The Presidents of the United States of America (PUSA)

This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,

Hello.

My guests today have the best name of any band in the history of bands. They are two members of the Presidents of the United States of America.

They are on the Mount Rushmore or rock and roll What motherfuckers?

Yeah, that is friends.

Yeah, you know what I have to say right away, gentlemen, how sorry, I'm because this is the the people listening or watching this will not no but this is the third time we've attempted this, Yeah, third time, because we tried it when I was in my house in my apartment in London, and we tried it again from that same apartment or something I can't remember, and then anyway, here I am in the best studio in London.

It's amazing.

We actually, Chris and I used a professional podcast studio a couple of weeks ago to pre record something for somebody, and we were moved nearly to tears by how amazing it is to just walk into a podcast studio and have someone sit you down in front of a good bike and just have it all be amazing.

Kind of incredible. It's incredible. I'm going to keep doing it if I can afford it. I'm going to keep doing it because I think this is fancy. I suspect, Yeah, the Brianino probably works in here too. Yeah.

I think I saw him go by it.

He does work here.

Yeah.

Do you know you were going to tell me a story about Brianino? Was it you? Christ? We're going to tell me of a story about Brianino?

Yeah? Yeah, I've had three different experiences where I've met my heroes and it's gone back.

Brian It was very hero for me, So I don't want a meal.

Yeah, yeah, right, sometimes you don't like As a side bit story real quick, I went to Nantucket one time and saw Jonathan Richmond in a tiny little feater on Nantucket. I mean we were second row right there. He's just being his insane self and playing Spanish flaming guitar for twenty minutes, just an incredible performance, and we were supposed to go. We knew the people that promoted the show set up the show, so my wife and I were

I understand.

I would never allow the bookers when I was doing Late Night, I wouldn't allow the bookers to even approach David Boie just in case he said yes, I don't want it, don't want you to be here, because well he turns up, Hey you crying, You're a fucking.

House home, and then I'd be like, well that was the point.

Yeah, well he and he already roasted Ricky Gervais on his own show. That's right, Ricky made that, although Ricky says that he was lovely. Yeah, by all accounts, incredibly love Yeah.

So Brian, you know what happened.

So this is the third of the jewels in my Stupid where I met my heroes. But the other two are stories for another time. But I was a young starving artist in Boston he in the late eighties. He was coming to mass College of Art to do a presentation of some sort. So naturally I went. And as I approached the auditorium, there's all these big glass doors. He's outside the auditorium talking to somebody, obviously a friend. He's kind of conversing and hanging out with this person.

Yeah, he just But maybe Brianino had the courage to to tell you that when I always wanted to and just.

You have done it. Yeah, I don't know. You haven't done it?

Yeah yeah, not yet, not yet? Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't thirty five years.

I think that is that basquach behind you, Jason. Is that basket?

I wish I would be. I would be zooming in from my private island.

Yeah, in case, but no, that's actually a that's a portrait of my old bandmate Kevin from Love Battery, done by the uh uh a regional Pacific Northwest artist Ed Fotheringham.

Very nice piece. Yeah, there's about the good stuff here.

Yeah, I just saw the looks like a Bocht crown.

I think it's an homage.

It's from the earliest nineties and that series all of the subjects had crowned on there Bruce Pabot, one of the creators of subpop, was in there and one of the mud Honey, guys, it's it's a it's a regional.

Pacific Northwest art history, regional regional royalty. Yeah, I mean, I think I think that, you know, I'm always a little intimidated by you types from that time period in that zip code that you guys are from, because it is very arty and very influential in pop culture to this day.

You know.

But but you guys were kind of slightly after grunge.

Is that what you call it? After grunge? Yeah?

Yeah, we were fun.

That's right, That's right. I knew there was some and.

If only we were kind of come up with that at the time, we were constantly being pressured like what do you call your music? What's happening here? What do we put what umbrella can we put it under so we could sell more of it? What we to make of this response, this obvious response to grunt that you're doing. Yeah, you know, it was only like four years ago that I came up with funge. So whoops, I missed the boat there. But isn't that always the way the stuff

Uh like when you go up to him as he turned around, you could have said, you know what, fuck off Brianino, or at least if you.

