Adam Schlesinger from 2012
Marc:Adam Schlesinger.
Marc:Schlesinger.
Marc:Schlesinger.
Guest:Schlesinger.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:From Fountains of Wayne and many other things.
Marc:You are a professional musician.
Marc:I am indeed.
Marc:My girlfriend loves Fountains of Wayne.
Guest:Cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tell her thanks.
Marc:Yeah, no, I mean, maybe you'll be able to meet her.
Marc:I think she's going to be cranky and exhausted.
Marc:I bet you're excited about that.
Marc:Wouldn't it be fun to meet a cranky and exhausted fan?
Guest:That's what I was hoping would happen here.
Marc:Yeah, I figured that's why you came over here.
Marc:So what are you doing in L.A.?
Marc:You don't live here now, do you?
Guest:I don't live here, no.
Guest:I come out here sometimes for work and related stuff.
Guest:And I've been working on a television show that's got a lot of music in it.
Guest:And so I'm out here this week doing that.
Marc:This is the thing that I talk to musicians, not a lot of them, but I've been talking to musicians lately.
Marc:I've talked to the likes of Nick Lowe, Jack White.
Marc:Up and coming guys.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:New guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:New guys on the block.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's this idea about musicians that if people haven't heard from them in a while or that they're not as popular as they used to be, I'm not saying that about you necessarily, but they're like, what are they doing?
Marc:But you've been doing things all along.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know, the band thing was always kind of at the center of it for me, but I always had this kind of other life just doing music for hire, whatever somebody called me to do.
Guest:And Chris, who's the singer in Fountains of Wayne, just calls me a music whore, which is sort of true, too.
Guest:A music whore!
Guest:Yeah, but, you know, basically I just wanted to make a living making music, and I also like a lot of different kinds of music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Chris and I went to college together and we started playing in bands together even in college.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Manhattan as a little kid and then Montclair, New Jersey for most of my upbringing.
Marc:Montclair, New Jersey.
Marc:My family's from Ponton Lakes, New Jersey and Jersey City.
Marc:Montclair's close to that, right?
Marc:Yeah, very close to that.
Guest:Willowbrook Mall?
Guest:Willowbrook Mall, yep.
Guest:Paramus Park?
Guest:Well, Fountains of Wayne was named after a store in Wayne, New Jersey, which is right next to the Willowbrook Moors.
Guest:It's not there anymore.
Marc:I lived in Wayne, New Jersey.
Marc:You did.
Marc:I don't remember much about it because I was literally six years old, but I lived in Wayne, New Jersey, and that's where the Fountains of Wayne store is?
Guest:It's not there anymore.
Guest:It was there for my entire childhood, but they closed a few years ago, but we took the band name from that place.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:That's your phone.
Guest:There's a lot going on on your phone right now.
Marc:I thought I just turned it off.
Guest:Okay, done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, I grew up there and went to college in Massachusetts, Western Mass.
Guest:Met Chris Collingwood there, and we were both aspiring songwriters, and we started playing in bands together there.
Guest:And then when we got out of college...
Guest:we were doing the band thing but then i was also just trying to get work making music for whatever so i had some friends that got involved in television that called me and hired me one of the earlier things i did was a friend of mine was working with john leguizamo and he had a sketch comedy show that that was on fox for like five seconds right it was called house a buggin yeah and i kind of remember that he called me up to work on that and then after that um i got hired to work on
Guest:The Dana Carvey show, another sketch comedy show, and that was a really cool show because it was like all the people that came from that.
Guest:Louie and Robert hired you?
Guest:Robert, yeah, was running it, and Louie.
Guest:Robert Smigel.
Guest:Robert Smigel, yeah.
Marc:So how does that work?
Marc:Let's go back to the Fountains of Wayne thing because-
Marc:Fountains of Wayne is a pop band.
Marc:It is, yes.
Marc:Power pop, I guess you would call it.
Guest:Would you call it that?
Guest:I mean, we don't really call it that, but we get put in that category.
Guest:It's sort of a funny term that I don't really know what it means.
Guest:But where it's a pop band, I mean, it's sort of like...
Marc:melodic and it's yeah not so like it's sweet yeah you know it's sweet it's got those minor chords that uh uh that my friend got mine around me got all that shit that jonathan daniel uh loves the the the sweet pop sound daniel is our manager i know old friend of mine i would have him on the show if you could get him to talk yeah he's here he's in town is he yeah just get him over here right now he's your manager he should text him let's text him say quick you'll be like i'm not gonna go over there yeah
Marc:Soft-spoken John.
Marc:What going on behind that not talking much?
Marc:Yes, he's a very smart man.
Marc:But okay, so the era is, what, mid-'90s?
Marc:You put this band together.
Guest:Well, we actually had kind of a false start in the early-'90s.
Guest:We had a pre-band, Fountains of Wayne, and we made a record that never came out, and we signed a really crappy record deal that screwed us up for a while.
Guest:And we thought we were kind of done, and we thought we'd just blown it.
Guest:We were like 24, and we were just like, fuck, it's over again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we went our separate ways for a while.
Guest:Chris was living in Boston.
Guest:I was living in New York.
Guest:I started playing in a different band called Ivy, which got that going as a whole different kind of thing.
Guest:And I also started doing more just whatever television, whatever I could get involved with.
Guest:And then Chris and I got back together a couple years later, and it was like, it was that thing where we sort of thought it was too late anyway, so who gives a shit?
Guest:So we started writing these songs.
Guest:I mean, Chris actually started it with this song called Radiation Vibe, which he kind of wrote as a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I loved it.
Guest:And it just had a lot more kind of loose spirit to it than some of the stuff we had done earlier.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we weren't trying so hard.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that song opened up this kind of floodgate of writing for both of us, and we wrote this, what became that first Fountains of Wayne record.
Guest:really quickly.
Guest:Wrote a lot of it sitting in a bar in the West Village and just kind of goofing around.
Guest:But people were responding to that stuff a lot more than the stuff we had done three years before that anyway.
Guest:It just had much more life to it.
Marc:Well, was it because that kind of music was seeing a kind of resurgence?
Marc:Because I know there was a period where power pop kind of went out of favor somehow and kind of like got bullied out by just grunge and a lot of other stuff.
Marc:But the sweet kind of music like the Cars...
Marc:And I guess the smithereens were before you, right?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, that was funny because there was this period in the mid-90s, you know, it was after Nirvana and all that stuff.
Guest:And then there was this other wave of bands like Weezer and Presidents of the United States and stuff that was like, kind of, you know, like white guys with guitars and had more humor in it.
Guest:And that stuff started actually selling records.
Guest:And so for a second there, it was like a band seemed like a commercial prospect to somebody, which was kind of a funny idea.
Guest:But also, we were just making better songs than we had been.
Guest:And so people got interested in it, and we ended up actually getting to make a record.
Guest:And at that point, getting a major label record deal actually meant something.
Guest:There was some money attached to that and a little more exposure.
Marc:Money and shame and potential debt.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, all that stuff.
Marc:Did you have one of those situations where you ended up getting fucked by a record company?
Guest:I wouldn't say we ever really got fucked.
Guest:I think we were always kind of left alone just because, except for maybe that first five minutes, nobody had these great expectations for us.
Guest:So for better or worse, we were left alone to make the records we wanted to make.
Guest:The best thing is we didn't ever put out anything we were ashamed of.
Guest:We had a lot of friends on major labels where they just got pressured into writing with people they didn't want to write with.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know how much it happens these days, but back then, yeah, I had a lot of friends that ended up kind of getting bullied into putting out records that they didn't like.
Guest:How does that work, though?
Guest:Who decides that?
Guest:An executive?
Guest:And it's just, you know, it's not so different from the way a television show can get screwed up or a movie.
Guest:I mean, it's like you're making this record and then somebody says, you really need the one song that's going to get you on the radio.
Guest:And in order to write that, you need to write with this guy that just had five of them.
Guest:And you don't really like his music, but you go along with it to be a team player.
