Presidents Of The USA Talk ‘Complicated, Messy’ Fame

90s breakout band The Presidents Of The United States Of America reached the big time at the height of their fame, but it soon came crashing down for the Boston outfit.

After the huge success of their self-titled debut, frontman Chris Ballew has admitted that he felt the pressure when it came to making their 1998 follow up II.

“The interesting thing is that I felt the pressure but I didn't really define it – I didn't understand fully the dynamic of that pressure for me personally,” Ballew muses. “The Presidents' music had a really innocent core, but with additional innuendo and irony and suggestive lyrics added on – that chemistry between innocence and sexuality was what made us work, but I did not have control of that chemistry as a songwriter. It stressed me out, because I was expected to repeat that – it's like doing a painting with your eyes closed and it's successful and everybody says, 'Do it again!', but you can't do it again because your eyes were closed.

“Not knowing that was the exact dynamic I was facing, I sort of retreated into myself and freaked out and ended up quitting the band and everything. Now I understand it and can appreciate what The Presidents are without feeling the pressure to repeat it, so I get to enjoy that dynamic and that chemistry. There were a lot of things about the situation in the '90s which disoriented me and made me nervous and I didn't understand them, but now I feel like I understand them – I respect what The Presidents have achieved, and I didn't really respect it back then. I felt more like the Sex Pistols – I just wanted to crash and burn up and break up immediately at the height of the first record, but I couldn't convince anybody else to do it.”

Ballew stresses that the fame they achieved at their peak wasn't all the rage either.

“Yeah, it was everything at once – exciting and disorienting, and a lot of joy,” Ballew remembers. “There was also some sadness, and the relaxed, laidback lifestyle which spawned the songs was gone – all of a sudden we're in charge of a multinational corporation with lawyers and record labels and everything, it was pretty weird. We hold famous people to such high regard, and we think that their lives are this fairytale, storybook experience – we've all plotted and scarpered to get to this supposedly magical party that's happening in fame town – but when you arrive it's actually very complicated and messy, and there's a lot of jerks and the lighting is bad and the lunchmeat is warm. No one wants to hear that though.”

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