Mustard a back at you or something.

Right, you know, how do I know you are but one of my finger.

You know?

Yeah?

Yeah, but let me.

Let me ask you this, because you guys have been working together off and on for a long time, right, yeah, how did that come about? How did it start? Were you like Chris Well it started?

The embryonic version of the President's was The Dukes of Pop, which was a acoustic duo which is me and Dave Dieter are the guitar player. And I used to work at a coffeehouse here in Seattle called the Last Exit, and on Monday nights, I would take my apron off and we'd play open mic kind of style sets at the Last Exit. And that was kind of the beginning of me and Dave connecting as songwriters and performers. And

Guys are doing a lot of drugs and alcohol and stuff.

I was doing my share. I was doing my share.

Then before cell phones, the cell phones of the nineteen nineties was the drugs and alcohol.

It's different now, It's.

True, yeah, it's true. Well, one big difference really is that we depended on each other to eliminate boredom. You know, we had to schedule a show on a Tuesday night so that we wouldn't die of boredom. And so out of that, well really out of the joy of finally moving back from the East Coast to Seattle, I started writing songs and Dave and I started playing again as

Softball, and so, yeah, how did you come in and know anything about these guys except I knew Dave a little bit from from whatever a p and nest to him at the stall somewhere.

But they were performing and it was it was pretty fun. But then there was this moment where Dave had planted someone in the audience and he just Dave pulls a baseball mit off of his amp and says, anybody got a ball? And so the plant throws the softball out of the crowd and he's a bang, catches it and puts the net back down, which was, to my in that moment the absolute dumbest, slash greatest thing I'd ever

Please go yeah, would you please fuck off?

So yeah, after a couple of rounds of fuck offs and backatches and your mom's we we got we got it together. That part I don't.

Even remember.

The presidents of the United States of America. That was it, I would say, except that that.

Of course, Chris's friend Dave Peely was was sort of the original uh drummer.

But that was a different band that was good, okay, yeah, yeah, different songs and stuff, and Dave was a sort of hobbyist drummer. Uh so he was Yeah, he wasn't like going to make a career out of playing drums. But I remember, yeah, Dave and I were kind of like, we don't need a drummer because part of the fun of doing what we were doing was we were kind

One of my favorite details about them in the earliest days is they would show up and you know how guitarists always have you have your gear, you have your your your guitar, and on the other hand, you have your you know whatever, your your case is that you have your pedals and stuff. These guys would both show up with little toat sacks with like with like a cord and a pedal in there, like it's the totsack guys a.

Role like a faded tote bag. That says New Mexico auditors.

I think that.

Sounds pretty cool. I mean, it's still it has coolness about it. But what I think is kind of interesting, particularly about the Presidents, is that that you guys, I mean there's real musicianship in that band when you I mean, even though though there's like there's fun and it seems to not take itself so seriously. It's the music is very accomplished, the playing is very accomplished. It didn't seem to me that there was a joke about I mean,

You know, yes, absolutely wearing tight ship in alice in our world.

And we know that from when when he did come. You know that I'm blinking on his name.

The drummer contact to be out of the blue, and he just had some really specific questions about Muta Schwartz.

That's right. He was like, now listen on the second verse, you're doing this thing with the with the floor time and and what's it? And yeah, he needed to recreate that, you.

Know so well.

Part of our deal was we wanted to appear not to carry at all while simultaneously carrying deep. So we we knew that if we were going to make funny, fun music, it had to be you know, there had to be a certain amount of proficiency in it. Otherwise it's just you know, it's it's a it's a hat on a hat.

Yeah, yeah, kind of.

I mean I think that that was quite interesting, but I mean the same thing.

I mean, I I get a vibe from you.

