After two runaway hits, including a "Weird" Al Yankovic parody back in the '90s, it's easy to think that The Presidents of The United States of America are simply resting on their laurels for their tour that hits Milwaukee on Monday, May 5.

But their music goes beyond "Lump" and "Peaches." They boast six solid albums, including their self-titled debut from 1995 and this year's "These Are The Good Times People."

In reality, the two infectious tunes you might know aren't even their best songs. But for the band that found itself in various forms of hiatus from 1998 to 2004, it's clear the group wouldn't even still be together if they weren't having fun.

In advance of their 8 p.m. Monday show at The Rave, we spoke to "guitbass" player Andrew McKeag, who joined the band in 2004. McKeag says the group loves playing old and new material, alike, and expects the Presidents to keep on rocking well into another term.

OMC: What's it like to be in a band in which so many people know you for two big hits, but there's really so much more?

Andrew McKeag: I had to join the band to really figure that out, myself. I've known these guys for as long as they've been a band, and I've played with them in different lineups. They were my friends, and I've seen them play a bunch of times, but I wasn't terribly familiar with all their records. But once I got in there, I was surprised as anyone out there.

OMC: Did you know that band during the time they played with Sir Mix-A-Lot?

AM: For sure. It was a hip-hop rock-and-roll combo. They did a bunch of recording and some minimal touring. It was really good, but the cultures are very different, even though they're both in the music business. I think the two couldn't really work together in a business sense.

OMC: Both you and lead singer Chris Ballew play modified instruments. Your instrument is called a guitbass, and it only has three strings, while Ballew's bass has just two strings. I know that Morphine pioneered the idea (Ballew played with Morphine's Mark Sandman in a band called Supergroup). But why do you take off the strings, and is it hard to play that way?

AM: (Guitbass) was the name that Chris and (former guitar player) Dave (Dederer) came up with. In a sense, the guitar is really just a guitar. It just happens to only have three strings on it. It's tuned down to C#. It was really hard for me to learn, but once I got comfortable with it, it was freeing, in a way. It stops you from thinking about the basic guitar chords. Chris has a theory that kids could pick up the guitar a lot sooner and get more satisfaction if they only used three strings. It's tuned "open," so just hitting the strings alone sound like a chord, and so do barre chords. It makes it really simple to get a good sound out of it, and when you start adding different shapes and chords, you realize how much more it is than three strings.

OMC: I listened to your first album non-stop in college. Your library is now much bigger, but do you still play the old stuff live?

AM: Always.

OMC: Are those songs still fun to play?

AM: They're great. It doesn't matter what song we play. For us, we're happy to play any of the songs. We love the new songs and the previous songs. But the stuff from the first album gets such a reaction, I mean, why wouldn't we play it?

 Page 1 of 2 (view all on one page)

Next >>

Post a comment / write a review.