The Presidents debuted on the venerable Seattle label Pop Llama, founded by super-producer Conrad Uno and home to under-appreciated Seattle groups like the Young Fresh Fellows. Their self-titled album’s immensely likable music—and the Seattle feeding frenzy that followed Nirvana’s success—caused major-label mania. Columbia Records won the Presidential race, re-mastering and re-releasing The Presidents of the USA in 1995. Three Top 40 hits -- “Lump,” “Kitty,” and “Peaches” -- followed, and by February 1996 the album had hit the Top 10. The trio earned a Grammy nomination in the Best New Alternative Band category, while the videos for “Lump” and “Peaches” became MTV Buzz Clips.

Skilled at self-deprecation as well as songwriting, the Presidents mocked both the rock establishment and themselves with tunes like “We Are Not Going to Make It.” After releasing II, another album of platinum-selling pop euphoria that included the hit “Mach 5,” the trio got out while the getting was good. In 1998, they released a posthumous collection of studio outtakes and live tracks aptly named Pure Frosting. The record included covers of Ian Hunter’s “Cleveland Rocks” (the theme song for The Drew Carey Show) and the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” (featured in the Adam Sandler film The Wedding Singer).

Ballew, Dederer, and Finn played with other bands, but the itch to return to the Oval Office stayed strong. On "Jupiter," the trio re-confirms its status as pop’s most lovable goofballs. Instead of describing the properties of fruit, animals, or fast cars, this time out they tackle the final frontier. Particle accelerators, space stations, and unstable molecules collide with the spot-on melodics and carefree delivery that voters everywhere have come to know and love. Leave it to the Presidents to bring the fun down to Earth.