Fans have been sharing their theories about who could be behind the masked band President following a new music video being released.
Little is known about the band, who got people talking after they were added to the list of artists set to perform at this year’s Download Festival. At the time of the announcement, they had no music released, had never posted before online, and had not shared any information about their members.
Since then, they have gradually started sharing music, and single ‘In The Name Of The Father’ was released last month and led to many fans being convinced that the anonymous frontman was actually Busted and Fightstar singer Charlie Simpson.
Now, the band have thrown another spanner into the works by sharing a music video for their latest single ‘Fearless’. In the track, which is dominated by guitar riffs and mammoth drum parts, the band is seen completely masked and vocal distortion subtly disguises the singer’s voice.
At the very end of the video, the singer is seen removing the mask and unveiling his face – and it is definitely not Charlie Simpson. However, some are convinced that the video has been designed as a red herring, and that it may have been shared to throw fans off the scent.
“That demasking is fooling no one. Vocalist is 100 per cent Charlie,” one fan wrote in the comment section of the music video, while another agreed: “Thought: it’s a misdirect like when presidents have doubles so they don’t get assassinated.”
Someone else in the comment section was also not convinced by the face reveal, writing: “That face reveal is definitely a misdirect. Charlie’s just trolling now”, while another shared: “Charlie Simpson for definitely and Eddy thrower on drums DONE!”
On Reddit, the discussion continued, with more convinced that the Fightstar singer and winner of The Masked Signer 2023 was behind the music. “We all know it’s Charlie. But do you think we’ll see an unmasking at live gigs, where Charlie has been singing backstage all along? Dunno if that’s been done before. Would be pretty interesting to see,” one posted.
“I think the idea is that President could be anybody. The writes lyrics about what we’ve all felt at one point or another,” someone else said, while another agreed: “Entirely possible this person was purely an actor for the video…”.
One of the few other names thrown into the debate on the frontman is Steve Sitkowski, the former vocalist for Outcry Collective and State of You, with a couple of Reddit users debating whether or not he could be behind the voice. Check out more fan responses below.
Well we know now the drummer is 100% Eddy Thrower.
byu/MissionRemote1160 inPresidentBand
Pretty sure the face reveal is Corey Mylchreest. He’s a British actor.
byu/Snowblindphoto inPresidentBand
Debunking “President uses vocal effects to hide that it’s Charlie’s voice”
byu/CobraDai inPresidentBand
More about President is expected to be shared when they make their live debut at Download this weekend. As well as that, they also have a show scheduled for The Garage in London on July 30 and tickets for that have now sold out.
They aren’t the only unknown band to be making an appearance at Donington this weekend either, as this spring saw organisers confirm that there will be “multiple secret sets” coming at the 2025 edition.
In the past, surprise appearances have come from Enter Shikari, Black Stone Cherry, Bullet For My Valentine and even Metallica. Last year festival organisers confirmed another secret gig for 2024, and this turned out to be Parkway Drive.
Green Day, Sleep Token and KoRn perform as headliners this year, and others set to make an appearance include Weezer, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Jimmy Eat World, Poppy, Loathe, Jerry Cantrell, McFly, Within Temptation, Eagles Of Death Metal, The Darkness, Spiritbox, Meshuggah, Steel Panther, Cradle Of Filth and Alien Ant Farm.
As for Charlie Simpson, while it hasn’t been confirmed if he is the frontman or not, the singer did talk to us at the end of 2024 about his role in Jeff Wayne’s musical adaption of The War Of The Worlds.
During the interview, he also shared how the future looks for Fightstar and Busted. “There are [plans for new music]! Busted are working on new music at the moment and we’ve just been out in LA doing some stuff. It’s a slow process, but we want the next record that Busted put out to be an important one. We don’t want to rush it,” he said. “There’s a bunch of songs written already, and hopefully they’ll come out next year, maybe even the year after.”
“For Fightstar it’s a case of getting everyone into the same orbit,” he added. “Doing that show this year was great because we got together and made a set that we wanted to celebrate the 20 years with. Committing to a full album is obviously a much bigger deal because it takes a lot more time. But I definitely want to do stuff with them again in the future, 100 per cent. I just don’t know when.”
