Casper Baby Pants Songs Chris Ballew Stompy the Bear
In the spring of 1996, Chris Ballew found himself standing in Los Angeles' Griffith Park surrounded by ninjas and considering just how bizarre his life had become.
Ballew was the pb singer of The Presidents of the United States of America, and his music was of a sudden ubiquitous. The ring's major label debut album featured the Billboard Rock Nautical chart-ing "Lump," and the unavoidable, earwormy ode to canned fruit, "Peaches." The latter had crept up the charts so quickly that Columbia Music decided to brand a post hoc music video. Hence Griffith Park. Hence the ninjas. Hence Roman Coppola behind the camera.
The spectacle of it all gave Ballew a headache. "I was looking effectually at this whole operation — airbags and so we could fall out of copse, cameras and cranes and walkie-talkies … all this infrastructure and I was thinking, God, all this stuff is for this dumb song," Ballew says. "The whole affair was wildly disorienting. Just all of information technology. At that place was no aspect that wasn't weird."
Presidents eventually fizzled out in the years following their debut; they remained agile (albeit with several brief hiatuses) until 2015, but never approached the aforementioned level of success. How does Ballew feel nigh the way things played out? Fine, utterly fine. In fact, he might be the rare former star unburdened by resentments of disappointments. The now-51-year-old sees stardom as part of a longer musical journeying, not a destination. The destination is where he is now and it'due south a very dissimilar place. Because today Ballew is "kindie" star Caspar Babypants and his bliss is making children'southward music.
Since 2008, Ballew has cocky-released 12 brilliant, poppy albums, includingMore Please!, This Is Fun! andHot Dog!, while building a new career entertaining toddlers and beholden parents. It might seem odd that a human who fronted a band that once turned downward playing Sabbatum Nighttime Live now regularly gigs at libraries, daycares, and doughnut shops, only Chris couldn't exist happier. This, equally he sees information technology, is his calling.
"My whole purpose is to bring the family into the same room and have every historic period say, 'I dear this song,'" says Ballew who now lives in Seattle with his married woman and kids. "Doing that is this constant countless creative challenge." He pauses. "I just knew that in that location was something else out in that location and I'one thousand and then glad I finally found information technology."
Chris Ballew always wanted to play music, but he never wanted fame. A guitar-loving kid from Seattle, he moved to Boston after loftier school and made his living busking and playing in a slew of odd experimental bands with names like Egg and Balls. By the early '90s, he'd moved back to Los Angeles, and was playing in the band of a hot new solo artist by the name of Brook. Ballew remembers going on long walks through the Hollywood Hills with Beck, the two musicians discussing the discomforting and false nature of glory and how it all likewise frequently impeded on musical creativity.
"I felt similar we were at this fancy party, underdressed without invitations, and any second we were going to become a tap on the shoulder."
So, when Ballew moved back to Seattle and reconnected with childhood friend and erstwhile bandmate Dave Dederer and began playing small gigs together as the alternative punk ring Presidents of the United States of America — shows Ballew describes as "a cabaret weird broken-down wait-at-these-poor-bastards-trying-to-rock kinda thing" — the idea of mainstream success was laughable at best. Presidents were goofy, unstructured, absurd. They were not a radio band.
But before long plenty they'd built a reputation for raucous, bizarre live gigs. During one Labor 24-hour interval weekend show in 1993 several major record labels came to lookout man them perform. "We simply did our usual sloppy weird dorky bear witness," Ballew says. The next day, the group had vii major label offers. What followed were multiple world tours, performances on The Belatedly Evidence with David Letterman, and such events as a President'southward 24-hour interval concert at the foot of Mount Rushmore.
At the heights of his Presidents' fame, Ballew says he e'er had an uneasy feeling. "I felt like we were at this fancy party, underdressed without invitations, and whatever second nosotros were going to get a tap on the shoulder proverb 'I'one thousand deplorable. You have to put down the seafood buffet and leave.'"
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The fact that commercial success for the ring was unintended likewise made it difficult for Ballew to repeat the first album's winning formula. "It was like, 'Okay, monkey. Do the same dance again.' Well, I tin't. Because I don't know how I did the dance in the first place."
Plus, Ballew was never financially motivated. "I felt totally successful years before I accomplished what y'all'd call traditional success," he says. "The bulldoze for me was to detect that vocalisation where I was in service to people. I knew it had to impact on something old. I knew it had to exist simple. I knew it had to exist sustainable. Existence in a loud rock band is non sustainable. Your ears go destroyed. Your torso gets destroyed. You lot're never home. It'southward not a great option for me. Some people love information technology and totally thrive in that environs. I'm not 1 of them."
"I basically just had to take ane step to the right, lose the loud drums, the loud guitars, and the sexual innuendo and retain just the innocent part."