Guest:And then you don't really like what you end up with, but they like it.
Guest:And then you just end up blaming some other guy for why you do records.
Guest:I mean, sometimes that can work.
Guest:Sometimes you end up with a cool hit song and everybody's happy.
Guest:But I had a lot of friends that ended up with records they didn't like and it kind of soured the whole experience.
Guest:It's awful.
Marc:It's awful to have something out there that you hate.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're sort of held responsible for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not really your thing.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, everybody has that to some extent.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You try to police it if you can.
Guest:The little shame packets we leave along the way.
Guest:And then the internet makes them just last forever now, too.
Guest:Yeah, now there's... So people can go look at them and laugh at you.
Guest:No escaping your shame packet.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Time is just compressed now.
Guest:All the embarrassing things you did are just fresh.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Always.
Marc:Ever-present.
Guest:Ever-green.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There's you in your most embarrassing situation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, like, you grew up... Are you a Jewish guy?
Marc:I am, yes.
Marc:So you grew up Jewish in New Jersey?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Are you familiar with this at all?
Guest:Sure.
Marc:This is my roots.
Marc:Jewish in New Jersey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what did your folks do?
Marc:Are they happy?
Guest:I think they're very happy now.
Guest:Yeah, they're happy.
Guest:They were always supportive.
Guest:They thought it was...
Guest:a generally unrealistic thing to try to be a musician but they didn't tell me not to yeah yeah and um they came from families that were you know my mom's uh parents were both professional musicians and music professors and stuff and both my parents were musicians not professionally but both played and really yeah what's your dad play he played sax and clarinet still does and uh you know i mean we used to like jam out and stuff he's he's good you know he's a good player
Guest:really yeah and what'd your mom play my mom played piano and cello oh my god you know there's music in the house and stuff what a sweet situation it is yeah we just every night there was a jam no that's not true no every weekend right no but i mean there was a lot of music i mean they didn't know anything about popular music they definitely came from um different worlds classical um classical my dad knew a lot about jazz um neither of them really knew much about pop or rock but
Marc:But so when you're a kid, that means you were learning how to read music very early.
Marc:Yeah, I took piano lessons.
Marc:It's required of young Jewish men to take piano lessons.
Marc:I never took them.
Marc:I went right to guitar.
Guest:It's not too late.
Guest:There's a lot of good teachers in this area.
Marc:I think it might be too late.
Marc:Yeah, it might be too late.
Marc:I mean, I don't know if I can do the one hand doing the other thing.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That thing.
Marc:I still can't finger pick.
Marc:The whole idea, I get the bass going over here and the other thing going here.
Guest:yeah yeah it's why you're doing it in the air right yeah it's scaring me now yeah the idea like what if i'm thinking about this one too much but you know how to play piano i do yeah that's sort of my main instrument i mean i became a bass player and then later a guitar player mainly because i you know in like high school bands i didn't like being stuck behind the keyboard i like to be able to move around a little bit so i learned that later and now i i play the i write more on guitar and i play bass in the band but you were in a stage band
Marc:In high school, like that kind of band?
Guest:No, it was like a rock band.
Guest:I mean, bad rock band.
Guest:Oh, high school band.
Guest:It was an early attempt.
Marc:Not like marching band.
Marc:No, or the other thing.
Marc:There was a stage band in my high school that I did not excel at.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I was part of it.
Marc:And I told them I would learn how to read music, and I never did.
Marc:So I just...
Marc:I improvised badly and thinking that no one could hear the bass.
Marc:Like I was a guitar player and I chose to do the bass because I had a bass.
Marc:I didn't know how to play the bass.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I really thought that I could just hide it.
Guest:You could just turn it down and nobody would notice you weren't doing anything.
Guest:Yeah, I thought that.
Guest:Nobody would miss those low frequencies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How important is the bass to a band?
Marc:It's not that really.
Marc:No, I think it is.
Guest:Isn't it?
Marc:It is very.
Marc:I'm kidding.
Marc:It's a spine, right?
Guest:Well, I guess it's all important really.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, like, growing up with musicians and families, you never got any of that judgment of, like, you're throwing your life away.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:I mean, there was enough going on sort of early on that it didn't seem like a total delusion on my part to try to do it.
Guest:There was enough encouragement.
Guest:But there was definitely some sort of markers along the way.
Guest:I mean, the sort of bigger thing for me, at least on my...
Guest:You know, on like my family's radar.
Guest:And the band thing was all good.
Guest:But then in 1996, I wrote this song called That Thing You Do for Tom Hanks' movie.
Guest:And that was like a big door opener.
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:Okay, like walk me through how you write a song for a movie and what you do with it.
Marc:I mean, how old are you at that point?
Guest:When it came out, I was like 27 or 28.
Guest:I actually probably wrote it like a year or so before that.
Guest:So you're already in the band, Founds of Wayne.
Guest:Well, it all kind of happened at once.
Guest:It was a weird time for me.
Guest:There's a lot going on.
Guest:Because that was a huge song, right?
Guest:It was a huge song for me.
Guest:But was it charted, didn't it?
Guest:It charted, yeah.
Guest:And the movie did pretty well, but...
Guest:The way that happens is that there's a lot of these things you hear about of like they're looking for stuff.
Guest:And I, at the time, had just signed with a music publishing company.
Guest:And part of what they're supposed to do is tell you about this stuff that's out there.
Guest:And it's kind of like most of it's like really cattle call.
Guest:I mean, you learn later that you can just waste your whole life taking shots at this stuff.
Guest:And mostly it's a waste of time.
Guest:But for whatever reason...
Guest:You know, I got really lucky with that one.
Guest:I did a demo.
Guest:I heard, you know, they called me up.
Guest:The people from this music publishing company said, it's a movie that's set in the early 60s.
Guest:It's kind of Beatlesque.
Guest:It's about a band.
Guest:And this is really up your alley.
Guest:You should take a shot at this.
Guest:And so I did this demo.
Marc:I saw the movie, by the way.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:I saw it, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was at the Beatle-like band.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I did this demo with two friends of mine, Mike Viola, who is another songwriter who lives out here, and a guy named Andy Chase, who was in the band Ivy with me.
Guest:We did this demo.
Guest:The demo sounded great.
Guest:It just sounded like an old record.
Guest:And we knew it was pretty good, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we kind of sent it in and forgot about it.
Guest:And then they actually ended up using it.
Marc:So you get money on the initial payment for putting the song in the movie.
Marc:And then you get money because it goes on a record.
Marc:Did it go on the record?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And you wrote it.
Marc:How does it break down?
Marc:Because I don't know if people know this because I'm not sure I know it.
Marc:I'm not sure I know it either, but if checks suddenly start showing up that didn't show up before is what happens.
Marc:But if you write the song and if you have the publishing on the song, that's the place to be.
Guest:That's one of the good places to be.
Guest:It's not as good as it was back then even.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I mean, being a writer is...
Guest:better than not being a writer if you're in a band you know a lot of bands break up because they don't understand that and then one guy writes the hit song and he gets a million dollars and everyone else is still broke and they're like fuck you yeah i mean that happens all the time yeah you know so um just some dudes who are getting together and then when the deal goes down the thing becomes a hit they don't understand why yeah then you learn after the fact like oh he's driving a better car than us and you know why are we still on the bus it happens all the time it happens all the time
Marc:Now, who was your, like, did you have a, like, because whenever I think about people that do what you do, which is stupid, I get this whole Tin Pan Alley kind of like, you know, you're very aware of the business of music early on and that, you know, you could sort of focus on creating specific types of music to make money off of.
Marc:And that's like a whole job unto itself.
Marc:That's really not the sort of rock and roll dream.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I guess I never saw myself as being like the front man in a rock band or something.
Guest:I felt like somebody that was a good executor of ideas.
Guest:Like, I could work with a lot of different people and figure out what they were going for and try to help get there.
Guest:And it's not that different.
Guest:Like, if somebody calls me and says, we need a song about this or that sounds like this or...