It's not the same band, but I get a vibe like they might be giants who were always producing songs which didn't necessarily take themselves seriously in the lyrically, or they had some humor in it because it seemed to me that particularly grunge, and I think that's correct me if I'm you know, going away off in the wrong the wrong tangent here, but the funge that came out of it, because because grunge was pretty pull faced and grumpy,

Yeah, we did. I mean part of what we used to always say when asked like how do we resonate against the grunge explosion and stuff we've kind of talked about, Well, go back further in Seattle music history and you'll find party rock, right, you know, you'll find Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Kingsman, the Sonics, although the Sonics were pretty intense, but still you know, you could party to it, and then more recently the young Fresh Fellows, which were

Yeah, Hello, this is Greig Ferguson, and I want to let you know I have a brand new stand up comedy special out now on YouTube.

It's called I'm So Happy, and I would be so happy if you checked it out. To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel at the Craig Ferguson Show and is this right there?

Just click it and play it and it's free. I can't look.

I'm not going to come around your house and show you how to do it. If you can't do it, then you can't have it. But if you can figure it out, it's yours. I remember when because I worked on a television show called The Drew Carey Show.

I don't know if you remember it.

And when Drew played me because he played me when you guys did the cover of the Odine Hunter thing Cleveland.

Rock, Cleveland Rock, and I heard it, I was like, bander, that's the first thing i'd heard the band.

Let's spand a fucking banging. I mean they're great.

I was in bands before I you know, I was such a bad drummer that any band that I was in immediately became funny, and so I had to be there kind of leaned into comedy because I thought, well, I'm bringing that to Roken Roll anyway. But the idea of I mean, the band was really good. So I don't think you ever fooled me for a minute about, oh, hey, we're just wacky.

It doesn't that's no.

Well, the caveat with that is that in the beginning, when we had you know, fifty people at a little place called the Robber Room, this little bar, uh, that's where we could be as sort of discombobulated it yet still pull off the show as possible. Then when we stood up in front of you know, we had success and we had to stand up in front of a lot of people, we kind of got more into like revving up the machine and getting tighter and tighter and

Being alive, right definitely, because we didn't really prepare for that.

We were just we were in the studio doing something else and they're like, yeah, you want to take a pass of this song Cleveland Ross for a TV show. We're like, okay, we just you know, bang through it twice and that that was.

Well, I mean we knew added to but yeah, because because we were on the Rosy O'Donnell Show and Drew was a guest as well, apparently, and he came to for some reason, the backstage was little trailers and he came to our trailer and.

Came in as I remember it, and I might have embellished this over the years, and Jason can confirm or deny this, but I remember him coming in with a supermodel on each arm, like girls that were significantly taller than him. But this may be my creative I.

Think, well, I think I think you're it's a generous use of the word supermodel, but I understand, but I Drew average model.

Drew went through a period from that.

He went through a period I think in the early part of success where you know that that was part of his life. He very quickly that went away and he go, you know, his thing became driving a mini that had a union a British flag, on.

It, you know. I mean, it's like.

He h he has some ties to the Seattle Sounders, the MLS right there, and he would it's particularly in the early seasons. He would come to a lot of the games and and and be right on the on the side of the field and my my family had front row uh seen tickets at that time, and he would walk by and by the by. There were no supermodels, but there was an earnest team of young people that

So good times for me that happened.

I remember from that that that day that we met him in the in the trailer, here's how little I knew about the show. He was already I think pitching this the the idea of this theme song. And I immediately asked him if I could tell him a joke. And I proceeded to tell this joke about Cincinnati, not Cleveland.

So they're pretty supposed to each other. It's all right.

But he was very he laughed his ass off at the at that middling joke and never never corrected me.

So good on him.

You know, I used to say hey, and he used to go, hey, you to me. It took him with three seasons to realize that I actually worked.

On the show. I think he's sixty.

Yeah, long because he called me mister Wick for about two years.

He's like, hey, mister Wick. I'm like, it's not my name.

I I.

Ca I ask a.

Question about the show and you you're from Glasgow, right, I am Glasswegian?

Yes, great word.

It is a good word, fucking good word. You were doing something different accent wise on Oh yeah, yeah I did that, No, Scott, what happened was, this is a true story.

What happened was that I auditioned for the part of the Spanish photographer in the sitcom Suddenly Susan. And it had been been a hiccup and obviously you know that the accent work that I was doing was unacceptable to the team that we're making Suddenly Susan.

