#Music Industry Inspired: President – Who are they? The new band taking over rock and metal
They call themselves President. No faces. No interviews. No context. Just a debut single with cathedral-sized metal production, a cinematic aesthetic, and a wave of speculation that’s rippling across the alt music world like wildfire. They dropped one cryptic Instagram post 13 weeks ago. Since then, they’ve scored Tune of the Week on BBC Radio 1, booked a coveted slot at Download Festival, and landed the cover of Rock Sound Issue 315—all without ever revealing who they are.
But if you’ve been paying attention to the sound, the roll-out, and the fingerprints beneath the mask, you might have a theory. We do too. This isn’t just a band with mystery. This is a band with momentum. And depending on who you ask, it’s the next evolution of Fightstar, the moodier cousin of Gunship, or the newest masked chapter in Charlie Simpson’s career.
Is President the new era of Fightstar and Gunship?
To understand the buzz around President, let’s first have a little look at the creative legacy they might be building from. Because if the internet’s speculation holds up —and it very much seems like it might—we’re not just witnessing a new band. We’re witnessing the convergence of three distinct sonic timelines, all orbiting one creative nucleus: Charlie Robert Simpson.
Simpson’s career has always been one of reinvention. From his early pop stardom in Busted, to the post-hardcore ferocity of Fightstar, and later collaborations with retro-futurist synthscapes of Gunship, his arc reads like a masterclass in creative evolution. Now, the President feels like the next logical mutation—one that fuses the emotional weight and cinematic ambition of everything that’s come before.
At RIOT, we’ve been following Simpson since before masked aesthetics became his next marketing strategy for the music industry. We had the pleasure of hosting Charlie back in our Screamadelica Studios in MUG5’s hometown in Wales, many, many, years ago.
That’s why the President makes sense. This isn’t just a new band; it’s a new format. You can hear echoes of Fightstar’s cathartic urgency—those towering guitars and stormy vocal crescendos—but they’re cloaked in a darker, more theatrical frame.
“President isn’t hiding. They’re building suspense. And in the current attention economy and algorithm influencers, that’s a power move.”
There’s the synth-laced melancholy of Gunship, too—except now it’s not retro-nostalgic, it’s cathedral-sized. And looming over it all is a clear influence from acts like Sleep Token in branding and style: the anonymity, the atmospheric maximalism, the aesthetics.
If this is Charlie’s new project (and all signs point to “yes”), it’s not a side hustle. It’s a synthesis. And it’s smart.
The power of anonymity in modern music
There’s a long history of artists putting on a mask to make the message louder. From Kiss painting their faces into superhero mythology in the ’70s to Slipknot weaponizing anonymity into industrial-strength chaos, the concept of hiding in plain sight isn’t new to rock and metal. But what has evolved is the why. Today, artists are blurring the line between anonymity and authorship—not to hide, but to heighten.
Enter the 2025 landscape: post-pandemic, algorithm-driven, and obsessed with the interplay of personality and performance. In this world, mystery isn’t just intriguing—it’s strategic. And President is playing the game like seasoned architects.
Look at Sleep Token—a band that’s turned total anonymity into an immersive mythos. Their frontman, Vessel, never speaks, never breaks character, never removes the mask. The result? A fervent fanbase not just invested in the music, but in decoding the lore. Every post becomes a clue. Every live show, a ritual. It’s not just a concert—it’s cosplay-adjacent communion.
Then there’s Ghost, who took the anonymity concept and twisted it into rock theater, with a rotating cast of Nameless Ghouls and a satanic Pope frontman. Their anonymity became identity. Their mystery became memeable.
But anonymity isn’t just theatrics. It’s a response to oversaturation. In a feed-first culture, where everything is branded and every artist is forced to be a personality machine, masking up becomes the most authentic thing you can do. Strip the ego. Amplify the art.
And nobody embodies this ethos better than Wes Borland. As Limp Bizkit’s genre-bending guitarist, he was never just a sideman—he was a spectacle. Black contacts. Sci-fi war paint. Alien prosthetics.
While Fred Durst leaned into the frat-rage persona, Borland built a visual language—one that separated the music from the man. He once said the costumes allowed him to become someone else entirely on stage—someone more expressive, more experimental, more fearless. That’s not distraction. That’s design.
President isn’t hiding. They’re building suspense. And in the current attention economy and algorithm influencers, that’s a power move.
President taps into this same lineage—but with a modern twist. Their anonymity isn’t just a veil. It’s a launchpad. It allows the music to be judged in a vacuum, but it also gives fans a puzzle to solve. In the era of fan-casting, Spotify deep dives, Reddit conspiracies, and TikTok theories—this stuff travels fast. And wide. Because the truth is: humans love mystery, and the best campaigns now are ones that don’t over-explain.