Guest:Or, you know, like that musical theater kind of thing, which I ended up getting a little into, too, where it's like, okay, here's what's happening in the story, and we need a song to help tell this.
Guest:I like kind of solving those puzzles with songs, and it's a different part of your brain than just, like, I want to be the front guy in a rock band.
Guest:But you wanted to be in a rock band.
Guest:I wanted to do it.
Guest:I was like a Beatle freak as a kid, and I wanted to be in the Beatles.
Guest:You can definitely hear that in the music that you do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which Beatle?
Guest:um you know i probably was more of like a paul guy yeah you feel like a paul guy yeah so yeah you said that with total disdain yeah come on man no but i mean you know i i like i i like everything about the beatles but i but then i i didn't even know there were really other bands for a long time as a kid i just knew about the beatles and then later i started listening to other stuff and i was like oh i like this too
Marc:Yeah, isn't that weird?
Marc:Beatles songs are almost like Christmas carols.
Marc:I'm always amazed at how many.
Guest:Somebody actually wrote them is a weird thought.
Guest:Somebody sat down and said, all right.
Marc:Yeah, but even when I go back to it now, when I listen to certain Beatles albums, I'm like, where the fuck did this come from?
Marc:How did this happen?
Marc:It's never happened again.
Marc:I mean, people can cop it or learn from it, but there are certain records where you're like, at the time it came out, it's like, how does this even fucking happen?
Guest:yeah like revolver like where does that where does that come from that that music and they also just to me seemed like you know they figured out this way to just be able to do whatever they felt like doing on that day and still was the beatles whereas like this the rolling stones it was just like they kind of had the shtick and and that was it and it was cool shtick but it was like you know i just felt like the beatles could have probably done the rolling stones shtick if they wanted to one day but they couldn't have necessarily musically
Marc:yeah i mean it's a vibe but it's like you know they're not gonna you're not gonna be able to manifest the sexual menace i can't rolling many people can i feel you just turned it on enough right there didn't you yeah but i'm tired yeah that's it just i mean you know i i have a story about that when i was at the um i went to the rock and roll hall of fame uh-huh have you been no really oh yeah we did go we did yeah
Marc:And you go to the area where it's actually the Beatles and Stones are sort of in the same vicinity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they have, like, you know, the Stones.
Marc:They've got a bunch of costumes, a few contracts, whatever.
Marc:And then there's a video monitor.
Marc:And it's running, like, some performance footage from probably the early 70s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, Jumpin' Jack Flash and some behind-the-scenes, you know, stage stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it's just one video running.
Marc:And then you go, like, literally on the opposite wall is the Beatles wall.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there they have a screen.
Marc:And around the screen is every Beatles record.
Marc:And it's sort of like one record will light up, and it'll be the Beatles and George Martin talking about that.
Marc:It's documentary, but it's sort of moving the images around.
Marc:It's not real documentary footage.
Marc:And it just went through all the Beatles records.
Marc:And sort of about every two Beatles records, you'd hear the Rolling Stones footage start over again.
Right, right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:A lot more info.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So to me, that sort of explains the difference.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you're never a Stones guy?
Guest:No, I was.
Guest:I like the Stones.
Marc:You have a huge Stones poster.
Marc:I just realized.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not.
Marc:Right behind your head.
Marc:I'm not going to get too defensive.
Guest:Right.
Marc:No, I mean, I love the Beatles.
Marc:There's no way around it.
Marc:And I don't know, you know, the Stones thing.
Marc:I was a big Keith Richards guy.
Marc:I mean, I aspired to.
Marc:The rock and roll ideal for me was just drugs.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Let's fucking play the blues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You do not come from that.
Marc:That wasn't an accusation.
Marc:It was more of a statement posed as a question.
Guest:The funny thing is that some of the pop bands are actually the most depraved.
Guest:I'm not talking about myself, but I'm saying- Well, drop some names, man.
Guest:But it's true.
Guest:Especially these guys, you meet these kids that are in heavy metal bands or whatever, and they're just totally professional, and they keep business cards on file, and they're really careerist.
Marc:Heavy metal's a little bit labor-intensive, man.
Guest:I don't know, but it's just like, I know a lot of guys that are in these power pop bands that are just really fuck-ups.
Guest:And maybe it's because of the fact that it's not really commercial music, so it's like this feudal thing to begin with on some level.
Marc:Well, it is more commercial now.
Marc:It seems like, because I used to talk to John Daniel, your manager now.
Marc:We were friends.
Marc:You know, years ago.
Marc:And he's the one who actually, you know, taught me the difference between, you know, what is defined as pop and what is rock and this whole, you know, this whole world of music that could just not find a market.
Marc:You know, I guess, you know, who are the seminal power pop bands like Big Star?
Marc:And it depends how you define it.
Marc:I don't really know.
Marc:They were big, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess Cheap Trick is sort of considered a power pop band, but they were big.
Marc:Cheap Trick is one of my favorite bands.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But they had this small window, I guess.
Marc:But they were kind of unique in the way they structured songs, and it seemed a little sweeter, and then a little more melodic.
Marc:And for most of the 60s and 70s,
Marc:And I mean, most of the 80s, it was just everything was steamrolled by, you know, rock and roll and synth music.
Marc:And there was just never really a place for it.
Marc:And now it seems like most of the bands, certainly the young bands, are from a pop tradition.
Marc:You know, I mean, Green Day is sort of a power pop.
Guest:Yeah, totally are.
Guest:Especially like what they're doing right now.
Guest:They just put out this record.
Guest:It's just really power pop.
Marc:And now you're putting out country records.
Guest:I am.
Marc:No.
Marc:Wasn't the last found Zwayne a little twangy?
Guest:It had its twangy moments.
Guest:It's definitely not a country record.
Guest:Did Jonathan produce that one?
Guest:Did he produce?
Guest:No.
Guest:He might be a record producer, but he's a manager.
Guest:He doesn't get in the studio with us.
Guest:Oh, that's too bad.
Guest:He's got an ear for it.
Guest:He does.
Guest:He has a really good ear for songs.
Guest:I think that's his thing.
Guest:He's got an ear for songs.
Marc:We're getting back to defining power pop.
Marc:Let's do that.
Marc:Help me out.
Guest:I don't really know.
Guest:I think that if people use that with us, we sometimes see it as a little bit of an insult because it's almost like you're just trying to recreate something that already happened and you're just trying to ape it.
Guest:I think we do more of picking bits and pieces of music history that we like and then trying to put our own spin on it.
Guest:I think with our band, we might do a song that sounds like
Guest:70s FM radio, or it might sound like 60s Beach Boys stuff, or it might sound like 80s New Wave.
Guest:But for us, it's like putting some kind of lyric on top of that that you might not expect.
Guest:And that's that juxtaposition that makes it seem a little fresh, we hope.
Marc:Right, but it's not quite a... It's not a satire.
Marc:It's a homage kind of...
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Guest:You're good at copping sounds.
Guest:We're definitely good at copping sounds.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, there's a fine line.
Guest:Sometimes it can get close to the point of being just silly or just too funny.
Guest:And then there's other times where we try to go completely the other way and be really sincere.
Guest:And we sometimes felt like people don't give us credit for actually having songs that actually are just straight ahead and sort of heartfelt and not jokey at all.
Marc:And you feel you don't get the credit for it because they're used to you being sort of, I don't know if the word is glib, but at least kind of tongue-in-cheeky?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And I think the biggest song we had was probably also the most novelty-esque song we had.
Guest:Stacy's Mom?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's what most people, if they know us at all, they probably know that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They don't know that there's other stuff that has nothing to do with that.
Marc:There's a lot of sweet, heartfelt songs.
Marc:But yeah, but I mean, that song...
Marc:I think that kind of music, when it locks in, it locks into all ages.
Marc:Like, you know, there's that sound of pop or even that car sound of that song.
Marc:I mean, little girls can like it and middle-aged ladies can like it.
Marc:It's sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'll take sweet.
Marc:That's okay.
Marc:Sweet is good.
Guest:But the guitar sound on Stacy's mom is like, it's exactly the cars.