They wanted something a bit more Spanish.

But but the casting guy that was there said, hey, we've got another show. They're looking for an English guy. Can you do an English accent? And I was like, season George as I can, and that's how I ended up doing Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

That's that's my Spanish.

I just remember when you when your late night show started, you talking, and I'm like, that's what is happening. I guess that at that time I wasn't as I couldn't.

Hard to hear it broke out.

I think as well, what happened is that because I was playing because mister Wick.

Was a very it's a very arch character. It's very good. You're absolutely your fire.

No, that's I mean, there is, there is, Yes, I absolutely talked like.

This is entire show.

And because that's the only thing that anybody knows you from. I mean, I'm always amazed when you see these English actors that like, did you ever watch Yellowstone?

You should watch Yellowstone.

Because there's an actress in that I can't remember her name, forgive me, but she plays Beth uh, the very very American, kind of great character in Yellowstone and she's English. I heard her in an interview was like, oh my god, I can't believe it. I but you get locked in with the sound of someone and then yeah, it just it becomes part of the whole identity. So it changed for me after I had to convince people I wasn't from England when I started doing the late night show.

They're like, man, his Scottish accent is terrible.

It's pretty Yeah.

Yeah, well I've always wanted to ask you something actually, because I am such a fan of your late night shot. I mean, it was so refreshing. I don't think I ever felt like the guest had been produced when they sat down, you know what I mean, Like it felt like maybe they were maybe you knew what you were going to talk about, but it just felt like, you know, let's just hang out. And that was so really more like.

That as time went on. But it's kind of like the way you guys describing the music. Like I like, at first, the first year or so, when I was on late night, nobody was watching it, so I could fuck up as much as pausible and you know, and to kind of find my way. And by the time you know, people started watching the show, I kind of knew what I was doing.

I got comfortable and I realized that.

Also as the show became more popular, better guests started coming on as well, which, you know, people who were like familiar with the terrain, but.

It it's uh.

I think I always approached that kind of like music anyway, the same way as approach stand up. It is like you've got to rehearse, but it doesn't mean you're going to play those notes.

But you got to practice.

You've got to pick up the guitar every day, or you gotta you gotta play the drums every day. It doesn't mean you're going to play that, but you've got to be there. You know, you've got to be incited to get the rest for sure. Yeah, and that's kind of where we're we were.

That was our credo the whole time, was we wouldn't really rehearse ever, and maybe that led to some extra shenanigans early in in like a you know, early in a tour, first couple of shows, but as much excitement as just playing clams.

Uh.

But yeah, I don't know, keeping it fresh. There was a sensation I would have when we would go on tour. The fourth show was where we stopped just playing the notes and started playing the songs. It was a subtle shift where it was like we inhabit the song because now we're not worried about where the notes are and that kind of stuff. But what I really wanted to ask you, And by the way, I did recognize how comfortable you got, because sometimes I think you were almost

I don't know.

I mean, possibly if it had been something that had been aspirational for me. But I think what happens that I came from a different angle then, and I wonder if this is the same for you guys.

I didn't know. Look, I didn't grow up watching Carson. I didn't grow up watching David Lherman. I didn't grow up watching Late Night. I grew up in Scotland.

It was late night in Scotland as the pub, So you know, it's like it's a very different thing.

It had no mistique for me. I took the job in late night.

Because I I just got divorced, that had a little kid, and I wanted to be in town and this was a job that would keep me there all the time, you know, like I would. I would have to work every day. So that's why I went after the job. When I got the job, I fell in love with it. But it wasn't It wasn't something that was aspirational for me. So I never came at it from a place of

I will see this though.

I mean I said this before, But for the ten years I was doing that show, I worried about my weight and my accent. And when I quickly hired James Cordon, yes.

Yes, so I think that perhaps I was worried about the wrong thing.

Yeah, James.

James was looking pretty tight though when he started. My only previous experience being the what was the BBC.

That's a great show.

I mean he was he was a little he was a little round.

