Songfacts®:

• The Presidents Of The United States Of America are from Seattle, about 120 miles from Mount St. Helens, a volcano that erupted in 1980. This song keeps the local imagery, also mentioning nearby Puget Sound, but pictures the volcano as a giant sound system.
  
  Presidents frontman Chris Ballew started writing it after hearing a song from the band Menthol called "Francis Scott Key," which describes him writing the "The Star Spangled Banner." In a Songfacts interview with Ballew, he explained: "'Volcano' is me trying to write a Menthol song, where it was lyrically super dense and modulated. It moved around and had interesting chord choices in it. So it felt like a songwriting challenge. I remember walking around Seattle with a piece of cardboard and a Sharpie and writing the lyrics as I walked. I thought if this guy can smash Francis Scott Key into a rock song, I could smash images about electronics and volcanoes. Let's see if we can push them together."
• "Volcano" was the second single from II, the second Presidents Of The United States Of America album, following "Mach 5." They had a triumphant debut, with the hits "Lump" and "Peaches," but II didn't do nearly as well. The band split up soon after, and Ballew eventually became a popular purveyor of family music under the name Caspar Babypants.
• The music video was directed by Mark Kohr, known for his work with Green Day. In the video, the band is in a lab that turns out to be an electronics store, where they unveil the "Volcano 6000."