Guest:It is.
Guest:In fact, Rick Ocasek apparently thought that we actually sampled it, and I heard him say that in an interview somewhere, which we didn't.
Guest:Did you get any flack?
Guest:from okay sick no no flack no just i i don't think he said it in like a you know like i'm gonna sue you kind of way no accusations yeah but i mean it was it was an obvious homage yeah well i'm trying to deny it and the video was an obvious homage yeah a bunch of stuff yeah that's kind of a dirty video i you know i went and watched it today for some reason yeah it's a little sexy a little charged up
Guest:Yeah, our friend Chris Applebaum directed that and we kind of left it to him and we were a little bit concerned when we showed up the day of that shoot and there was like, I guess in my mind when I wrote the song I was picturing more like, you know, older teenagers but when he cast the video it was like really little kids and we were like,
Guest:Is this okay?
Guest:Being kind of racy, kind of sexual.
Guest:Somehow we got away with that, but it definitely was.
Guest:And then not that long after that, there was this whole thing with MTV where Janet Jackson sort of exposed herself at the Super Bowl, and then they got much more conservative right after that.
Guest:So that video would have never been on the air.
Guest:Just made it under the wire.
Guest:Yeah, like six months later, they got really conservative.
Marc:Your borderline pedophilia video.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:We had to totally change our strategy.
Guest:Guys, no more pedophilia for at least two quarters.
Guest:Good for you, man.
Marc:But that song came out after you guys split up for a while.
Marc:What does it mean when a band... I mean, because you guys seem to get along.
Marc:Because I don't talk to many band people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We never really split up.
Guest:It's just between every record, we kind of stopped being a band for a while.
Guest:And I think Chris in particular has always, even from just the beginning, has had really mixed feelings about whether he wants to be doing it at all.
Guest:And between every record, he's like, I don't know if I want to make another record.
Guest:And it always ends up taking us three or four years.
Marc:What else did you do?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:Eventually, he realizes maybe nothing and he wants to do it again.
Guest:But it just...
Guest:you know he's just not he doesn't love the whole process he doesn't always love touring he doesn't you know what about the other two guys um they would get pretty impatient and be like what what the fuck are we doing why aren't we playing why aren't we recording you know those guys were you know they're usually itching to do more and how long have you known those two guys um well jody who's the guitar player i actually he's good man he yeah he's amazing i saw you when you were here at the troubadour
Guest:I met him when he was looking for a bass player for his own band in like about 1991.
Guest:And I played bass for that band.
Guest:It was called The Bell Tower.
Guest:I met him through an ad in The Village Voice.
Guest:And he had just moved back from England.
Guest:He's American, but he had just moved back from where he'd been living in England.
Guest:I played with him for a minute.
Guest:And then that band sort of ended.
Guest:And then when we started up Fountains of Wayne, I said, maybe you should come do this with us.
Guest:um and then brian um we got introduced by a mutual friend he he was the drummer in another kind of power pop band called the posies from from seattle yeah i know them yeah and he was living in seattle and we met him and you know we got together with him and um we played a bunch of steve miller songs and and you know in like 10 minutes we're like all right this is the guy what did you do fly like an eagle yeah i just did all of them and yeah and and uh our manager why steve miller
Guest:Because we like Steve Miller.
Guest:And it wasn't like a plan.
Guest:We just got in a room and said, all right, well, how do we audition a drummer?
Guest:And we just by accident started playing Steve Miller songs, and he knew them all.
Guest:Because I'm a joker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So our manager was really mad at us because we picked the drummer that lives in Seattle.
Guest:We all lived in New York then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's like, can't you find a guy in New York?
Guest:You're going to have to fly him in every time you do anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that's what we did.
Marc:And you stuck with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when I went to see the Troubadour,
Marc:Because I knew Stacey's mom, I knew a couple other songs, but my girlfriend, who is 29, she's like, I'm cranky, usually.
Marc:No, she just works hard.
Marc:She's not usually cranky.
Marc:But she was so excited that I was able to get us into your show.
Marc:And you have fanatic, you know, you have real fans.
Marc:But it was very cute.
Marc:I'd never seen a tamer bunch.
Marc:And also, you know, families.
Marc:No mosh pit.
Marc:There was no mosh pit.
Marc:There was literally a family.
Marc:There was a father, a mother, and two kids who looked like they were 12 or 13 who were right up front at that show.
Marc:And they were all singing and dancing along to your songs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a wholesome experience, our shows.
Marc:But that's sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, does that make you feel good?
Guest:It is actually really nice when you see two generations that both actually like the music and it's not just like the parents dragging the kids or vice versa.
Guest:Yeah, it's fascinating.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:And it seems like all your fans are pretty thoughtful, sensitive people.
Marc:You've cultivated a- Not all of them, but many of them are.
Guest:Really, what's the biggest problem?
Guest:We had a guy come on stage in Glasgow early on.
Marc:Well, fucking Glasgow.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he came on... Chris and I were doing an acoustic duo kind of song, and he came on behind us completely naked and took a piss in a glass and drank his own piss during the song.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, I'm going to think that that was probably... So that guy was not at the Troubadour show that you saw?
Marc:No, but I'm going to also think that he probably wasn't... Whatever that had to do with... Nothing to do with being a fan.
Marc:Yeah, it was not about Fountains of Wayne.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or maybe he misunderstood the name of your band.
Marc:Yeah, he got confused.
Yeah.
Marc:But Glasgow is the most drunken, fucked up place I've ever been in my life.
Guest:Yeah, it's not a good example.
Guest:You're right.
Marc:I like the city, but I've never seen more public drunkenness in my life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where else have you been?
Marc:Have you been all over the world?
Guest:We've done a lot of traveling.
Guest:Not all over.
Guest:I mean, we've done a fair amount in Japan, which has always been like a good place for us.
Guest:We're medium in Japan.
Guest:Medium?
Guest:We usually go to Japan at least once or twice a year.
Guest:And we've been going there since like the late 90s.
Guest:So that's good.
Guest:And we do some Europe stuff.
Guest:But we don't, you know, in general, we don't tour as much as we used to either.
Marc:You seem very well adjusted and healthy and not too worn out.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Marc:I look well rested.
Marc:For a guy in a band.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, we're not touring right now.
Marc:What was the last tour that you went on, the one I saw you on?
Guest:Yeah, when was that?
Guest:That was like in the spring or something.
Marc:Maybe a year ago or so, right?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was the last time you were here.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, lately we've been kind of doing these things of just doing a couple weeks here and there, two, three weeks, and it's not really like this grueling experience.
Guest:Why do you do it?
Marc:Why do we keep doing it?
Marc:Well, you seem like, you know, it seems like you're diversifying a bit.
Marc:You're doing some producing, right?
Marc:I've done a bunch of producing, yeah.
Guest:Who have you produced?
Guest:Oh, I mean, I've made some records with, let's see, They Might Be Giants I did some stuff with.
Guest:That makes sense.
Guest:Yeah, they're friends in New York, and I worked with them.
Guest:I mean, there's a band called Motion City Soundtrack that I did a record with, Dashboard Confessional.
Guest:Yeah, I've heard of them.
Guest:Yeah, I was into record producing more.
Guest:It's not my favorite gig, but I like it, okay.
Marc:Now, what is it like, okay, so now I can learn some more things.
Marc:When somebody producing, I mean, when somebody like They Might Be Giants, who have a very defined sound, and certainly it's up the alley of pop, but it's unique, and you talk to them about producing, what are they looking for from you?
Guest:I think with them, it's just they like working with their friends, and we just were friends already, and we have kind of similar... I mean, I was a huge fan of theirs early on.
Guest:But what do you bring to it?
Guest:Like, what are the conversations?
Guest:It's just the different guys.
Guest:In a context like that, it's just like we might as well be in a band together for a week.
Guest:I don't think there's any hierarchy of, like, somebody's the boss or anything.
Guest:It's more just like, let's bring in somebody else's ideas and kick them around.