Yeah, he's a terrific performer, I think, and he's a really nice guy.

I've always really liked him.

He took some hate when he took over the show, but I think that I did. Two people forget that because a long time ago, and when I took over the show, the hate that you go it was no social media, so you know that you took the hate, and the New York Post or the or the New York Times or by the time that he took over, there was social media, so you take hate.

But it is what it is.

I mean, it's the whole thing about the new bass player turns up. The fans that have been watching you for years are very angry, and then they forgive you or.

Take Chris old base player.

Well, yeah, look, you dodged a bullet, Craig in with the Late Night Wars. We know now that there's a lot of like that's just a blood sport, that whole who's gonna host what next? And all that stuff, and probably you would have gotten screwed by that, by that asshole Briani. I think that if you would have gotten the gig and he would have gotten in there.

And and have you ever seen that little animation on the internet. I don't know who made it.

It's a work of genius where it's an imagining of Brian, you know, David boy and Tony Visconti right in the little album and uh in hansa studio writing this down right is fucking genius.

You got to look it up.

It's it's okay, it's insanely good that it's just that that's going to the cute. I don't know who did it, and I feel bad because and I'm sure someone in the internet will point it out, but it is a is a work of comedic genius. Whoever does Boy's voice is spot on and they have you know, Brian and Tony Visconti's this character is saying can I be in it? And David Boyce said, I'm going to make up a special language that no one understands for this.

It's just lovely. It's very funny. Okay.

I can think of so many other episodes of that show I would watch. Yeah, you know, like, okay, let's do David Bowie producing Iggy Pop's the Idiot. Yeah.

Yeah, like the Transformer album when David Boid fantastic. Oh my god, did you ever run into like you know, I know you said that, you know, don't don't meet your heroes, but in the world of Roken roll you you are going to run into these people all the time. Did you ever collaborate with people that just blew your mind? You can't believe you doing it?

Well? Number one of that ILK would be weird out himself. I mean the fact that he and I are still good friends and great and he's just such an amazing human. He produced a video for us for a song from one of our later records. We've jumped, you know, we've ambushed each other on stage at each other's shows countless times. Yeah, he's one of those people that I'm hanging out with or being collaborative with, and I'm just like, pinch, pinch, pinch.

He's amazing.

Did he ever tell you about when he came to my house in Scotland? No, he came to the We had a party. Remember there was a like, I know he has this place in Hawaii, but there was a big kind of like thing and he couldn't go there. One summer, and so he came to this party that we were having at my house in Scotland and I don't know if you know this about I'll plays the accordion.

And yeah, good, you don't know.

Yeah, in Scotland we were having this party with this accordion bad you know, and.

These accordions as you do in scott.

So I said to the accordion players, hey, there's a guy. Do you mind if this guy said said it with you a little bit? They're like, oh, that weird.

Al walked in who is a god amongst the courts like a guitar bought to say, Hey, Jimmy Hendrix is here.

Do you mind if he sets in with you? Guys? They were blown away.

But of course I wouldn't tell you because it makes him. It would be grandizing for him and that's not who he is. But it was amazing to see these people bow down to his greatness.

It was fantastic.

That that would be an amazing thing to see. I'm jealous.

We've, as Chris says, we've interacted with Al a ton, but man, seeing him walk into a room of twenty five accordion players, this must be insane.

It wasn't really twenty five, but let's say that was twenty five.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But I did have the pleasure of a one time introducing al to Wayne Kramer from the MC five and figuring that they would maybe have nothing to talk about, but it was just a social experiment and they hit it off like crazy, squirreled away in a corner and just talk to music for hours.

But I think that is a thing with musicians that there is a kind of weird Like comedians are different now, but when I was coming up, comedians were very aggressive and competitive with each other, and I always felt with musicians. Maybe young musicians are a bit like that too, as they're making their bones and stuff. But I always felt with musicians, if you get them onto music, they're fine.

What I'm saying is, do you guys hate each other.

Yeah, I mean, I've always wanted to share this. I'm glad we're here today. Sure, I have an announcement. We have a low level, simmering hate for each other that just kind of keeps.

