Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Fountains of Wayne: Pop Success, Tragedy, and Beyond [Episode 261]

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Fountains of Wayne: Pop Success, Tragedy, and Beyond [Episode 261] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and Roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
0:05
Speaker 2: You're reading little hands this, It's time to rock and roll.
0:09
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to book Do on Rock,
0:18
Speaker 2: the podcast for those about to read and rock and
0:21
Speaker 2: Eric Senich find the podcast online Booked on rock dot com.
0:24
Speaker 2: You can listen to the podcasts wherever you get your
0:26
Speaker 2: favorite podcasts, and watch the episodes on YouTube at Booked
0:30
Speaker 2: on Rock. And make sure you give the podcast a
0:32
Speaker 2: five star review and subscribe if you like what you hear,
0:34
Speaker 2: because that gets a podcasts out to more listeners. Author
0:38
Speaker 2: Fiona McCrory makes her debut on the podcast her new
0:41
Speaker 2: book titled The Fountains of Wayne. It's the first full
0:43
Speaker 2: length biography of the band Fountains of Wayne, and this
0:46
Speaker 2: book goes beyond their huge hit Stacy's Mom to explore
0:50
Speaker 2: the group's entire history and the lasting legacy of the
0:52
Speaker 2: group's music. I Gotta tell you I knew nothing other
0:55
Speaker 2: than the hit single Stacy's Mom and Man, this is
1:00
Speaker 2: a really good band. Brilliantly written songs. They combine smart
1:05
Speaker 2: pop melodies with lyrical portraits of ordinary life. They've acquired
1:09
Speaker 2: devoted fans all around the world. I'm not surprised after
1:12
Speaker 2: listening to the music, and this book captures the story
1:15
Speaker 2: of this band so well. McCary chronicles the highs and
1:18
Speaker 2: lows of the group's career, demonstrating why the band continues
1:21
Speaker 2: to be admired, listened to, and celebrated. A playlist of
1:25
Speaker 2: Fountains of Wayne in this episode's show notes, Welcome to
1:31
Speaker 2: the podcast, Fiona.
1:32
Speaker 3: I'm glad to be here.
1:33
Speaker 2: So I'm adding another band who I knew little to
1:36
Speaker 2: nothing about before this podcast but now a huge fan
1:39
Speaker 2: of to my list. Thanks to you. That's all, thanks
1:43
Speaker 2: to you. Wow, this band is so much more than
1:47
Speaker 2: their hit song, absolutely so much more. And that hit
1:51
Speaker 2: song is Stacy's Mom. Tell us about what led you
1:54
Speaker 2: to writing what is the first full length biography of
1:57
Speaker 2: this band? In particular why this band?
2:00
Speaker 3: Jeff Gomez, who is running the publishing company, actually contacted
2:04
Speaker 3: me and shared with me his new business idea for
2:08
Speaker 3: this series of biographies, short ish but still full length
2:12
Speaker 3: biographies of bands that in the eighties and nineties that
2:15
Speaker 3: had really kind of been overlooked, and he sent me
2:18
Speaker 3: a list he'd made a list I would say probably
2:20
Speaker 3: forty or fifty bands so that he thought were possibilities,
2:24
Speaker 3: and Fountains of Wayne jumped out of me right away
2:27
Speaker 3: because I remembered Stacy's mom. And I also bought Welcome
2:30
Speaker 3: Interstate Managers when it came out, and I remember thinking,
2:33
Speaker 3: you know, this band is really good and that that
2:36
Speaker 3: song is good, but it's not really them, like they
2:38
Speaker 3: can do anything. And so I thought, I want to
2:41
Speaker 3: know more. I want to know more about this band
2:43
Speaker 3: and how they came together and how they made these
2:46
Speaker 3: wonderful records. And of course this was last year. And
2:49
Speaker 3: I also remembered when Adam Schlessinger passed away during the
2:52
Speaker 3: COVID pandemic in twenty twenty and how upsetting that was
2:56
Speaker 3: because he was so greatly talented. And I thought, you know,
3:00
Speaker 3: this band needs to be they need to be remembered
3:03
Speaker 3: for more than Stacy's moont because they did a lot more.