Marc:But, like, what ideas?
Marc:Like, you know, bring up the keyboard a little more.
Marc:Maybe you should sing this that way.
Marc:What if we did this?
Guest:What if we added a layer of... Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like my skills that I might bring to a situation is like an arranger, like figuring out if somebody just plays a raw song on an acoustic guitar or a keyboard, what can we do with this?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also just sort of structuring it so that it's stickier than it might be.
Guest:How do you make it... Stickier?
Guest:You mean like stickier in the brain?
Guest:Is that a word people use?
Guest:Well, you know, I mean, a lot of making a song memorable is just repeating the right parts and getting rid of the other parts.
Guest:So it's sort of moving the pieces around and saying, like, let's take this part and do this 25 times in a row, and then everyone will remember it.
Guest:So stuff like that, and then just...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Production is just looks like a lot of little micro decisions that add up to something that hopefully just pits you as one thing.
Marc:And when you write songs, because you've got a good sense of the hook and you've got a good sense of emotion.
Marc:I mean, how much of how connected are you to it?
Marc:Does it come from your life or do you?
Marc:You know, I've asked this other songwriters and they're like, no, it's songwriting.
Guest:I feel like, for me, my own life gets in there indirectly, but a lot of the stuff, at least for the band, for Fountains of Wayne, a lot of the stuff is sort of making up characters and telling stories, and it's more like fiction, but then your own life kind of creeps in there, whether you wanted to or not.
Guest:You're married?
Guest:I am, yeah.
Guest:You got kids?
Guest:I got two daughters.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:How old are they?
Guest:Nine and five.
Guest:You're like a full-blown adult.
Guest:It's all happening.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 44.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I'm 48.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're getting up there, man.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Are you friends with the Ween guys?
Guest:I think we've crossed paths.
Guest:I'm not friends with them.
Guest:I'm a huge fan.
Guest:We were just talking about Ween today because did you ever hear this Pizza Hut jingle that they did?
Guest:I heard about it.
Guest:You've got to check this out.
Guest:I guess Pizza Hut asked them to do a commercial at some point for this pizza that had the cheese.
Guest:inside the pizza.
Guest:Right, I remember those.
Guest:Inside the crust.
Guest:Yeah, so they delivered these demos, or whatever, like these jingles, to Pizza Hut, and they did a clean version and a dirty version, as if Pizza Hut would want a dirty version.
Marc:Yeah, we'll go with the filthy one.
Guest:Anyway, it's on YouTube, and it's not worth me singing it for you, but you should...
Marc:Well, the only reason I ask is that I talked to Aaron Friedman and Gene Wein, and he's sort of moving away from it.
Marc:He just moved out here, or he's moving out here, and he wants to get involved in animation and soundtrack.
Guest:Yeah, well, that's the thing.
Guest:I mean, I think our whole attitude toward being in a band at this point is like...
Guest:we wouldn't we wouldn't necessarily start a band right now but we have this band and it's fun and it's a good band and we have people that still want to come see us so we keep doing it but we do it and then we don't do it for a while and at least for me i i have gotten you know really interested in doing other stuff that has nothing to do with it and and and like television stuff or what about the other guys are they like what the fuck
Guest:No, I mean, everybody's different with four different personalities.
Guest:I mean, Brian, the drummer, is always busy.
Guest:He's touring right now with a band called Jesus and Mary Chain.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's a big band.
Guest:Yeah, it's bigger than us.
Guest:So he's a guy.
Guest:Yeah, he's working.
Guest:He's doing stuff.
Guest:Jody has his own solo stuff that he does and plays.
Guest:Chris, he's the front man of our band, and so I think for him...
Guest:He's never been a guy that wants to be a chameleon and like, hey, let me put on a different hat and be this other thing.
Guest:He just likes to sing his songs and play.
Guest:And when he's not doing that, he likes to just chill out.
Guest:And he lives up in Western Mass, you know, kind of out in the woods.
Guest:And he's just like, he moved out of New York City as soon as this kind of got up and running.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's like his style, you know?
Guest:Don't you envy that?
Guest:Sometimes I totally do.
Guest:But, you know, we're very different in that way.
Guest:But do you guys talk a lot or...?
Marc:i mean honestly now no because we when we're you know we've we've been talking since we were 18 so you know we talk i mean we email all the time and we do business together but like do we hang out the way we used to no we totally don't so there's no there's no urgency anymore it must be kind of relaxing to not have that kind of uh to put not put that importance of uh you know the need to to go out there and tour and risk um you know being tragic um
Marc:Yeah, I hope it doesn't get tragic.
Marc:You're beloved.
Marc:I guess that doesn't really protect you from that.
Marc:But I'm saying that you all seem okay.
Marc:There's not one of you that's sort of like, oh, we're going to have to go out.
Guest:I don't think anybody of the four of us would do it if they just dreaded it and hated it.
Guest:I think everybody still really likes, especially the performing part.
Guest:I think they do it because it's fun to do and hopefully make a little money.
Guest:But it's not that much money.
Guest:It's mostly because I still like playing.
Guest:But none of you guys ever really had the dream of being superstars or rock stars?
Guest:No, I mean, we all did at some point, but you just evolved with that.
Marc:Yeah, tell me about that, because that's sort of interesting to me, because actually John Daniel was...
Marc:you know, when we were buddies, like, you know, he brought something up to me that, you know, sort of changed my life around, like, a grown-up is someone who realizes their limitations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, he, you know, he himself, I mean, he was, like, an aspiring rock star and had a band and, like, record deals and all that stuff.
Marc:I knew him when he was, you know, you know, just started, you know, he's working for the manager of The Cure, you know, and he was, you know, he sort of hit a rough patch and he was, he was producing, you know, he had that band in New York with the dude Shane, that kind of, I don't remember the name of that band.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:It wasn't Candy.
Marc:He's obviously in Candy, but he's a very impressive cat.
Marc:He's got a real love of the music business.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he also remembers to actually enjoy what he's doing, which a lot of people don't.
Guest:He seems like a guy that just still has fun on a day-to-day basis and doesn't get too worked up about stupid shit.
Guest:Now, because he came out on top.
Marc:But the path of the artist or the musician, it's just littered.
Marc:That road is just littered with broken dreams and people that are bitter and fucking... Well, one thing I've found is that...
Guest:And this probably goes for all entertainment, but definitely as a musician, if you're out there trying to make things happen, whether it's your band or trying to get songs in some other filmed entertainment or something, it's like most stuff doesn't happen.
Guest:Most stuff doesn't pan out.
Guest:And you can just sit around being pissed off and depressed all the time.
Guest:Or you can just sort of accept that that's just the nature of it.
Guest:That's your job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's also just like...
Guest:at this point i've had enough like positive reinforcement to know like well i'm pretty good at this you know it's like there might be people that hate what i give them and don't want to use it right but i'm not going to suddenly think like i'm a failure because of that you know i just like well this wasn't right for whatever this context was but you you guys put out what five or six records five records um yeah i guess six what did we do what did we do well we put out i think we put out five albums and there was one that was like this
Marc:kind of b-sides compilation with a lot of stuff on it so fountains of wayne the very first album yeah didn't really that was it was not a major release or what that was uh a major label release it was a big record it was your introductory record did it provide the record company hope and excitement um i think they thought it was going to do better than it did it did okay but it wasn't like this smash and who were you touring with when you guys toured on the record
Guest:The first tour we did, we did a couple weeks with the Lemonheads.
Guest:That was like our first actual tour.
Guest:Opening?
Guest:Yeah, of course, opening.
Guest:And they were really big then.
Guest:And then the second tour we did was opening for the Smashing Pumpkins, which was in arenas.
Guest:And we were friends with those guys, and they were doing these, like... Was that the second record?
Guest:No, this was still our first record.