It's an odd relationship musicians. It's a weird it's the weird.

The rock band is the dumbest social unit ever invented, and one of the least stable and one of the greatest. Man it might not be around for another fifty years, but uh, we we were around for the middle section of it, and and we do a good job because we've never been huge road dogs or workhorses, so we've we've definitely had enough time between things to not get to def con either one or five.

I forget which one, Yeah I.

Or yeah.

You just go on and maintain a nice def con three the entire Well, it's funny.

Go ahead.

It's funny too, because when there's whenever I see like a list of the greatest hundred bands of the nineties or something, we're not on it. Or it's like the greatest bands from Seattle from nineteen ninety four, we're not on it.

We actually if you can, it's hard to find, but if you Google Greatest seven hundred Bands of the nineties.

We sneak in there Anxiety six anxiety. Yeah.

Yeah.

But here's the thing. I see that as a superpower because I feel like that means that the fans that do show up are true fans, and the fans we do have like a connected connection with her true fans who aren't you know, It's not like we were trying to take over the world. We just wanted to take over the room that we were in on any given so it fit us perfectly also, and enough people have.

Been involved over the over the long term that we've we were able to have just a really cool living and careers such as it was Slash is including actually great great shows in Glasgow time to time.

We are first ever was at King Tut's Wall. That's great.

Yeah, that is a great It can't possibly still be Yeah it's still there.

How good for that?

It was old when we were there, and.

That's where the where Oasis got signed to their first record deal was in there after the show they did that night, famously that it had just opened when I was leaving bands in Glasgow because I was I was in bands the early eighties.

I think it opened in the mid eighties.

Did you not get to play there?

I think I did. Actually I did play there, Okay.

I played there with a band called James King and the Lone Wolves, which always baffled me because if we were Lone Wolves, I could understand why there was four of us, but no one asked that question. The band were pretty good, but they a bad name.

I think I disagree.

It's very it's a little a little uh serious.

Yeah, well we were serious wolves. We were angry. We were very angry and drunk. We were in angry drunk band. But I think that market is full. I think that that's a very very well populated area.

It certainly was then.

And continues to be, for sure. And that's that Chris and I where we've always sort of maintained that we were doing a different thing and just fulfilling a certain sort of almost a niche like, Yeah, it.

To not be of the job to not be angry all the time, I think, is okay. It's probably the coolest emotion when you're young. But I think when you get to above thirty and you put on about ten pounds, if you're angry, you start to look like an angry clown like, and then angry clowns are not It's not good.

You have to be an upbeat clown.

Either that or you continue to try to be angry after you have great success and you're being your life is being pampered, but you're still pissed off.

Yeah.

But you know a lot of you were talking earlier about like this sort of dark cloud of grunge. But if you isolate any a bunch of those band members and have a beer with them, they're hilarious and funny and great. You know, lighthearted people. There's a few, you know, there's a few dark souls that anchor you know, the angst to the to the movement to the scene, right

I always felt the same thing in movies when if ever you talk to people who write horror movies, they're delightful. People who write scary like Stephen King is such an upbeat nice man, And people who write romantic comedies are fucking evil. They are They are so twisted and dark and pesto. It's unbelievable love that. I think that the I've seen it so often that it's going to be a thing. There's going to be something in it. It's not just I've seen it once. I've seen it alone.

It's way upbeaten cheery, and you guys seem okay.

Yeah, well looking for now. That was actually that my whole life For some weird reason, as a songwriter, I've been sort of working my way toward the goal of having the music I make be exactly a reflection of who I really am. I don't know exactly why I was driven by that, but it drove me to eventually, after the Presidents do music for little kids sill zero to five year olds as Casper baby Pants, and that that was when I arrived at that. I was like, ah,

Do you have kids?

Craig was asking whether you're an asshole in private?

Right right right? Do you have kids? Yeah?

I do.

I have a twenty six year old in the twenty four So, did you.

Start doing cosper baby pants when your kids were little?

Was that the thing that brought you into it?

No, No, not at all.

It was funny.

But when the presidents were successful, I felt great about it. I was very It was a very double edged sword.

