Chris Ballew has played packed houses before.

With his work with Seattle rock band Presidents of the United States of America, Ballew has experienced the rush of musical fame and success.

He’s had a No. 6 album on the Billboard Charts (1995’s self-titled debut album) and a No. 1 single on Billboard’s Modern Rock charts (“Lump” from the same album). He has toured the world, playing music in front of thousands. He’s even had a song co-opted and parodied by “Weird Al” Yankovich – “Lump” which was transformed by Yankovich into “Gump.”

So a standing-room-only-crowd is not a rarity for Ballew.

But a toddler-room-only crowd, now that’s a new one.

These days, with the Presidents on hiatus after touring in support of their 2008 release, “These Are the Good Times People,” Ballew has a new outlet for his creative energy, and it’s called Caspar Babypants.

Mining his love for old folk and blues songs and his knack for weaving together irresistible melodies and humorous lyrics, Ballew as Babypants has released two kids albums, “Here I Am” and “More Please.”

During the holiday season, Ballew/Babypants and his backing band of Ron Hippi, a.k.a. Ronald Babyshoes, and Fred Northup Jr., a.k.a. Fredrick Babyshirt, played the Auburn Public Library, bringing the Babypants songs to a packed house of more than 100 parents and children.

Ballew said he started performing and playing as Babypants in the early summer of 2008.

“Then I put out the album in February of 2009,” he said. “The band came together that spring and the second album just came out in November.”

The origins of the project, however came much earlier.

“I donated a record to an organization called PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support) in 2002. It’s a parent education group,” he said. “And it was a record with classic nursery rhyme-type songs, and I donated it so they could use it to raise money for their efforts. And I kind of forgot about it, although the experience was kind of cool and relaxing. I really liked it. Then I went on to do other things. The Presidents got back together and did a couple of albums.”

Ballew was unable to shake the pleasure that he got from performing the kids songs, he said. Soon, inspired by his artist-girlfiend Kat Endle, he returned to the kids’ tunes.

“Her artwork has this amazing, well-crafted, simple, innocent vibe to it, and I started being inspired by it and started writing songs for her artwork, thinking it might become a book and CD combo thing or something,” Ballew said. “And then the music part of it far exceeded the limitations of just writing it for her art. A volcano of ideas just came out.”

Ballew said he soon began researching old nursery rhymes and kids music, analyzing why the old standards endured.

“For inspiration, I’m kind of going back and looking at old stuff, songs with simple classic elements and using them as my jumping off points,” Ballew said. “Then I’m just kind of twisting them a little bit, like the ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ thing and ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider.’ A lot of the public domain stuff is raw material, it’s time-tested. People know it, I just kind of want to reinvent it. Not like Weird Al, I don’t want to ‘goof-ify’ it, but I want to expand it.”

Although Ballew said the Presidents are still together and just “cooling our jets” after more than a year-and-a-half of touring in support of their last album, he said he’s pleased by the response to the Babypants project and plans to continue performing and recording.

“These library shows have all been packed,” he said. “A lot of them we’ve had to turn people away. But we’re going to do another round in the spring and summer. We might be in danger of outgrowing them soon.”

Taking it on the road

Ballew said that he plans on developing a more traditional show that he can take on the road to children’s theaters in the area, one that will incorporate lights and a stage show.

“We’re going to continue to do these shows, but we’re going to expand into theater shows also,” he said.

For now, Ballew said he’s just happy to be exploring new outlets for his songwriting.

“The main word I keep coming back to, as I do this new form of expression for me, is sustainable,” Ballew said. “I feel like I could do this forever. One of the things I like so much about doing this music is that I’m released from being cool. It’s purely innocent. With the Presidents, there is a vibration between the innocence of the songs and an irony, or innuendo. With this stuff, I’ve just removed all the irony and innuendo. And for me that feels very sustainable and relaxing. I never had full command between innocence and innuendo with that band, I would have to wait for those songs to form. With the kids’ music, I feel like I really get to enjoy my craft as a songwriter.”

More information on Caspar Babypants is available at www.babypantsmusic.com.