By Alyssa Ramsfield
Being a parent means so many changes in your life. Those changes can be big ones like when you sleep and eat. Other changes can include aspects of your life you didn’t think would be affected like your taste in music. Some of the music directed to kids can leave you cringing, but local musician, Chris Ballew, is changing the family music scene with his Caspar Babypants tunes. Parents dance and children sing along.
“I’m elated to do something very different from my band,” explains Ballew. He currently fronts the rock band The Presidents of the United States of America and has been performing with the group for over 20 years. The Seattle-based, Grammy nominated group boasts six studio albums and a handful of hits including, “Lump” and “Peaches.”
“Caspar Babypants comes from the same core as the Presidents, but I wanted to make music that was simple and innocent,” describes Ballew. “I didn’t intend on creating children’s music. I wasn’t really sure what it was when I first started writing. My wife is an artist and she creates art that looks simple, but is more complex when you look at it closely. The music I was creating was very similar. After looking at some of her art work and listening to the music it hit me that this was children’s music.”
“It makes me really happy that the music has a purpose,” said Ballew. “I am really into old musical influences like rhythms from the 1800s. It’s like creating an invisible history timeline.” Ballew is introducing that history to new generations with six albums of original work and an album dedicated to redefined covers of favorites from The Beatles, there is a wide variety of tunes to please any musical palette.
Caspar Babypants spends a lot of time performing in Western Washington. “I live here so I tour here,” justifies Ballew. “I want to take care of my own backyard that I grew up in. This is my community and I want to give back to people here.”
Many of the performances Caspar Babypants do are to benefit parenting education groups. “I super believe in parent education programs,” explains Ballew. “Anything that can help to make parents more confident is important. I’ve cultivated the purpose of this music to bring unity to families through quality music.”
Caspar Babypants is providing a soundtrack that both parents and their kids can enjoy. You can find Caspar Babypants on Saturday, May 31 at 11:00 am at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts on the South Puget Sound Community College campus. The suggested donation per family is $10.
