Hail to The Chiefs

In the 1990s the Presidents of the United
States of America, a gaggle of alt-rock ruffians, baffled critics who
had just begun to get accustomed to the grunge scene defined by
Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. The Presidents’
breakthrough singles, “Lump” and “Peaches,” offered twisted, nerdy,
manic lyrics of the highest rock order that riffed on top of the
beat-bumpin’ sounds and bizarre instrumentation wielded by frontman and
“basitarist” Chris Ballew and “guitbassist” Dave Dededer. After making
a name for themselves out of the tumultuous Seattle scene that
dominated the “buzz” rock phenomena, the Presidents have since gone on
to record six studio albums. Their latest is last year’s indie release,
These Are the Good Times People.

According to drummer Jason Finn, who spoke with The New Times
via phone on April 10, there wasn’t much drama when the trio first
split up in 1998. Finn landed in bands like The Fastbacks and Love
Battery, while Dederer collaborated with Guns ’N Roses bassist Duff
McKagan for a period of time and Ballew released a handful of solo
albums. A 2000 reunion resulted in another studio album, although
Dederer officially left the band four years later and has since been
replaced by Andrew McKeag. 

Finn bears good news that the current
state of the band’s union is strong, although there were moments during
the Bush administration that the group may have regretted its moniker.
“There were eight years there where it was a little sad to have our
name come up with the forces of evil,” Finn recalls. Catch Finn and the
Presidents of the United States of America at the Westcott Theater, 524
Westcott St., on Wednesday, April 22, 9 p.m. Oppenheimer will open the
show. Tickets are $25. For more information, call 299-8886.

Q: What have the Presidents been doing lately?

A: We put out our latest record
about a year ago March, and we went all around the states last year. We
spent an extra amount of time on a mammoth European tour, for us, of
three weeks. Now we’re doing a nice, little regional swing, what we’re
calling our Nor’easter. We’ll do a couple in the Northeast and the
Southeast and pretty much close up the tent probably for the next year
until we start plotting our next move. We’re the most full-time
part-time band there is.

Q: The music video for “Rot In the Sun” that’s on your Web site {www.presidentsrock.com}: How did that come together?

A: Actually, that’s kind of
interesting in that we don’t have any money for making videos in the
way that we used to make videos in this huge corporate sort of way.
Like “Wow! That’s a really cheap, $70,000 video you just made.” After
the tour we wanted to slow down, but we had a bunch of directors that
contacted us over the last six months who said, “Hey, if there’s ever a
chance we’d like to do something.” We called them back and said “Hey,
now’s your chance,” with the caveat that we all have to be creative,
and we’re not spending any {money}. 

The “Rot In the Sun” guy {Austin
filmmaker Van Alan Blumreich), we didn’t even meet him until he came to
a gig in Houston and filmed us for that thing. I think that appeals to
all of us, kind of as a big promotional tool. It’s a little more
modern, I think, a little more Web 2.0. It’s one step up from someone
uploading something on Youtube.com. That’s not to say {the videos} are
crappy. I think they’re cool, but they’re homemade affairs.

Q: What happened during your hiatus?

A: We really only stayed out for
a couple of years until we got together for our studio project in 2000,
and then by the end of 2002 we were cold again. Nothing really that
dramatic happened other than we felt out of control. It felt kind of
inappropriate to be in this culture of the corporate media type bands.
It all felt like a party that we weren’t really invited to, like at any
minute security was going to come and ask “Where’s your invitation?,”
and we were going to get our asses kicked. 

With journalists we talk a lot about
“You guys are back! You guys were gone. You’re gone but you’re back!”
But we have a hard time with it because it doesn’t seem that way to us.
Chris and I have been playing since 1993 right through now with only
those two or three years apart. Now we’ve been playing again for longer
than the whole period of our success.

So it’s not that we won’t answer the
question. I’m embarrassed that I still don’t have a good answer!
Honestly, I’m going to try to sort of rewrite history. Actually, that’s
a good project for the next year, and you’re welcome to help!

Q: One key piece of that history has been former member Dave Dederer. What’s his current status?

A: We have a very solid party
line on that. He didn’t want to travel, so he very amicably said he
didn’t want to play with us out of town anymore in 2004. We’ve had
Andrew {McKeag} since then, and he’s probably coming up on 250 shows or
something like that. Dave, we talk to him a lot, and he does a lot of
sort of PUSA business stuff that he’s still involved in, and he’s still
a partner with us on all our debut-related, businessy stuff. Frankly
that’s good for everyone, because that allows him to utilize his strong
suit, and it allows Chris and I to stretch out our rock’n’rolling.

Q: You have an auxiliary Web site
{www.pusa2008.org} that’s set up to operate a vote to elect a president
of the Presidents of the United States of America. Since you’re
currently leading that vote, what will you do when you’re president?

A: That’s a good fucking
question! I have to tell you that I was way behind last time I looked
at it, but that’s good to know. I better start thinking about what I’m
going to do. Really? I’m ahead now?

Q: Now that there’s some distance
from the 1990s rock scene, do you think there were elements that
defined the bands that grew up during that time period?

A: I don’t think there was a
unifying set of characteristics. There was all the Seattle stuff, there
was your rock stuff, and the pop stuff—the boy bands and the girl
bands—reigned supreme. The grunge people put the metal people out of
business, basically, right? 

That said, no one knew what to do with
our thing, and that’s how we kind of got pegged, accurately or not, as
the reaction to grunge or to anger or to whatever. When, of course, we
weren’t really acting at all as much as letting our free flag fly.

I remember being in Europe sometime in 1995 and looking at MTV Europe and seeing a Backstreet Boys video. It was everywhere, right? I was thinking, “This stuff is just the worst!
Thank God this stuff isn’t catching on in the states!” Two weeks later
back in the states, everywhere it’s like “Backstreet Boys! Whoo-hoo!”

Q: One of the common themes among
rock bands nowadays is that business hasn’t been great during recent
years. Has that been true of you guys? 

A: We went through a couple years
of figuring out our new leaner, meaner model. We’re pretty good at it.
We’re definitely calling the shots in our own world and enjoying that.
We’re reliving the sort of MTV, feudal fantasy land that you’re into
when you’re, quote unquote, huge. We definitely spent a lot of time
creating efficiencies as it were, like you would if you were in any
other kind of business. But everybody’s doing well enough to keep doing
it. 

Q: The album Freaked Out & Small
was released with a now-defunct company called Musicblitz, which had
tried to get in on the Web music business early on. Did you guys have
visions about the MP3 industry?

A: Musicblitz was an online-based
record company in the year 2000, and in that sense it was way ahead of
its time, but I don’t remember that being an MP3 thing. We’re not real
big Web innovators or anything. We weren’t really technically a band
that year anyway. We just were sort of given some resources by that
label to make records, so that made sense for that year. But if you
want to call us pioneers, that’s fine!

Q: What’s coming up for you guys for the rest of the year?

A: We’ll probably slow it down
for most of the rest of the year, except for a couple one-offs in the
summer. We like to take it one six-month period at a time, and then it
will be a couple of slow months.

As far as Syracuse is concerned, it will
probably be well into next year until we’re in that area again. We were
in Syracuse not too long ago, and I think we just stayed there. We must
have played somewhere else, but I remember clear as a bell waking up in
Syracuse and everything being orange and going “Wow! That’s a lot of
orange!”