Album Autopsy: The Presidents of the United States of America's Self-Titled

Disclaimer: The following piece is a super-in-depth look at one of my favorite records, and as such, it is riddled with personal opinions and praise for said record. This cannot be helped.

I make arbitrary and impulsive decisions very regularly, decisions that brighten my day by having no other purpose. Whether it’s an afternoon iced coffee, a $0.99 in-app purchase, or an evening drive without a destination, I try to allow spontaneity into my life to break up the general monotony of work and responsibility. The effects of these snap calls rarely last beyond a few seconds of elation; however, there is in my memory one completely random decision of mine that has had a truly lasting effect on my daily life, one from which I still regularly reap the rewards.

During my first semester of college, I found myself with $15 and zero intention to save it. While pondering a use for this money, the video for “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America cycled onto my TV, a tune with which I was familiar but that I had not given very much attention. Impressed by the band’s twangy rock and goofball attitude, I promptly jumped into my car, drove down to my local FYE, and with that $15 picked up their eponymous debut record, an album that has since become one of my all-time favorites.

Every time I pop The Presidents of the United States of America into my CD player, I am baffled and amazed by how natural the music mixes energy and beauty. PUSA combines the thrashing and speedy tempos of punk rock with riffs reminiscent of the golden age of rock’n’roll, weaving a wave of sound that is seriously infectious. “We Are Not Going to Make It” and “Lump” fire off with the tempo and dynamics of a bottlerocket, while “Stranger” and “Candy” opt for pretty strings and funky beats. PUSA lays technical skill over thoughtful aesthetics, creating a sonic stream that takes not a single wrong turn. 

Between fluid dynamics, explosive energy, and the occasional time signature swap, The Presidents’ composition shows serious skill. However, their greatest weapon lies not in the shape of their songs, but the instruments they use to create them. Rather than playing a conventional bass, Chris Ballew employs a custom 2-stringed basitar, while Dave Dederer rocks a 3-stringed guitbass. These two hodgepodge creations are woven together in intricate chords and melodies, letting PUSA delve into sonic territory that is wholly their own. And as if that wasn’t enough, drummer Jason Finn even plays an unorthodox kit, prominently featuring a cowbell and a block while absolutely devoid of ride or crash cymbals. PUSA uses ingenuity and audacity in their instrument choice, further separating their hectic and oddball sound from any other act.

Just like the instrumentation, the lyrical content of this record is skill laced with insanity. Chris’ lyrics are almost entirely nonsensical in nature, and all but four songs feature references to animals. Few compositions step into the real world, and if they do, they are loaded with self-deprecating humor that tears down whatever human image Chris may have. Yet beneath the silly and whimsical language, Chris builds layers of sincerity, of emotion and intelligence, using word craft and plenty of literary devices to mirror the thematic images that his songs construct. There is plenty of crazy to be found on this record, but so to is there honesty and intellect.

Between the instrumentation and the lyrical madness, each song on The Presidents of the United States of America is much like an oddity at a carnival—enticing, mythical, a spectacle. So please forgive me as I pull back the curtain these peculiar yet wonderful tunes to give every one its due.

1.    Kitty

It takes a certain audacity to open up your debut record with your most bizarre song, but the Presidents are nothing if not ballsy. While the chorus is infectiously catchy, the verses of “Kitty” move in a sleek groove punctuated by incessant “meows.” Chris’ character first invites a poor cat into his house, only to quickly suffer a scratch attack before finally dismissing it with the lines: “fuck you kitty / you’re gonna spend the night outside.” The speaker’s excitement seems to double for the cut-time coda, as he belts the excited “Kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty touch it” like a seven-year-old with ADHD. PUSA kicks off their eponymous debut with a song that both rocks and perplexes, giving the listener a straight-away shot of their humor without any qualms.

2.    Feather Pluckn

As if the opener wasn’t silly enough, The Presidents hardly pause before sliding into their next tune, “Feather Pluckn.” Chris and Dave play as a unit here, bending their strings in a goofy progression that bounces through the verses before diving into full distorted rock for the choruses. Jason Finn’s drumming drives the song, dominating syncopated hits and using his hihat to control the dynamics. 

But perhaps the most effective part of the song is Chris’ vocal melody, which somehow manages to give life and vivacity to his nonsensical lyrics. The focus appears to be animals sharing secrets, painting scenes of “birdies…talking in codes to clams in the clouds.” Chris’ gentle, bopping verse melody sounds like he is trying to stay out of earshot, yet his chorus vocals explode as he exclaims “ten million monkeys all pick up guitars / nobody taught them how,” the secret finally bursting from his lips. Using emphatic vocals to tell this silly tale with enthusiasm and grace, Chris lets the humor and insanity of “Feather Pluckn” shine against the tight instrumentation.