After several years and two albums, Presidents broke up amicably in January 1998.
To hear Ballew tell it, Caspar Babypants was always in that location, lurking below the surface. He but didn't notice him.
Afterward the split, Ballew bounced between several bands and the occasional reunion tour. In 2002, he recorded a children's album for clemency but didn't pursue the genre. He did continue, however, to compose and perform music for his own kids — airheaded songs to brand them giggle; at-home ones to help them fall asleep; love songs to express how he felt almost them. Information technology wasn't until 2008 when he met his 2nd wife, children'south book illustrator Kate Endle, that he decided to pursue children's music full-time. "When I saw her art I said, 'That's information technology. I want to brand music that comes from that universe," says Ballew.
And that's when it clicked. As Ballew will say emphatically, Presidents thrived via its ability to comprise comic absurdity, and playfulness into its music. The music was at that place; all Ballew had to exercise was pin. "I basically just had to take one step to the right, lose the loud drums, the loud guitars, and the sexual innuendo and retain but the innocent part [of my music]," he says. Equally for the name Caspar Babypants? Information technology harkens dorsum to Ballew's early punk days when, in a band called Supergroup, he'd oftentimes wear a child's onesie as a hat.
Largely acoustic singer-songwriter tunes with a laid back, beachy cool, Caspar songs detail life's simple and sweet wonders (like the James Taylor-esque "Just For You,") or go for straight silliness: On the folky "Banana Bread" he inhabits the point of view of the just-bought bakery item, now alone, "fruit-fly covered," and "bummed-out". For them all, Ballew drew on what he calls "timeless old melodies" and reworked them to his own pattern. Kids latched on.
Caspar Babypants was always there, lurking below the surface. He just didn't notice him.
Ballew admits his first show equally Caspar Babypants, a day gig at an all-ages rock club in Seattle, was shaky. He didn't accept confidence or ease with the crowd built up yet. "But somewhere inside that shakiness felt really good," he recalls. "I could tell it was going to be a sustainable feel."
Information technology also gave him a jolt of adrenaline he'd never felt in a loud rock band. "I found that I got more than satisfaction from sitting in front of a smaller crowd alone than I did standing in forepart of larger crowds with a rock band behind me," says Ballew. "It'south scarier and that makes me feel more than alive."
Ballew admits he long felt disengaged during Presidents' shows. Every bit Caspar Babypants? He's fully nowadays. "Sometimes with the Presidents live shows I would find myself daydreaming and sort of wake up to realize I'd played a couple songs without actually even knowing it," he says. "Kind of similar driving the same road dwelling house every day and sometimes you go far at dwelling house remembering naught nigh the drive. That definitely never happens with Caspar."
For Ballew, the trivialities that one time consumed his life as a stone star at present seem insignificant. "I rewrote my definition of success many years agone," Ballew offers. "Write a song, play it live, make people happy. I felt totally successful years before I accomplished what you'd call 'traditional success'."
Looking back, Ballew says all roads accept led him to Caspar.
"I'm going back over all the recordings from my entire life and I'm finding then many breadcrumbs," he explains. "'Oh, that'south supposed to be a Caspar song!'" He laughs. "I've been writing this music my whole life."
It'southward something that brings him slap-up satisfaction. "My whole purpose is to bring the family into the same room and take every age say, 'I love this song,'" he says. "Doing that is this constant endless artistic challenge."
"Sometimes with the Presidents live shows I would find myself daydreaming and sort of wake upward to realize I'd played a couple songs without really even knowing information technology."
"I'yard trying to brand music that's always fabricated humans experience improve when they listened to it," says Ballew who speaks with a genuine earnestness about the whole matter. "When humans hear information technology they're similar, 'I know this. This is inevitable.' They don't really know information technology cognitively; they know it emotionally." And in doing so, Ballew often feels equally if he's cracking a code. "It's most like forensics trying to go the songs to be a little deep and poetic merely also elementary enough for a kid to latch onto. At that place'southward no terminate in sight to the thrill."
And unlike life every bit a stone star, life every bit Caspar Babypants is a decidedly more than secure proposition. "It'due south non like you have to be young and hot to do this," Ballew says with a laugh. "People grow out of me and grow into me. There's never going to exist a shortage of families discovering my stuff. Fifty-fifty if I end making it will go along to office in a real useful style for families. That'due south what I want to leave backside."
Post-obit a contempo Caspar show, Ballew saw the fruits of his labor immediate. Two parents, effusive in their gratitude, came up to him at the trade table. Caspar Babypants music, they informed him, had saved their recent family vacation. "That'southward huge," Ballew says with a grin. "I'm trying to save souls now by relieving stress for parents. And that goes across music to me."
Source: https://www.fatherly.com/play/how-chris-ballew-presidents-of-the-united-states-of-america-caspar-babypants/
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