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Smoke, mirrors, and solid PR
Let’s be clear—President didn’t just appear. They were a very well-planned marketing and PR strategy. And the difference matters. Scroll back a few weeks on their Instagram and you’ll see the origin: a single post—a silloute, with the caption ” P R E S I D E N T”, just an evocative visual.
A cinematic still that looked more like a film poster than an album teaser. From there, the drip-feed began: curated imagery, cryptic captions, never too much at once. No interviews. No personal insights. Just vibes. Dark, operatic, surgically styled vibes.
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And in just under three months?
- They’ve scored Tune of the Week on the Radio 1 Rock Show.
- Booked a Download Festival slot—before ever playing a gig.
- Landed the cover of Rock Sound Issue 315, with an editorial that somehow reveals nothing and everything at once.
And that’s just a start. It’s not a coincidence. It’s perfectly executed choreography. During their BBC Radio 1 Rock Show debut, host Jordan Blythe commented: “We still have no idea who they are, what they are, or where they came from.” But let’s be honest. Someone does. This isn’t DIY basement-level buzz. This is infrastructure—likely backed by management teams who understand how to craft mystery into momentum.
President is officially part of Download Festival 2025, performing on the Dogtooth Stage. Sharing the bill with heavyweights like Sleep Token, Korn, and Meshuggah, their place among the underground elite is cemented.
What we’re seeing here is a masterclass in stealth PR:
- Minimalism as attention magnet: Instead of flooding channels, they’ve cultivated scarcity.
- Visual consistency: Every image is in-universe. Every teaser serves the myth.
- Controlled silence: No interviews means no missteps, no off-brand moments, and no room for audience fatigue.
Even their Spotify presence is calculated, “In The Name Of The Father” dropped with zero fanfare and still racked up over 2,055,058 views as of writing this article. That kind of response doesn’t happen unless your campaign is locked and loaded. It’s smart. It’s on point. And it proves that in 2025, the story around the music is just as important as the music itself. President isn’t just riding the masked band trend. They’re executing a rollout that feels more like a film studio or fashion house than a traditional band and that’s why it’s working.
Is it Charlie Simpson?
There’s mounting evidence that President is the next chapter in Charlie Simpson’s ever-evolving sonic story. Not just fan speculation—but tangible clues that, when laid out, feel less like coincidence and more like confirmation. For starters: the Fightstar revival. On 6 November 2023, Fightstar announced they would be returning for a headline show at OVO Arena Wembley in London on 22 March 2024, The band reunited for a 20-year anniversary show—an explosive reminder of just how tight and theatrical their sound always was. The timing? Suspiciously aligned with President’s stealth rollout.
Then there’s the unmistakable production style. The cinematic scope, the synth-laced melancholy, the chord progressions that somehow manage to be both brutal and beautiful—this has the creative fingerprints of Dan Haigh and Alex Westaway all over it. Two-thirds of Gunship and core architects of the Fightstar sound.
But perhaps the most compelling evidence lies off the record—literally. President’s debut single was released via King of Terrors/ADA, a label with Charles Robert Simpson listed as a director. Not a burner alias. Not a random imprint. The actual Charlie Simpson.
“In an age where everyone’s expected to overshare, the boldest move might just be to say nothing—and let people feel everything instead.”
So yes—chances are, this is Charlie and his crew. Doing what they’ve always done best: shape-shifting and soundtracking the edges of rock. President is more than a band. It’s a cultural moment. A statement about how we experience music now.
Back in the Busted days, Simpson was typecast as the emo kid stuck in a pop machine. Then came Fightstar, a band that fought to be taken seriously by rock gatekeepers (anyone remember the piss bottles at Reading Festival?). Then came Gunship, which found its lane not in genre but in aesthetic. And now we have President, which sheds identity entirely in favor of myth and mood.
President’s first-ever headline show in London sold out in record time. Joined by darkwave duo Zetra, the masked band is turning mystery into momentum.
In the past, pop credibility and rock credibility were at odds. But in 2025? Genre lines have collapsed even futher. TikTok kids are listening to Sleep Token next to Frank Ocean. Metalheads are quoting The Weeknd lyrics. If this is Charlie, it’s proof that you can rewrite your legacy as many times as you want—as long as you’re willing to back it up with vision. And maybe the bigger takeaway here isn’t who’s behind President. It’s the fact that the mystery matters more than the reveal.
In an age where everyone’s expected to overshare, the boldest move might just be to say nothing—and let people feel everything instead.
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