3.    Lump

The first punk banger of the record, “Lump” is the result of Chris Ballew’s “trying to write a Buzzcocks song” with his band’s unique instrumentation. While initially inspired by a benign tumor in his head, Ballew tossed everything of the “too depressing” idea except the title, instead using his language to relate the tale of a woman lying in the mud. He plays with sound in his lyrics, weilding alliterative phrases like “Lump lingered last in line for brains” or “life limped along at subsonic speeds.” His spirited delivery and simple but catchy language choices expertly complement the driving drums and screaming strings, creating a perfect mix of punk and pop that, when released as a single, helped launch them into the public’s eye.

4.    Stranger

Though the lyrics are full of clumsy pick-up lines like “you seem pretty cool for a naked chick in a booth,” for this record, “Stranger” is perhaps the song most grounded in reality. Jason pulls his drums far into the background on this one, letting Dave and Chris pine away on their strings as Chris’ vocal awkwardly asks out an exotic dancer. “Stranger” provides us an excellent glimpse of how these PUSA ties the guitbass and basitar together, each melody complementing the other both theoretically and emotionally. The verses would seem almost innocently romantic if they weren’t spoiled by the creepy chorus and the absurd mumbling of the outro. With “Stranger,” Chris reveals to us a touch of his amorous side before drenching it in his humor like a throwing a glass of wine in our faces.

5.    Boll Weevil

The first tale of the record to directly personify an animal, “Boll Weevil” wobbles into a world rife with ridiculousness. Chris spins the yarn of a fat bug that refuses to leave his house, simply content to melt in front of the TV while getting high. The groove is as funky as the melody, the band mixing classic rock’n’roll rhythms against their punk thrashing. Though the vocal harmonies really shine, it is Jason Finn’s diverse drumming that really moves the tune along: his verse beat is syncopated and slippery, while his chorus pattern cuts the 4/4 into 12/8 and turns the intensity up to eleven. “Boll Weevil” shows PUSA pull the funk forward in their sound, giving Finn a space to flaunt his beat building skills.

6.    Peaches

The hit song that gave the Presidents’ their platform, “Peaches” is an excellent example of this band’s ability to harness pop sensibility. The tune is split into two distinct suites, one soft and one heavy, taking the listener on a leisurely walk that quickly ramps up into a full-on adventure. Chris’ melody begins sweet and succulent, strolling over wavering strings and soft hihat work from Finn. The chorus pick up the pace a bit, before the song slides into the chugging coda, pushing a dissonant chord progression and crashing percussion.

The dichotomized composition also reflects the hidden themes built into the lyrics. According to Chris, “Peaches” is about his time beneath a peach tree as he worked up the courage to ask out a crush. The first half of the song reflects optimism and positivity with lines like “moving to the country / gonna eat a lot of peaches,” not to mention more than a bit innuendo with “poke my finger down inside.” Yet Chris never did speak to that girl, as reflected in the second half, where he acknowledges that out there are “millions of peaches / peaches for me,” rather than just the one he had been craving. While “Peaches” initially seems cute if not vapid, closer inspection reveals deep layers of meaning in every choice the Presidents’ make.

7.    Dune Buggy

Kicking off with the most dissonant riff on the record, “Dune Buggy” juxtaposes dark, rumbling strings with the sunny tale of a spider taking a little joyride in his tiny dune buggy. Dave and Chris slap a cool groove beneath the vocals, as Chris describes this diminutive vehicle that rocks a “squishy transmission” and a “sassy chassis.” The very idea of a small bug tearing across the sand, hitting jumps and showing off for his spider woman, is both imaginative and adorable, but the Presidents’ choice to partner it with brooding instrumentation helps the imagery to stand out even further. While initially my least favorite tune on the record, “Dune Buggy” has since won me over, and with every listen leaves me wishing there was an extra seat for me in that “little blue dune buggy.”

8.    We Are Not Going to Make It

Another punk rock essential, “We Are Not Going to Make It” takes The Presidents’ preposterous sense of humor and turns it in on themselves. Above a pounding and simple progression, the Presidents’ openly admit to sucking, stating “there’s a million better bands with a million better songs.” Jason Finn lets his drums sound clumsily against the strings’ power chords, mirroring the self-deprecating tone of the line “we don’t have the talent.” The song even features a false, faltering start that is perfectly in tune with their out-of-tune concept. “We Are Not Going to Make It” batters the band and the listener alike, flauting faux ineptitude and humor without a hint of remorse.