You know.

I felt like validated and excited, and you know, we were all becoming successful and navigating those waters and everything. But I also felt kind of unsafe. I was as a child listening to the Beatles in my bedroom. I imagined that fame was like a doorway into a room where everybody else in that room is famous, and you're immediately accepted and all your problems go away, and it's just this beautiful experience. You know, the velvet rope is removed and you get to go in. So I got

Meaninglly, there is an end to the doors because the last one you go through the last one and it's Keanu Reeves. But until you get to Keanu Reeves, it's.

Just velvet rope after velvet rope.

But I understand that when I was a kid, I thought that if I hated going to the dentist, and I thought, if I get on TV, I won't to have to go to the dentist, which is the opposite. You're never a wait for the fucking days when you're on DV. It's just like it's all that's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, So with that in mind, you know, the the band for me was kind of like this weird skin that I was wearing that was in some ways very comfortable and in some ways like, ah, I got to get out of here. So I started, you know, this gut feeling I had that I was supposed to be doing something all so or something else welled up and I was experimenting on the side for like ten or fifteen years, and finally the experiments got small and acoustic

I have kids, and when they were young, my wife would he has an aversion to children's me and a lot of people do it's and she would play problematic.

To this day, my youngest is no.

Fourteen and he has the song from his childhood is Atmospheres by Joy Division.

It's like it's not good deep runs, but he seems to be all right, though he used to be okay, yeah yeah.

Yeah yeah yeah. I mean, you don't need children's music really, But my whole goal was to make music. I used to say that I was actually a parents musician. I was writing. Ninety percent of the choices I made were for the parents. I was like, what's not going to drive them out of the room into another part of the house, and a lot of kids musicians pay lip service to that concept, but then they do not deliver.

Guys do for little kids?

Actually, the President's did one kids show at the at town Hall, but I had a trio for a little bit, but it got kind of noisy and crazy, and I decided to go solo. So I did like thirteen hundred shows as Casper Baby Pets by myself before hanging up my boots when the pandemic came along.

Your booty booty, yeah, yeah, So what you guys doing now?

Then?

What's happening in the way forward? The band going out again? You're putting the band back together?

No, we're not, that's headline.

We are definitely do not want to do that now, hear this?

No news exactly? Is that true, though you know it's it is true.

We're just I mean, never say never and stay tuned and we'll let you know. But for now, no, and for for future no. But we are sort of celebrating this year or observing that the big popular record the lump, and each's record is turning thirty, which is a thing that people mostly celebrate and observe in service of a tour.

But we're not gonna do that.

So we're just gonna We're just gonna be happy.

Doesn't editing? Do you have anith?

And though you want to even scratch that itch a little bit and go out and hear the crowd, hear those songs again.

You know, I really do not. I love to in my whole life, like the big picture, I see things as arcs, you know, like acknowledging when a creative arc is exciting and on its way up, and oh my god, here we are on the plateau and okay, there it goes, and another one will come up in its place. That arc is just arct. And I'm very very proud of what we did and what we achieved, and you know, how we presented ourselves and how we peppered the world with this joyful music. But it's it's arc for me.

It's exactly how I feel about the late night show. Which is interesting because when people say do the late night do another late night show?

Go?

Why would I do another late night show? I did a late night show, and that.

It almost got to like in the last year of it, once I knew that I wasn't going to do it beyond the end of my contract, it actually got better. I think when I knew I was going to never do it again, it was the best that ever was because it had a that I'm about to abandon this quality, which doesn't come that easy. I don't know if I can, if I'll ever find anything again that quite does that, with the exception of doing stand up, which is which is like my instrument now.

I mean, it's like you know the you know that's what I do. You know that's what I play it here or I play it there? What's that you recognize?

That?

Is that discussed?

You know what I'm doing that?

No?

No, no, what come on? Is that it's in your own stand up special?

Come on promoting my stand up special?

No, no, not money, it's in the stand up it's in uh.

Was years ago.

I kind of remember all that is like remember from Peaches.

I kind of remember that. You don't remember that? All right?