Guest:We had barely played at all at that point, and they asked us to come and do these, like, arena shows with them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:and um how is that i mean i i mean i can see it made us get our act together really fast because we really were pretty green as a band and and we right away had to go play it in front of these audiences that were huge and also totally indifferent right there i mean it's it's pretty sweet rock but it's still like pretty hard rock our band uh no smashing pumpkins oh smashing rock yeah i mean but they were also at that point like the biggest band in the world i mean they were huge and so we were just like something they had to sit through
Guest:And did you feel that?
Guest:Yeah, but that's okay.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:For us, it was fun to be on a big stage for the first time like that.
Guest:Right, and then the sort of half-filled arena, young people are sort of like, no, the opening band's on.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So it's a rite of passage.
Marc:And you guys were friends with the Smashing Pumpkins?
Guest:We were, yeah.
Guest:Are you still friends with him?
Guest:Well, James Eha and I are really good friends, and he hasn't actually been in the Smashing Pumpkins at this point for like 12 or 13 years.
Guest:I can't believe we're getting so fucking old.
Guest:It's that long ago already.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:I feel like we're talking about, you know.
Guest:Isn't that wild?
Guest:We put out our first wax cylinder.
Guest:We put out our sheet music.
Marc:Yeah, when the machines came out.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:We were all very excited.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Thank God for Edison.
Marc:But, okay, so you open for the Smashing Pumpkins, and then what happened?
Marc:At that point, were you like, we're going to make it.
Marc:We're going to be huge.
Marc:Was that a discussion you guys had?
Guest:We didn't really sit around and talk like that, to be honest.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:And it was also just part of the thing at the time.
Guest:Even if that's what you wanted, in the mid-90s, you couldn't really sit around and talk about it like that.
Guest:But, I mean, we were disappointed when songs didn't get as much airplay as we hoped they would.
Marc:Which is one of the sort of sleepers of your catalog, do you think, that you had a lot of hopes for?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:They all are.
Guest:I mean, what do you want me to say?
Guest:I thought they could all be hits, you know?
Guest:I thought they were all, like, the biggest hits ever.
Guest:I can't pick one.
Guest:I think a lot of people thought that early on.
Guest:You know, the first record, there was a lot of catchy songs on it, but whatever.
Marc:There was a few, like, you know, not to compare, but, like, I'm surprised because, like, in my mind, when I listen to specifically the type of music you do or, like, the...
Marc:The Figs' first record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, where everything is just, like, you know, popping and catching and it's tight.
Marc:It's sort of like, why isn't this just, like, all over the place?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's just the time wasn't ready for it.
Marc:Because, like, I see, like, Green Day and a couple of those other bands, they're doing, you know, maybe not even as good a version of that type of music now.
Marc:And they're huge.
Marc:It was just, like, the times weren't synced up.
Marc:The little girls weren't ready.
Guest:Yeah, who knows?
Guest:I mean, it's a lot of things.
Guest:And I think...
Guest:I guess at a certain point we stopped thinking of it in terms like that and started thinking of it more in terms of like, the coolest thing is if you have this really defined personality that's your own thing that you came up with.
Guest:And I feel like our band, the reason that we've lasted a long time is that it kind of has that.
Guest:It's like a thing that if you like it, and not everybody does, but if you like it, that's where you go
Guest:to get it.
Guest:It's not really exactly like something else.
Guest:So you just find your own little niche and then you sort of appreciate that you have that and that can keep you going.
Guest:And especially now because of what's happened and how the music business has completely imploded and there's no, you know, there's a lot of people with that old school mentality still like you got to get a hit and you got to be on the radio.
Guest:But really, like the new mentality is much more about you just do your thing and nurture it and like have your fans that feel connected to you.
Guest:And if you have that, that's like the most valuable thing you can have because it'll last, hopefully.
Guest:Yeah, I'm living that.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:In what I do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you scale back your expectations maybe at the same time, but it's like.
Marc:I have, but it took a long time.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:I mean, it really took a long time.
Marc:I mean, I kind of always knew that I wasn't for everybody, but there was a good chunk of time there where I thought I was definitely for more people than for showing up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But maybe it grows then, but you're not working so hard to change yourself.
Marc:Well, you get humbled, and either you're going to accept it or you're going to fight it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And if you fight humility, it's never pretty.
Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I think that's a bumper sticker.
Marc:You can tell that.
Marc:Why don't you use it for a song?
Marc:Yeah, I like that.
Marc:But you guys realize that at some point.
Marc:Because I realized that recently, too, after talking to... The way I think about music, even what we're talking about with the Stones and with the Beatles, and when I interviewed Jack White, is that with music, especially popular music, especially with rock music,
Marc:It's not necessarily about musicianship as much as it is having a thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if a lot of people really think of it that way.
Marc:You would know your record immediately.
Marc:If a fan of yours, they know your sound.
Marc:Your sound is defined.
Marc:Your jack sound is defined.
Marc:There's plenty of people that are like, who the fuck is this?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It sounds like that other guy.
Marc:But if you have a defined thing that no one else really does, then you've done something amazing in music.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:and also you can be much more commercially successful that way i mean like you know classic example from sort of my generation of bands is wilco where they had this big fight with their label trying to write hit singles and stuff and they kind of stuck to their guns and i mean most bands would kill for wilco's career now i mean wilco is a huge successful band that plays to tons of people everywhere and but again they just completely got out of that game of like trying to have a commercial radio hit do you know him
Guest:I've met them all.
Guest:We played a show or two with them, and we have the same lawyer.
Guest:Isn't that funny?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone's connected by a few Jewish guys.
Guest:Yeah, the music business especially.
Guest:Yeah, the music business.
Marc:It's not six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Marc:It's six degrees of some guy named Saul.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Actually, our Jewish lawyer is not Jewish.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good, I guess.
Marc:I don't know why I just said it's good.
Marc:It seemed like the right thing to say in that moment.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Weave our misfit.
Guest:No, I wasn't.
Guest:I got a tennis racket instead of a bar mitzvah when I was 13.
Guest:Wait, were you given a choice?
Guest:I was a choice, yeah.
Guest:I took the tennis racket.
Guest:Do you have siblings?
Guest:I have a sister, yeah.
Guest:Is she a musician?
Guest:Not a professional musician, but she does play, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And your parents were like, yeah, that's my son, the musician.
Guest:I just saw in a window on Robertson yesterday, there's this nice Jewish guy's calendar.
Guest:You ever seen that?
Guest:There's a guy sitting at the piano.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know what that is.
Guest:A nice Jewish guy's calendar?
Guest:Yeah, it's just a calendar.
Guest:It's just photos.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:They're anonymous nice Jewish guys.
Guest:It's really hilarious.
Marc:Now, you license a lot of songs to television still?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:license um i don't know how that works yeah that well i mean there's two things i mean there's there's people sometimes call up and want to license a song on your record for something just put it in the background of a show or whatever they want to do with it that's good coin huh it can be not as good as it used to be again it's the same thing like you know everything's gotten sort of less good coin but um but that still exists and depending on what it is it can be good and where's the good coin in music how does one make it
Guest:I mean, for me, it's more just like adding a whole bunch of stuff up together.
Guest:It's not so much like jackpots all the time, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, yeah, with TV, sometimes people license your songs, and other times, for me, somebody will ask you to write something for them.
Guest:That's more fun for me, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also, if you get that, did you ever write any jingles or ads?
Guest:No.
Guest:A little bit, yeah.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:I actually just did one recently, and it came from a guy who, he's a Fountains of Wayne fan, and that's why he called me.
Guest:Sweet.
Guest:And it was a commercial for New York State Lottery, and it was like zombies in it.
Guest:So they were trying to find a song to work in this zombies thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's one of these things that almost never happens where he's like, he's like, can you come up with something for this?
Guest:And I had an idea basically as soon as he said it.
Guest:And I went to the studio that night and recorded it in like an hour and sent it to him and they all approved it and it was done.
Guest:And I was like, whoa, that's the greatest.
Guest:I wish I wish that's how life works.
Guest:You know, like that never happens.
Guest:I mean, usually it's like 18 levels of approval, and in the end they don't end up using it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, you waste all this time, and then they don't want to pay you.
Guest:Is there singing on it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's me singing.
