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Presidents 'campaign trail' will run through Charleston

BY KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHTKeith Ryan Cartwright is a Colorado-based freelance entertainment journalist.

PROVIDED

Seattle-based band The Presidents of the United States of America will play a show at The Music Farm this week.

Jason Finn is running for president.

No, he's not running for the political office of the President of the United States of America. Instead the Seattle native is hoping to be the president — www.pusa2008.org — of The Presidents of the United States of America.

Understand?

OK, perhaps not.

So, to clear things up the Seattle trio known for performing with a "basitar" and "guitbas," as well as strange, yet oftentimes quirky, lyrics recently released "These Are the Good Times People" and, of course, that's right, it's an election year.

In fact, although the band claims it didn't realize it, the group's last three albums — "Freaked Out and Small" (2000), "Love Everybody" (2004) and "Good Times" (2008) have all been released during a presidential election season.

Whether it's a coincidence or carefully thought out — his is a band who still has yet to confirm the departure of Dave Dederer, who was replaced by Andrew McKeag four years ago — Finn and founding member Chris Ballew finally have a little fun with the times.

The campaign trail, will bring the PUSA (as the group is affectionately known) back to Charleston for the first time in years. Finn recently spoke with The Post and Courier about the band, and a little bit of politics.

Preview: How has the, shall we say, spirited election season affected renewed interest in the band?

Finn: We would be glad if it was manifesting in like huge stadium shows and millions of dollars, but what we're seeing is what we always see. We exist outside of pop culture or independent of MTV. It's killer and it's a great time, but I don't know if we're really getting the election bump that people always expect of us.

Preview: At least you seem to be having some fun with it.

Finn: We enjoy it. In the '90s we got a little thin skinned about it — really overt kind of references, but because it was nonstop. It was like 24 hours a day. You would wake up and there would be some guy with a red, white and blue hat going, "Hey man …" So we started making rules about that, but that didn't work, because people don't like being told what to write about. We're a little older and we ... understand why people would want to run with that imagery.

Preview: Talk about living outside of pop culture.

Finn: We were never very comfortable ... in the sense that we weren't really designed to be rock stars. We were designed to be guys singing about frogs and stuff. We were never wearing fashionable jeans or super foxy, you know, any of that cool stuff you normally associate with being rock stars. So operating without it is actually more comfortable for us.

Preview: OK, so then what was it like being inside of pop culture?

Finn: We talk about this all the time now. How we can't even really remember what it was really like, except for a succession of airports and running around and always kind of being tired. Now, of course, that's kind of selective memory, because Chris, in particular, it was kind of a dark time. He felt a little overextended so he doesn't remember how cool it was to be nominated for a Grammy.

Preview: Talk about how the band was together, everything seemed great, then you break up and you're back together, and then you're not. And now you've been back together, for what, how many years?

Finn: I think that these days it's really a succession of baby steps in one direction or another. … We're never really assuming that we're going to do too much more beyond what we've got planned for the next two months. In other words, it could all come to a halt again for us, comfortably, at any time.

Preview: So you're saying you could, at some point here, break up again?

Finn: That's the thing. It's really just a vocabulary thing. We're not going to say when we break up or we're splitting up. You don't have to say that. You can just say, "Yeah, we're not going to work for awhile" and maybe we'll be back in a couple years.

Preview: Talk about the record. You mentioned earlier that you're not selling millions of records anymore, but I would imagine you're still doing well.

Finn: Put it this way. We just put out a record that we love and our fans are digging it, right? It's the debut record that, really, it puts the casual butts in the seats for us. We still enjoy making records, but I think that this one might be our last full-length studio record.

Preview: Really?

Finn: We can sustain what we're doing probably forever on the catalog. We're not really a full-time band that says, "Ah, we need a new record now." We just do a couple gigs when we feel like it.

Preview: So this could be it. No more albums.

Finn: We have the requisite number of records for a "Greatest Hits" record for instance. But, you know, I don't know if we're entirely comfortable with that idea. But we have a totally killer name for it, which I can't reveal because you're going to steal it.