The Presidents of the United States of America
Ten Year Super Bonus Anniversary Edition
Try, if you will, not to sing along with "Lump." It sticks in your brain after the first chorus and won't leave until you hear something supremely catchy just to scrape the chorus out of heavy frontal lobe rotation. -Adem Tepedelen
The Presidents of the United States of America's 1995 debut - from the ashes of grunge came a couple of guys with one full head of hair between them, a pair of $30 guitars, some catchy songs and one ass-kicking drummer. The album went double platinum in the U.S., 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. You either loved this record or...you loved it. The band is back and, believe it or not, they own this record. They've chosen Nail/Allegro to distribute it, which is in line with the band's renewed esprit de corps and desire to keep things friendly and local this time around. The record is on the band's own PUSA Inc. label, headquartered in the band's hometown of Seattle, just up the road from Nail/Allegro's Portland, OR base. "We came within a whisper of signing a label deal in early 2004," says Presidents guitarist Dave Dederer. "But we've already climbed Mt. Everest once, and in the end we were more excited about the challenge of a new game and the thrill of carrying more of the burden on our own. The business has changed, and it's now viable to make that choice. We're excited to be participating in a new paradigm." The Presidents broke up in early 1998 after three records on Columbia. The debut was a smash, the follow-up a year later went Gold and the band was burned to a crisp in a few short years. "We were just too damn tired to go on," says Dederer. Getting the rights to this debut album back from Sony precipitated the band's reunion. "We started talking about what to do with the record," recalls Dederer, "and we thought we should maybe work on some new songs to put on it, and then we figured if we were going to play together we might as well do a show, and one thing led to another." The band played their first show in five years on New Year's Eve, 2002, and in the last year and a half they've been gathering steam. The new songs originally recorded for the re-release of the debut became instead a whole new album, Love Everybody, which produced the radio hit, "Some Postman." The band has been touring the U.S. this summer and fall in support of that release, and they will continue with dates in major markets through the end of 2004.
Rock: 90's Rock