Guest:For the New York State lottery?
Guest:Yeah, so if anyone wants to go see that.
Guest:But this guy, Jim, that hired me, he does only great commercials, and I checked out his reel, and he's like, they're all awesome and funny.
Marc:And now that puts you in that sort of world.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know if it does.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:That was one.
Guest:And have you ever done an original score for TV?
Guest:A little bit, yeah.
Guest:I mean, people think of me more for songs than scores, so every once in a while I'll get called for a score thing, but it's not really... But have you done an original song for TV?
Guest:Original song?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, tons.
Guest:I mean, tons.
Guest:We did like...
Guest:I'm just trying to think of some stuff.
Guest:I did a Christmas special with Stephen Colbert.
Guest:I work a lot with a guy named David Jabberbaum, who's a comedy writer, who used to be at The Daily Show for many years.
Guest:So he and I wrote a Broadway show together called Cry Baby.
Guest:And then we wrote this thing for Stephen Colbert, which was...
Guest:Cry Baby, the John Waters?
Guest:It was a John Waters film, and then they turned it into a Broadway... Oh, you did that?
Guest:I did do that.
Guest:I didn't do the movie.
Guest:No, I know that.
Guest:Yeah, I did the Broadway version, which... And you had to write original music for that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Cry Baby was a musical, wasn't it, the movie?
Guest:Yeah, and on Broadway, it was different songs.
Guest:It was like they started over, and it was... I mean, basically, like, they'd had this huge hit with Hairspray, and so it was the same producers, like, well, we can do it again.
Guest:We can take another John Waters movie and have another big hit, and it didn't quite work out, but the show was okay, and, you know, I really like a lot of the songs in it.
Guest:Did you work with John Waters?
Guest:Well, he was kind of like around.
Guest:He didn't work on it on a day-to-day basis.
Guest:He made sure that it was okay by him.
Guest:He was kind of like approving or not approving things.
Marc:It's fascinating to me because you're living the life of like...
Marc:It is Tim Panale.
Marc:It is sort of applying the skill of songwriting to a very conscious commercial success that isn't what most people think of as singer-songwriter.
Marc:Singer-songwriters are sort of point-of-view guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I don't write from my diet.
Marc:Like, I feel sad today.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It's not an image kind of thing.
Marc:It's sort of like a practical skill that is challenging.
Marc:And, you know, and I imagine when you're looking at, you know, how Broadway works and how to structure songs that have the build that would arc through an entire show.
Guest:Well, I'm really I mean, it's true.
Guest:I mean, that kind of like craft side of it.
Guest:is still really appealing to me.
Guest:And I think sometimes when you are a person who writes like that, you know, the downside is people think like, oh, well, it's like some kind of trick and there's no real emotion or something.
Guest:But that's not really true at all.
Guest:I think like those kind of songs can actually end up being more emotional if you do it right.
Guest:And depending on the context that you're writing for.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, the power, I mean, you know, like the generation before us or maybe even the one before them, I mean, the power of musicals
Marc:Was astounding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, musicals were like at the forefront of popular music for years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they still have a real effect on people.
Marc:I mean, that's why you see kind of, what do you call them, when they remake South Pacific or whatever musical.
Marc:Like a revival.
Marc:A revival.
Marc:It's because those songs are so fucking good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They still stand up.
Marc:Stand the test of time.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I mean, and it's a very rare thing to have a song that can transcend for that long.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how long did Cryberry Baby run?
Marc:A couple months.
Guest:Didn't it pan out?
Guest:It was sort of...
Guest:You know, nobody was really steering the ship in a way.
Guest:It was like this idea to, like, let's do another one of these John Waters things.
Guest:And I think there was nobody really decided, or I should say, like, there were some differing opinions about should it be this family fun thing or should it be really John Waters and kind of edgy and dark and adult.
Guest:And I think in the end it was neither.
Guest:It wasn't quite John Waters enough to be, like, scandalous or anything, but it also wasn't really something you'd bring your kids to.
Guest:Is that something you're interested in, writing an original musical?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, definitely.
Guest:Do you study musicals?
Guest:No.
Guest:Do you like them?
Guest:Generally, no.
Guest:I don't like them.
Guest:But I think it's a form that you can do really great stuff with.
Guest:And I think, you know, like, I mean...
Guest:I don't know, like Book of Mormon, for example, is a good example.
Guest:Two guys that said we can make a musical that is great and fun.
Guest:People love it.
Guest:And people love it.
Guest:And it's like this big episode of South Park, basically.
Guest:But it's awesome.
Guest:And you can feel the fun they had making it.
Guest:I haven't seen it.
Guest:It's here now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's in L.A.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:I mean, I feel like...
Guest:The best thing about it is just the fact that those guys can pretty much do whatever they want, and so they can go and put something on stage, and it doesn't get wrecked on the way.
Guest:Nobody has the authority to tell them not to do something.
Guest:I didn't have that at all.
Guest:I was up against all these people that were these theater lifers, and I was just this guy from this band that, for some reason, they chose to do this.
Guest:And it was seriously, every day, like, listen, kid, this is the way it's done.
Guest:And I would just say, well...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, you just cut the punchline out of this joke.
Guest:I mean, I know I'm just the music guy, but there's no joke here anymore.
Guest:You left the setup and you just cut the punchline.
Guest:It's like, well, not everything needs to be funny all the time.
Guest:It's a musical comedy.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It kind of does, doesn't it?
Marc:No one's looking at this as like, well, that's not realistic.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I know.
Guest:There was a lot of talk like that where I was just like, well, I'm just a guy that consumes entertainment.
Guest:I know I'm not the expert here on Broadway, but this seems like it's just not really entertaining, this little part.
Marc:And who were these guys?
Marc:I mean, did you meet or work with anybody you respected?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, the reason I even agreed to do it was because of the chance to immediately kind of work with these really top guys.
Guest:I mean, in particular...
Guest:Tom Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, who wrote the book.
Guest:And Tom Meehan, these guys, I mean, Tom Meehan wrote Annie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He wrote The Producers and Young Frankenstein.
Guest:He's just a legendary guy.
Guest:And Mark O'Donnell, who actually just passed away a month ago, sadly, but he's also an incredibly brilliant guy.
Guest:The two of them wrote Hairspray.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so just getting to work with them was unbelievable.
Marc:What did you take away from that?
Guest:I mean, was there things that you learned?
Guest:Were there tricks?
Guest:Were there moments?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, everything.
Guest:I knew nothing.
Guest:going into it yeah they pretty much taught me everything and then I also met what are some of the tricks of writing a musical like you know when when when you had those discussions of you know looking at the book and deciding on the music I mean what were some of the things that were kind of I guess one of the things they tell you as a songwriter is that a song in a musical
Guest:has to keep the story moving.
Guest:It's not like writing a pop song where you're just repeating the chorus three times.
Guest:You can't stop the show.
Guest:It has to feel like the plot's still moving forward and the story's still being told.
Marc:And if there is a solo moment where the song is like one of those kind of powerful, not a ballad, but where one character is singing a lament of some kind, it still has to reveal the emotion that is part of the arc.
Guest:Yeah, and it just has to feel like the story's still just happening.
Guest:You don't just stop and do a song and then get back into the show.
Guest:So that's a little bit of a different mindset for me as a writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think the musical sounds fun.
Guest:I have yet to find...
Guest:you know, the killer project.
Guest:I would love to do that more.
Guest:The one thing that it did lead to, I mean, apart from this Colbert thing, which is amazing, is like, um, David Javerbaum and I ended up getting hired to, um, work on the, the, a bunch of award shows like the Tony awards and the, and the Emmys where you're basically writing these musical theater songs.
Guest:Like we did this one for, uh, Neil Patrick Harris.