3:06
Speaker 3: And that's what sort of led to it. And I've
3:08
Speaker 3: spent the past year immersed deep in what I My
3:12
Speaker 3: husband and I ended up calling fountains Land. I'm going
3:15
Speaker 3: upstairs to fountains Land.
3:17
Speaker 2: Fountains Land. Yeah, we'll get to the formation of the
3:20
Speaker 2: band in just a minute. But let's start with the
3:23
Speaker 2: story of Adam and Chris Collingwood. Adam Slessinger, Chris Collingwood.
3:28
Speaker 2: There's a popular Fountains of Wayne song called Hackensack, so
3:32
Speaker 2: there is a New Jersey connection to their roots, but
3:35
Speaker 2: also Massachusetts that's also part of their geographical history. So
3:39
Speaker 2: talk about those two guys and how they ended up
3:42
Speaker 2: meeting and creating all this great music together.
3:44
Speaker 3: Well, they met at Williams College in Massachusetts, where they
3:48
Speaker 3: both did their undergraduate degrees. And Chris is actually from
3:52
Speaker 3: a small town not too far from Pittsburgh and Adam
3:56
Speaker 3: is from New York City and they met at college.
3:59
Speaker 3: And the way they met, the story that they always
4:02
Speaker 3: told was that they were sitting each sitting separately outside
4:06
Speaker 3: on the balcony of their residents, playing their guitars, and
4:10
Speaker 3: Adam was playing an ram song and Chris decided to
4:13
Speaker 3: come over and tell him he was playing the wrong chords.
4:16
Speaker 3: And that's how they met, and they started hanging out together.
4:20
Speaker 3: Williams is a small college and only at the time
4:22
Speaker 3: it only had about two thousand students total, and they
4:26
Speaker 3: started playing in bands together and doing events around campus
4:29
Speaker 3: and just hanging out and playing records. Together and jamming
4:32
Speaker 3: on their own songs, and they started writing together while
4:36
Speaker 3: they were in college, and they tried playing some of
4:39
Speaker 3: their original songs at the campus gigs that they did,
4:42
Speaker 3: and they were both pretty honest and saying that the
4:45
Speaker 3: audiences they played for actually preferred the covers because they
4:48
Speaker 3: had come to hear that. When they got close to graduation,
4:52
Speaker 3: they both thought about it, and they both knew from
4:54
Speaker 3: various people that they knew that the music business is
4:57
Speaker 3: very hard and a lot of it is very random.
5:00
Speaker 3: But they didn't really have anything else planned, so they
5:03
Speaker 3: decided to try to make a go of it.
5:06
Speaker 2: They met in what early in to mid nineties, that's right, Yeah, Yeah,
5:10
Speaker 2: And they had different ways of approaching the songwriting process,
5:13
Speaker 2: and this started way back during the years in college,
5:15
Speaker 2: but they did have a common element. They wrote much
5:18
Speaker 2: like the way King songs were constructed.
5:20
Speaker 3: According to the book, Yeah, they wrote a lot of
5:22
Speaker 3: their songs were about ordinary people doing ordinary jobs in
5:27
Speaker 3: ordinary offices, and they sort of tried to make that
5:31
Speaker 3: you make those stories that were worth listening to. And
5:35
Speaker 3: I think part of the reason why their songs resonated
5:39
Speaker 3: so strongly with a lot of their listeners is that's
5:42
Speaker 3: what a lot of their listeners in the same age
5:45
Speaker 3: group were doing. They were working temp jobs, they were
5:48
Speaker 3: working in cubicle farms, they had annoying bosses who asked
5:51
Speaker 3: them to do ridiculous things. So they could really relate
5:55
Speaker 3: to the stories of people just living ordinary lives and
5:58
Speaker 3: trying to find some meaning and some pinus in the
6:01
Speaker 3: little things in their lives.
6:02
Speaker 2: I think that's why these songs far beyond the hit song.
6:06
Speaker 2: That's why the rest of their catalog is so impressive.
