Chris Ballew
Based on Wikipedia: Chris Ballew
The Man Who Played Two Strings
Most guitarists spend years mastering all six strings. Chris Ballew took a different approach: he removed four of them.
The instrument he created—a modified Epiphone SG-400 with only two strings—became one of the most distinctive sounds in 1990s alternative rock. He calls it a "basitar," a hybrid that's neither quite bass nor quite guitar. And when you hear those opening riffs of "Lump" or "Peaches," you're hearing what happens when someone decides the conventional rules of rock instrumentation are more suggestion than requirement.
Ballew is refreshingly honest about his unconventional approach: "I'm technically not really a bass player, although I play as if I'm playing bass lines. A lot of times I strum like on a guitar and make chords." This admission cuts against the grain of rock mythology, where musicians typically inflate their virtuosity. Ballew does the opposite—he found a way to make less into more.
From Street Corners to Alternative Radio
Before the Presidents of the United States of America became one of the defining bands of the mid-1990s alternative boom, Ballew spent years busking on the streets of Boston. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he performed as half of a duo called Egg with Phil Franklin, who would later join the avant-garde bands Caroliner Rainbow and Sunburned Hand of the Man.
These weren't throwaway street performances. Songs Ballew wrote during the Egg era would eventually become Presidents hits—most notably "Naked and Famous," which appears as a bonus track on a 2005 reissue of the Presidents' debut album in its original Egg form. There's something fascinating about hearing the skeletal street version of a song that would later fill arenas.
During this Boston period, Ballew also played in an experimental ensemble called Balls. The concept was delightfully absurd: three bass guitars playing together. They released a single twelve-inch EP in 1991, a document of an era when indie rock rewarded the strange and the unclassifiable.
The Morphine Connection
One of Ballew's most consequential collaborations during the Boston years was with Mark Sandman, the frontman of the band Morphine. They performed together in a duo called Supergroup—a cheeky name for what was essentially two guys experimenting with guitars.
What makes this collaboration significant is what came out of it. Together, Ballew and Sandman developed the "oddly-stringed instruments" that would become signatures of both their future bands. Morphine became famous for Sandman's two-string slide bass, creating a smoky, jazz-noir sound that defined a whole subgenre. The Presidents went in a completely different direction—bouncy, absurdist pop-rock—but both bands shared this DNA of stripped-down, unconventional instrumentation.
It's a reminder that musical innovation often happens in obscure practice spaces and basement collaborations, years before anyone records a hit.
The Beck Interlude
In the early 1990s, Ballew moved to Los Angeles and became Beck's roommate. This wasn't just a living arrangement—Ballew played in Beck's live band during a pivotal moment in both their careers.
Beck, of course, would go on to release "Loser" in 1994 and become one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation, known for genre-defying albums that mixed folk, hip-hop, noise, and country into something entirely new. For Ballew, the experience was formative in a more practical way. As he told Seattle Weekly, playing with Beck "was the beginning of my professional career as a guy getting paid to make music."
There's a whole alternate history to imagine here: What if Ballew had stayed in Beck's orbit? Would he have become a permanent sideman for one of the era's most inventive artists? Instead, he returned to Seattle in 1993 and started something of his own.
Seattle and the Presidents
Chris Ballew grew up in Seattle and attended the Bush School for middle and high school. There he met Dave Dederer, and the two would eventually form the Presidents of the United States of America together. But that founding moment came much later, after Ballew's years of wandering through Boston and Los Angeles.
When he finally returned to his hometown in 1993, the Seattle music scene was at the height of its powers. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains had made the city synonymous with grunge—heavy, angst-ridden rock music that took itself very seriously.
The Presidents did not take themselves seriously at all.
Their songs were about peaches, lumps, kitties, and other absurdist subjects. The music was catchy and energetic, built on Ballew's basitar and Dederer's similarly stripped-down "guitbass." They were the class clowns in a scene full of brooding poets, and somehow it worked spectacularly.
Their self-titled debut album, released in 1995, went triple platinum. "Lump" and "Peaches" became ubiquitous on alternative radio and MTV. For a brief window, a band singing about eating peaches and moving to the country was one of the biggest acts in rock music.
The Long Goodbye
The Presidents released six studio albums over their twenty-two-year existence before finally splitting up in July 2015. That's a remarkably long run for a band that many assumed was a novelty act—a one-hit wonder at best. But Ballew and his bandmates kept at it, building a devoted following even as the mainstream music industry forgot about them.
The band's longevity speaks to something genuine beneath the silly exterior. These were real musicians who genuinely enjoyed playing together, not cynical hitmakers chasing trends.
