-grooved track written during the Subset days and featuring Sir Mix-A-Lot on vocals; "Nuthin' But Love," a riff-driven rumination on dysfunctional love; "Meanwhile Back in the City," a jazzy little tongue-twister from the vaults about Ballew's move from Seattle to New York in the mid-80s; and the big and bouncy "Poke and Destroy," an irreverent, hook-laden look at the difference between the sexes.
Does this mean the band is back together for good?
"I think so," says the lead singer. "We're gonna take things at an even pace and not kill ourselves this time. The key is to keep everything fun and in perspective and cherish it and keep it all positive. If we can do that-and I think we can-I really don't see us ever splitting up. Besides," he laughs, "we can't play the break-up card again. We've already done that once."
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