6:10
Speaker 2: There's a lot of depth there, and there's stories of
6:12
Speaker 2: everyday people.
6:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah. And I think the other thing that often
6:16
Speaker 3: gets overlooked because of Stacy's mom being kind of a
6:20
Speaker 3: one off, is they're also really really good musicians. Jody Porter,
6:24
Speaker 3: who they brought on as their guitarist, and Brian Young,
6:27
Speaker 3: their drummer, were both very accomplished musicians who've done a
6:30
Speaker 3: lot of things before they joined Fountains of Wayne, and
6:34
Speaker 3: they had the same lineup for their entire existence. So
6:37
Speaker 3: the four musicians really got to know each other and
6:39
Speaker 3: know how to work with each other and shared their experiences,
6:44
Speaker 3: and I think that really comes across in the records too.
6:46
Speaker 2: Some phenomenal guitar work on some of these songs that
6:49
Speaker 2: I noticed. Now, Adam and Chris, what instruments did they play?
6:52
Speaker 2: Did they share vocals? Talk about that.
6:55
Speaker 3: Adam was a bass guitarist, which was pretty impressive because
6:58
Speaker 3: he actually grew up playing piano. He trained in jazz piano.
7:02
Speaker 3: Some of the people who worked with them on other
7:03
Speaker 3: projects say that he could have basically played anything, he
7:06
Speaker 3: was that good of a musician. Chris plays guitar, and
7:10
Speaker 3: he was the Fountain's only lead singer, which also influenced
7:14
Speaker 3: their music too, because one of the things that I
7:16
Speaker 3: talk about in the book is some of the more
7:19
Speaker 3: obsessive Fountains of Wayne fans are really interested in knowing
7:22
Speaker 3: that Adam and Chris pretty much wrote their music independently.
7:25
Speaker 3: Is which song was that? Which song was Chris? And
7:28
Speaker 3: sometimes Adam and Chris would talk about that, But really
7:32
Speaker 3: I think it doesn't In some sense, it doesn't matter
7:35
Speaker 3: because Chris being the only singer meant that Adam had
7:38
Speaker 3: to write for Chris. He had to write for his
7:41
Speaker 3: vocal range and for his style of singing. So Adam
7:45
Speaker 3: wrote differently in Fountains of Wayne than he did in
7:48
Speaker 3: many of the other projects that he did, so it
7:51
Speaker 3: was Adam and Chris wrote independently, and yes, they've both
7:55
Speaker 3: talked about songs that they primarily wrote, and this only
7:59
Speaker 3: chain little bit once it came to the whole band
8:02
Speaker 3: to be played. But it wasn't an individual enterprise by
8:06
Speaker 3: any means. It was the talents and the input of
8:08
Speaker 3: all four of them that made the songs as good
8:11
Speaker 3: as they are.
8:11
Speaker 2: I think they were both approaching Adam Chris approaching thirty.
8:15
Speaker 2: I think when they formed Fountains of Wayne and then
8:17
Speaker 2: I got still a handful of years away from their
8:19
Speaker 2: breakthrough hit, they must have been wondering if their time
8:22
Speaker 2: would come. There were some solid bands that they had
8:24
Speaker 2: some chances at success. I believe it was. There's Pinwheel
8:27
Speaker 2: and Seed were a couple band names mentioned in the book,
8:31
Speaker 2: and there were record label signings. What happened with those projects?