All right, that's fair, that's fair.

You've moved on. Yeah, I love that.

I don't know, so Jason, what's it like? How do you relate to the band and and the and the present day and all that kind of stuff. What's your feeling? Pardon I'm not familiar.

No, I'm glad. I think it's I will say that what Chris was just saying about the arc being completed, you'll off it. You'll always hear that from.

Uh UH.

Band guys that are that are talking about why they're not performing at that time. It's usually right before another UH cycle or tour is announced. I can say with some authority fully witnessing in the most candidate moments, Chris literally is the one, the one individual who is like he just wants to be out there and walking around in the trees. True, and he digs the trees. He moved into an area where there's a lot of trees, and that's just you know, it's complete.

That's great and.

I I, yeah, I tend to agree vibe wise, among other things, playing rock and roll, especially the way we do is pretty physical. And I'm not gonna we're not gonna bore you with the details. But the collection of dumb, stupid bullshit in our shoulders and our elbows and our and our it's it's robust. I guess the opposite of robut it's fragile.

I'm trying to find the appropriate moment for when stand up comedy becomes you're allowed to sit down on the stage.

I'm not quite sure, but I know you guys were calling those water glasses around all the time, then you must be well, you know on Late Night you were almost reclined all ways. Maybe you can be the first reclining comic.

I think the Lazy Boy tour where it was creative lighting and maybe some work from Brian Eno.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and wait with the Lazy Boy Tour, you've got more than one on stage, You've got a whole bunch from it. You just you can do different. Feel like Stanhope is doing this?

Is he doing it right now? Dug Stanholps is like he's one of my favorite comics. Doug stan Jobe.

Isn't he amazing?

I mean he is incredible, And I'm just like, man, how can I would? I wish I could still smoke like He's.

One of those people I think Doug.

Who is like it's not an act, it's like that's a that's a that's a whole thing that he's I mean, he's kind of a work of art in himself. I think he's one of a seriously underrated stand up. I mean, like wonderful. I'm so glad you brought him up. I mean, he is, He's incredible.

I've sort of lost track of what he's doing, like right now, right now, but I do pop in time to time.

I guess, stand up, I don't know what he's up to at the moment because I don't even with with people, even with you know, let's get him up.

Yeah, yeah, dog, you know what he should do. I should. He's one of those guys though, he's so clever.

That I'm a little intimidated to talk to him, do you know what I mean.

It's like I feel, Yeah, let's let's set it up. Let's get this going today. This is a This is a precursor to the next episode.

This is the lead end to the Dug Stanhope episode.

Yeah, all right, so a country idea to promote the thirty years of the album that let's get Doug Stanhope to go out on the road.

Yes, I don't mentioned that album at all.

That seems to follow the philosophy of what your guys are putting together.

Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, this sounds pretty perfect. I don't know, I'll just say it. I'm not gonna wait for you guys. We gotta get Brian, you know, somehow, and I don't know.

You can do a rebase that's ambient presidents.

We gotta go.

But look up that animation on Light of David Boie and Brian, you know, and Tony Visconti making the very funny.

I've written it down.

It's very fun. Okay.

One other thing I just have to point out is Josh Robert Toms cobody genius. What that episode of your podcast with him was so amazing. I immediately went out and signed up for The Distant Sound of Trains and I am enjoying everything.

He will hear in the I mean, he's he's a he is you know, the guy behind Jeff Peterson on the Late Night Show is like all of that is to do with my When I did Jeff Peterson on Late Night, when I put that rule boat in that space,

What other sidekick fucks with the host? I mean even you know, like well Paul Schaeffer is just yes, Sarah a little bit. There's Ed McMahon. You are correct, sir, every you know, but yeah, he did such a great job.

He makes me laugh so hard that I got off balance.

I mean, so anyway, I just had to mention that, because well done for mentioning.

So we've got Doug Stanhope, Brian, you know, weird Al, Josh, Robert Thompson. If we can get those guys into a band, now you got something.

You get those guys in a band and have them cover the presidents and then send them out onto effect.

We can't do better than that, you guys, Okay, you right, h