Becoming Caspar Babypants
In 2002, Ballew had his first brush with children's music. He recorded an album of traditional children's songs and donated it to the Program for Early Parent Support, a Seattle nonprofit. The album was called PEPS Sing a Long!, and while Ballew enjoyed making it, he didn't immediately pursue children's music further.
What changed was meeting Kate Endle, the collage artist who would become his wife.
Ballew has described wanting to make music that "sounded like her art looked"—a synesthetic approach that led him somewhere unexpected. He began writing original songs and digging through public domain nursery rhymes and folk songs, finding ways to make them his own.
The first Caspar Babypants album, Here I Am!, was recorded in the summer of 2008 and released in February 2009. Ballew adopted a three-string acoustic guitar for this project—still one string less than most acoustic players, maintaining his minimalist approach even in a completely different genre.
The Exclamation Point Years
What followed was an extraordinary burst of productivity. Over twelve years, Caspar Babypants released album after album, all with enthusiastically punctuated titles: More Please!, This Is Fun!, Sing Along!, Hot Dog!, I Found You!, Baby Beatles!, Rise and Shine!, Night Night!, Beatles Baby!, Away We Go!, Winter Party!, Jump for Joy!, Keep It Real!, Flying High!, Bug Out!, and Happy Heart!
The Beatles references are not accidental. Ballew grew up musically inspired by the Fab Four, and he channeled that love into children's albums that introduced a new generation to Beatles songs in kid-friendly arrangements.
In 2021, Ballew announced he was retiring the Caspar Babypants persona. The final album under that name was Easy Breezy!, bringing a twelve-year project to a close with characteristic cheerfulness.
The Other Projects
Throughout all of this, Ballew never stopped experimenting. In 1998, while still with the Presidents, he released a solo album credited to the Giraffes. The following year, the Giraffes evolved from a recording project into a proper band, with Ballew joined by Jason Staczek on organ and clarinet and Mike Musburger on drums.
Fifteen years after the last official Giraffes release, in 2015, Ballew assembled a double album called We Hear Music—thirty-three tracks of previously unreleased material. Rather than releasing it commercially, he shared it privately with fans over the internet, with a note allowing recipients to redistribute the music freely. It's a gesture that reflects a certain approach to art: make it, share it, let it go.
In 2021, after closing the Caspar Babypants chapter, Ballew released his first album under his own name: I Am Not Me. Two more followed in 2022: Soul Unfolded and Primitive God. After decades of hiding behind band names and personas, Ballew finally stepped forward as simply himself.
The Gear Philosophy
During his time with the Presidents, Ballew was endorsed by Epiphone Guitars and Orange amplifiers. His setup was notably simple: the modified two-string Epiphone SG-400 running through an Orange AD200B MK 3 200-Watt Bass Head.
Here's the detail that reveals his philosophy: no distortion pedals. None at all. When you hear the crunchy, overdriven sound of Presidents songs, that's entirely the natural distortion of the amplifier being pushed hard. In an era when guitarists' pedalboards grew to the size of small aircraft carriers, Ballew plugged straight in and turned it up.
This isn't laziness or ignorance—it's a deliberate aesthetic choice. Distortion pedals give you control and consistency. Amp distortion is rawer, more responsive to how hard you play, more alive. It's harder to use well, but when you figure it out, the sound has a character that pedals can't quite replicate.
Weird Al and Full Circle
In June 2022, Ballew performed "Peaches" with "Weird Al" Yankovic. It's a fitting collaboration. Both artists built careers on a foundation of humor and musical craft that casual observers sometimes mistake for mere novelty. Both proved that funny music requires just as much skill as serious music—maybe more, since you have to be good enough that people keep listening after the joke lands.
The pairing also represents a kind of full circle. "Peaches" was released in 1995. Nearly three decades later, Ballew was still performing it, still finding joy in a silly song about fruit. Some artists grow embarrassed by their hits, distancing themselves from the songs that made them famous. Ballew seems to have made peace with being the Peaches guy—while also being the children's music guy, the experimental trio guy, the solo artist guy, and whatever comes next.
The Minimalist as Maximalist
There's a paradox at the center of Chris Ballew's career. He's spent decades removing things—strings from guitars, pedals from signal chains, complexity from song structures. And yet the result isn't sparse or diminished. The Presidents were one of the most energetic, maximally fun bands of their era. Caspar Babypants produced a torrent of albums. The overall body of work is enormous.
Maybe that's the secret. By simplifying his tools, Ballew freed himself to be more productive, more creative, more willing to try things. He didn't have to master six strings before he could start making music. He could start right away with two.
It's a lesson that extends beyond music. Sometimes the path to doing more is to need less.