Guest:Um,
Guest:which was DJ's idea but it was called Broadway it's not just for gays anymore and it was the opening song to the 20s a couple years ago and it was just like it killed you know it was a great idea and Neil killed it and you know so that in a way opened more doors for me I think in the theater world than Cry Baby had even though that was a show that I'd worked on for like five years I mean and this was a song that we worked on for two weeks but a lot more people saw it and they loved it
Marc:i mean yeah it was it was great just like good idea well executed do you live in the city now i live in riverdale in the bronx yeah yeah got a house up there yeah and you got a room with a piano in it i do yes yeah like a real piano i yep a real piano yeah
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:Now, okay, so are you going to do another Fountains of Wayne record?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Ask me again shortly.
Guest:I mean, you know, like I said, between every record, you know, Chris is sort of deciding whether he wants to do another record.
Guest:So I imagine we probably will at some point.
Guest:So it's up to the singer?
Guest:Kind of is, yeah.
Guest:If he doesn't sing, you know, there's no record.
Guest:But how much do you guys write together or you just write all the songs?
Guest:Um, no, we both write, we don't really write together.
Guest:We, we, we used to when we started out and now, now we just kind of bring them in and we arrange them together.
Marc:So he, do you, do you, uh, is it go back and forth with music and lyrics?
Marc:Like sometimes he'll do music and lyrics and then you'll do- No, we both write music and lyrics our own totally.
Guest:Like just the song's done.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Like I'll bring in a song and that's, it's finished.
Guest:And he'll do the same.
Marc:So on a record, it's going to be mixed up between you and him with some writing credit.
Guest:We share the credits.
Guest:There was one record where we didn't do that, but basically we just split the credits down the middle.
Guest:So we were talking about at the beginning of not wanting to have the fights about who wrote.
Guest:So we agreed to that early on.
Guest:But partly just as a function of geography, we don't write together, and partly because I think we just got to a point where it was easier to just...
Guest:Rather than trying to explain to somebody this weird idea that you had and, hey, you want to help me try to figure out this song about this football player?
Guest:What the hell are you talking about?
Guest:It's easier to just do it.
Guest:I mean, there have been cases where I'll write a song and the idea is kind of spelled out, but then I just get lazy and don't write the last verse.
Guest:And so he'll come in and say, I got the last three lines for you, maybe.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:But even that, we don't really do so much anymore.
Marc:Well, as a 44-year-old guy, I mean, what do you find yourself listening to?
Marc:You know, regularly, like, you know, when you're doing the iPod thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Who do you go back to?
Guest:God, that's always like a weird, like stumping question to me, because a lot of times it's like I'll be listening to something that has something to do with something I'm trying to work on.
Guest:So it's almost like reference slash enjoying it at the same time.
Marc:Well, I find that if I exercise, I get, you know, weirdly, you know, if you look at your iPod sort of history or your iTunes, you can see what you actually listen to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's sort of bizarre.
Marc:It's a lot of stuff that I used to listen to in high school.
Guest:I don't want to be one of those guys, but I listen to- But music hits you in a different way at that age.
Guest:Music meant so much to me when I was 13.
Guest:These records were just my entire life.
Guest:The Beatles?
Guest:I mean, yeah, the Beatles before that.
Guest:But then for high school, for me, it was like the police and the pretenders and sort of later kinks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And there was this sort of like-
Guest:that period i mean i just wore those records out and later later kinks like misfits and uh well that was like um give the people what they want like you remember that record and like i i was not like i've still yet to wrap my mind around the whole kinks thing yeah well i i mean that's the thing i when i first discovered the kinks they were i didn't know that they had put out records in the 60s because i heard these 80s kinks and i just thought they were like another new band like the police or the clash and the kinks which was which was your kinks album
Guest:um give the people what they want to have like paranoia oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a good one that's and we did a cover of this song later later on there was this ray davies um like tribute record and we did a cover of um this song called better things did you ever hear that that's an old one though isn't it no it was on i think it was on that record oh really but we did we just just kind of like a bashed out version of it and uh that's a good song
Guest:So have you gone back?
Guest:Ray Davies, by the way, he wrote the liner notes to this tribute record, and you could tell from looking at the liner notes that he didn't actually listen to the record before he wrote the liner notes, you know?
Guest:It's hilarious to read them.
Guest:Did you ever get to work with him?
Guest:No, I never got to work with him.
Guest:Okay, so the pretenders?
Guest:Yeah, I was very into the police when I was in eighth and ninth grade.
Guest:They were pretty amazing, huh, for a few records?
Guest:Yeah.
Wow.
Guest:But also, I think back then, like, there just wasn't as much entertainment out there.
Guest:So having a record with, you know, when a record came out, that was a big deal, just a release.
Guest:And you'd go into the record store and buy it.
Guest:Being so excited.
Guest:The only, like, audio-visual component was, like, you just look at the record cover.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:And if you were lucky, it opened up.
Guest:Yeah, and then they started making videos, and it was like, whoa.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was just a bigger deal.
Guest:It just feels like now, I mean, it's part of the thing, you know, just putting out a record just doesn't seem like as big a deal anymore.
Marc:Yeah, where's the cherishing of the actual artifact and whatnot?
Guest:Yeah, and I mean, that's maybe a function of my age too, but also there's just so much entertainment.
Guest:There's just so much coming out every second.
Guest:You don't really need that much, and it just makes everything less special.
Guest:And then also the fact that music is something that you can just email to people now.
Guest:It's weird, right?
Guest:Yeah, it just makes it really kind of all feel like a little worthless.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised.
Marc:I've got a lot of those records I had in high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But that's all of them, really.
Marc:And some people are putting out vinyl again.
Marc:I've got a turntable, and I'll listen to it just to have that feeling of taking it out and putting it on.
Marc:And I think it does sound a little different.
Marc:and better yeah i but i heard that vinyl's coming back is it um not for me fuck that but i know i was gonna say like when i finally moved all my cds onto you know i i went through that period where i loaded them all up yeah into itunes yeah because i had them yeah yeah it takes like weeks
Guest:I know.
Guest:I moved like four years ago, and I had like thousands of CDs, and I put them in these boxes, and I knew when I was doing it, I'm never going to open these boxes.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I will never see.
Guest:And now if you actually just want to hear any of those songs that are in those boxes, you just go to YouTube and listen to the song and get it out of your system.
Guest:Isn't that weird?
Guest:When am I going to let my go?
Guest:It's just all free, and you just go listen to it, and you don't want to hear it anymore.
Marc:I let go of the jewel boxes, but I still have all my CDs in binders, and they're just over in a storage unit.
Marc:And you'll never pull them out.
Marc:But aren't you finding that about a lot of shit?
Marc:I mean, at some point, I lose some of these books, but they become like furniture.
Marc:They become cozy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I'm starting to have that period.
Marc:The quarters a little bit.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I'm starting to have that period in my life where I'm like, wow, that thing's not important at all to me.
Marc:Why do I still have it?
Marc:I know.
Marc:It's like a time capsule.
Marc:Yeah, but some of them just lose their meaning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They don't represent them.
Guest:I have like, you know, with CDs, I probably have like every sort of alternative rock album that was released from like 1988 to 1994.
Guest:I have all of them.
Guest:I used to go to like Tower Records and just spend like, you know, a hundred bucks and just buy anything I had read like one sentence.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'll buy this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I heard it was good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, and then I'd never, I listened to it once.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:yeah i mean that happens all the time i was that guy too or what i would do is i'd hear like one song by one band and i'm like i have to have everything that they ever did so i'd get like six cds right you get really into them right all the year well i'd want to right you know then you'd sort of like well i know why this album's the best right you know what i mean yeah yeah it took them a while to get here right i appreciate the early stuff but it's not the same yeah totally
Marc:Well, man, it was good talking to you, Adam.
Marc:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Guest:You feel good?
Guest:I feel pretty good.
Guest:How about you?
Guest:I'm good.
Guest:Do we cover everything we need to do?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Do we need to cover anything?
Marc:It was all very important.
Guest:Was there a checklist?
Marc:I forgot to tell you that this was a really important process that I outlined specifically.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, let's go.
Marc:I'll introduce you to my girlfriend.
Guest:Okay, cool.
Marc:And we'll see how she is.
Okay.