The man who fronts PRESIDENT — silver-haired, wearing an eerie, not-quite-lifelike mask etched with deep wrinkles and radiating wax-figure unease — is identified only as the Artist. And he may be someone you already know.
He’s been kicking about the music industry for quite some time. And even if you’ve seen him before, he’s always been hiding parts of himself in plain sight. Raised within a religious family and community, he’s carried private highs and harrowing lows that only a few close confidants know about. Now, with PRESIDENT, he’s unpacking those experiences — freely, unselfconsciously — under the protection of anonymity.
Emotionally and creatively, he’s unlocked a whole new world — one steeped in shadowy intrigue and loaded with religious iconography and soul-searching themes. And by unshackling himself from the expectations tied to his name, he’s been liberated to make whatever he wants.
When we speak with the Artist — who naturally shows up to our Zoom call with his camera off — PRESIDENT have only released two singles, which quickly had listeners in a chokehold. The first, “In the Name of the Father,” is a booming, cinematic hybrid of seething riffs and unsettling electronics that’s already racked up millions of streams. They followed that with “Fearless,” a more melodic counterpart to their debut single, which continues to explore themes of doubt and the terror of an uncertain future without spiritual guidance to lean on. It arrived with a striking video that ends with the Artist taking off his mask — a move fans insist is a misdirect.
Speculation is rampant. When PRESIDENT were suddenly handed a prominent slot at this summer’s Download Festival — without an album, a live show or even a public face — fans quickly started drawing lines to fellow masked mystics Sleep Token, who were headlining the festival. The truth is this: The Artist’s identity and affiliations have never been officially revealed — and he intends to keep it that way.
But one thing is certain: PRESIDENT are just getting started. Since our interview, the band have released a third single, the synth-heavy “RAGE,” and announced their debut EP, the six-song King of Terrors, and their ““The Inaugural Headline Rally” — at The Garage in London on July 30th — is right around the corner.
PRESIDENT’s roots stretch back long before the Artist ever put on the mask. It all began with death anxiety, triggered by the loss of his uncle roughly a decade ago.
“If you’ve thought your whole life that when your life ends, a certain thing happens, and then suddenly thinking, Well, what if that doesn’t happen? That throws up so many questions,” he explains. “I saw so much comfort in religion and when that rug was pulled from beneath me, it left me feeling very vulnerable and very scared. That was the beginnings of me going down this rabbit hole.”
The Artist began to question everything he’d been taught. It was a destabilizing, identity-rattling experience — one that soon consumed his thoughts.
“If you really sit with [death anxiety], it’s a horrible place to be,” he says. “I ended up sort of sitting there all the time. It wasn’t good for my mental health. I needed an outlet to be able to explore these feelings. I think we’re conditioned as human beings not to think about it, because it’s such an uncomfortable feeling.”
He always knew he would process those thoughts through music — just not under his real name. “I wanted to disconnect myself from that,” he reveals. “I wanted something to embody that I could step into and spill those feelings, without it being me that’s doing it.”
Adamross Williams
PRESIDENT didn’t materialize overnight. It’s a project that’s been quietly taking shape for several years. And while its emergence — into a world that feels more politically fractured and ideologically volatile than ever — may seem serendipitously timed, it was never based on, or influenced by, current events. The questions the Artist is asking are existential, not electoral. He’s examining the complicated web of power structures that have remained ironclad for centuries, shaping both politics and religion alike.
“Whether it’s happening like it is now, or 20 years ago or even 20 years from now — it’s all the same. I’m trying to look at it in a much bigger way than that,” he offers. “Parts of it predate the civilizations we recognize now. It’s as much about human nature and the way we are as a society. A lot of the power structures we perceive today feel so normal and it started to get to me that everyone just accepts the reality we’re in. I want to make people question it or think about it more. I feel like it’s a good thing for people to have a slightly more existential view.”
That universality shaped the Artist’s vision for the project’s aesthetics — dislocated from any specific era, though tinged with a retro mid-20th century feel. It’s the most involved he’s ever been with a project’s visuals, landing on a look that feels both opulent and ominous, and designed to complement PRESIDENT’s mountainous, panoramic sound. So far, across the singles “In the Name of the Father,” “Fearless” and “RAGE,” the anonymous quartet have spliced metal with elements of electronic music, particularly minimal house.
“I didn’t want it to feel modern,” he explains. “I wanted it to feel like something else. We wanted to add an element of horror – maybe horror is the wrong word, but discomfort, kind of in the way The Shining makes you uncomfortable. I wanted it to feel beautiful but unsettling.”
It’s in that tension between beauty and unease that PRESIDENT finds its deeper purpose. The project isn’t just a collection of thematically linked songs: It’s an immersive space for confronting the contradictions that shape us. The goal is to create something as all-encompassing and layered as the questions its frontman wrestles with — something that resonates across boundaries and brings unlikely people together.
Music and politics both have the power to build tight-knit communities — to unify, even define identity. Given PRESIDENT’s name and aesthetic, the Artist can understand why people might draw parallels. But he sees a meaningful contrast. “People can hang their identity over their politics, and people do that over the music they listen to,” he observes.
“Proper politics can be so divisive and that can be a dangerous thing, but it’s so good when music can bring people together in a positive way.”
Adamross Williams
The depth of their world-building means PRESIDENT isn’t going to vanish once the final notes of a song fade into silence. It’s not disposable. It’s built to last — and grow.
“The music industry has elements of fast fashion to it these days,” he says. “Things just come and go. Everything’s really quick. Everyone’s shouting for attention and there’s just so much noise, and it just becomes a fucking conveyor belt.
“I wanted to step back and not be a part of that. But if people are interested, and they want to enter into this world, we’ll grab them with open arms.”