9.    Kick Out the Jams

A half-bastardized cover of the proto-punk anthem by MC5, “Kick Out the Jams” is PUSA at their most punk. Finn’s drums are driving, Dave’s guitbass screams through a fuzz pedal, and Chris howls against the tide of his pummeling bass notes. His rewritten lyrics are utter nonsense, his language referencing the band’s name with phrases like “This is my term” and a barking promise of “I solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution,” yet not an iota of the original version’s infectious energy is lost or misplaced. The whole affair clocks in at less than 90 seconds, giving the listener a quick distilled injection of The Presidents of the United States of America before exploding into silence almost as quickly as it appeared.

10.  Body

If “Dune Buggy” puts darkness and light in the same room, “Body” forces them to sit face-to-face and have a conversation. Dave and Chris tie their strings together in a creeping, almost disturbing riff, mirroring a vocal melody that feels so unhinged, it might as well be seeping from the mouth of a sociopath. The choruses burst forth from quiet verses, Jason Finn jostling his hihat and rolling along his entire kit, while the coda blooms outward like a furious mushroom cloud.

The instrumentation may be unequivocally dark, but Chris’ lyrics hold far more ambiguity, as he somehow simultaneously evokes themes of pet love, sexual desire, and death. The verses call out to “little” animal friends, following their cute little lives to unfortunate ends: “Little salamander, where did you go? / Edge of the yard / I found you, you know / All brown and hard.” But the prechorus refrain of “I can’t get your body / out of my mind” dumps the platonic feelings for something more obsessive and sinister, leading to the strange erotic chorus line “She goes smooth through my body.” Chris melds together three completely antithetical ideas in “Body” with a level of craftsmanship unattainable by most other acts, adding a truly dark edge to PUSA’s normally humorous music.

11.  Back Porch

My favorite tune on the record, “Back Porch” is a ditty spun in the key of a backwoods bumpkin. Chris alternates to fifths in his bassline, while Finn is glued to his snare, the twangy country verses punctuated by full-on punk choruses. Between images of a goofy animal band serenade, Chris places multiple references to other songs on the record, his character “slurping on a peach” with a “kitty at my foot.” He even calls out to Finn, the “chicken on the drums,” who responds with a tiny yet heartfelt fill. Topped off by perhaps the best mid-song rant ever written, “Back Porch” is the Presidents’ flexing their absurdity, drenching the instrumentation and the lyrics with completely nonsensical and hilarious fun.

12.  Candy

Continuing the carnal tone launched in “Peaches,” “Candy” this time applies the sexual directly to the edible. Chris invokes the orgasmic quality of his sweets by personifying them as a woman, describing her “red rope hair, gumdrop lips / cotton candy thighs,” attributes that leave him and his teeth “worn and useless.” Accompanying this overtly erotic imagery is instrumentation that is wholly hypnotic, the strings linked in perfect unison over Finn’s metronomic drums. The band slips from 6/8 in the song proper to a subdued 4/4 bridge, letting Dave rip a quiet but evocative solo on his guitbass that gives me chills. “Candy” is the sleeper hit of The Presidents of the United States, prioritizing feel and sound over humor and showing just how hard this band can hit, even when they lean back into gentler territory.

13.  Naked and Famous

Brandishing another expertly knotted string section riff, The Presidents’ tie a bow on their debut record with “Naked and Famous.” Dave and Chris work as one player in this, practically finishing each other’s musical sentences. The song starts by wandering through lyrical images that appear to have no meaning whatsoever (“3D billboards and big / thirty-foot smurfs”), but the song truly comes together in the second half: the tempo is fired up, the gain pushed to 100, and guest musician Kim Thayil of Soundgarden tears the tune apart with a face-melting solo. “Naked and Famous” firmly shuts the book the Presidents’ eponymous first release, crashing to an end with all the grace of a train on a blown-out bridge.

Despite eschewing really any conventional sound palette, it’s pretty obvious that The Presidents of the United States of America have mastered the technical aspects of their craft. However, their music also communicates to me (and based on the record’s commercial performance, many others too) on a much more personal level, largely due to the band’s refusal to take any of it seriously. As Chris puts it, The Presidents are “entertainers, not artists;” the response of the crowd, laughter and joy, are the currencies they deal in.

For the band, “entertainment is job one,” and the fact that they can manage to bring so much absurd happiness to their fans with such a well-polished machine is truly admirable. Best of all, this silliness is not manufactured or a shtick; it’s who these guys are. Chris had apparently been making silly music long before he started The Presidents, and the fact that he now makes music for young children only proves his commitment to his crazy craft. The humor is inherent to their sound, and just as pivotal as the guitbass or the snare drum. There can be no PUSA without it.

What The Presidents of the United States of America offers to the world is wholly unique and wholly the Presidents. Their music is catchy, rockin’, visceral, and often hysterically funny. I picked it up on a completely unprecedented impulse decision, and still find every spin to be refreshing, exciting, and fun. I may never understand what prompted me to scoop up this seminal and inspiring album, but I will always know it to be $15 very well spent.