Chris Ballew

In 2015, 15 years after the last official release, Chris Ballew put together We Hear Music, a 33-track double album consisting of previously unreleased Giraffes material. The album was shared privately with a few fans through the internet, with a note allowing the recipients to redistribute the music freely.

In 2009, Ballew launched a project targeted toward toddlers called Caspar Babypants. Ballew uses a three-string acoustic guitar when performing Caspar Babypants songs. To date, Caspar Babypants has released seventeen full-length albums, all with exclamatory titles such as Here I Am!, More Please!, This Is Fun!, Sing Along!, Hot Dog!, I Found You!, Baby Beatles!, Rise And Shine!, Night Night!, Beatles Baby!, and Away We Go!.

In 1998, Ballew released a solo album credited to The Giraffes. The band has been performing live since 2000 with the help of Jason Staczek (organ, clarinet) and Mike Musburger (drums).

Ballew moved to Los Angeles in the early 90s where he shared an apartment with alternative artist Beck and played in his live band. Ballew told Seattle Weekly that playing with Beck "was the beginning of my professional career as a guy getting paid to make music." He returned to his native Washington in 1993 and started the Presidents of the United States of America. The band released six studio albums before splitting up in 2016.

Ballew grew up in Seattle and attended middle and high school at The Bush School, where he met Dave Dederer, with whom he would later form The Presidents of the United States of America. In the late 1980s and early 90s Ballew lived in Boston, where he performed as a street musician in a duo called Egg with Phil Franklin (later of Caroliner Rainbow and Sunburned Hand of the Man). Many of Ballew's songs with Egg would become well-known Presidents songs, most notably “Naked and Famous”, which is performed by Egg as a bonus track on a 2005 reissue of the Presidents' eponymous debut album. The two members of Egg were also part of the experimental triple-bass guitar ensemble Balls, which released a 12" EP in 1991. While in Boston, Ballew also played briefly with Mary Lou Lord, and with Mark Sandman of Treat Her Right and Morphine in a duo called Supergroup, in which they developed the oddly stringed instruments that would become a staple of both the Presidents' and Morphine's sound.

Christopher Ballew (born May 28, 1965) is an American musician and was lead singer of the alternative rock group The Presidents of the United States of America. He also performs as a children's artist under the pseudonym Caspar Babypants.