8:35
Speaker 3: You know, I was thinking about this while I was
8:36
Speaker 3: putting the book together, and there were so many bands
8:38
Speaker 3: in that era in the late eighties going into the
8:41
Speaker 3: early mid nineties. There were a lot of really good
8:44
Speaker 3: bands that had one wonderful song that was a hit,
8:47
Speaker 3: but they also had a lot of other wonderful songs
8:50
Speaker 3: that never got heard. It seems to have been an
8:52
Speaker 3: era where record companies were really signing a lot of
8:55
Speaker 3: bands and trying to a greater or lesser degree to
8:59
Speaker 3: make them long term acts, and for some of them
9:02
Speaker 3: it just didn't work out. And Mountains of Wayne had
9:05
Speaker 3: a lot of college radio airplay with their first album,
9:09
Speaker 3: and when it came to the second album, there was
9:11
Speaker 3: some uptake, but not as much, although it was a
9:14
Speaker 3: really good album. Utopia Parkway and their record company dumped them,
9:19
Speaker 3: and so they were left without a label, exhausted from
9:22
Speaker 3: having worked pretty much four years straight on with both records,
9:27
Speaker 3: and they at that point they were really questioning whether
9:29
Speaker 3: they should keep going, but they decided to keep writing
9:35
Speaker 3: songs and getting together and doing things. They had some
9:38
Speaker 3: jobs that I can talk about that were actually an
9:41
Speaker 3: interesting part of their history that I didn't know. They
9:44
Speaker 3: got signed to do the music for a VH one
9:48
Speaker 3: cartoon series called Hey Joel and Joel was Joel Stein,
9:52
Speaker 3: who was a columnist for Time magazine at the time.
9:55
Speaker 3: And Joel Stick was in Time ag scene was that
10:00
Speaker 3: he wrote really sarcastic articles about overblown celebrities who are
10:05
Speaker 3: full of themselves and Sometimes he was really funny. Other
10:07
Speaker 3: times it was like, yeah, we know this person is
10:09
Speaker 3: an asked you know, you don't need someone to point
10:12
Speaker 3: it out to us. So anyway, Fountains Wayne got signed
10:15
Speaker 3: to write the music for this series. H one commissioned
10:18
Speaker 3: thirteen episodes of it. They wrote two songs per episode,
10:21
Speaker 3: and they also had done the theme song. VH one
10:24
Speaker 3: when it was finished, decided they didn't like the series
10:26
Speaker 3: and they sat on it. It was played in Canada. Yeah,
10:29
Speaker 3: I remember seeing it because it was partly financed with
10:32
Speaker 3: Canadian television money. They made enough money off that job
10:36
Speaker 3: that they could pay for themselves to go into the
10:39
Speaker 3: studio and make an album, make their own album, so
10:42
Speaker 3: they got they were in the very nice position. I mean,
10:45
Speaker 3: I'm sure they were still, you know, counting their pennies,
10:48
Speaker 3: but they were in the very nice position of being
10:50
Speaker 3: able to work on an album at their own pace
10:53
Speaker 3: without a record company telling them hmmm, I don't hear
10:55
Speaker 3: a single, and to just develop what they wanted to do.
10:59
Speaker 3: And once the album was finished, they were able to
11:01
Speaker 3: shop it around, which made them a much more attractive
11:04
Speaker 3: prospect for a record company because they already had the album.
11:07
Speaker 3: The company didn't have to sign them and hope the
11:10
Speaker 3: album would be good. That's how welcome Interstate Managers came
11:15
Speaker 3: into the world. It was a weird set of circumstances,
11:17
Speaker 3: but it actually worked out very well for them.
11:19
Speaker 2: They had about thirty songs I think written ready for
11:23
Speaker 2: that third album they did.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yep.
11:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a huge break that television show. Adam
11:28
Speaker 2: and Chris, the talents that they had, they could have
11:30
Speaker 2: continued to make money on side projects. I mean, they
11:33
Speaker 2: had so many things going on. They were just super
11:36
Speaker 2: talented guys.
11:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:38
Speaker 3: That was actually quite a challenge in the book is
11:41
Speaker 3: I had to be really conscious of focusing on Fountains
11:44
Speaker 3: of Wayne because Adam particular did so many outside projects
11:48
Speaker 3: that I really I really had to work hard not
11:52
Speaker 3: to get the narrative diverted into what Adam was doing.
11:55
Speaker 3: Although I did divert a bit for the musical of
11:58
Speaker 3: cry Baby. That was sort of self indulgent because I'm
12:02
Speaker 3: one of the one of the few people who saw
12:04
Speaker 3: it during its very short Broadway runs, so I felt
12:07
Speaker 3: it deserves some recognition.
12:10
Speaker 2: Book on rock Podcasts, We'll be back after this.
12:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need some flyers and uh set of thirty
12:16
Speaker 1: waight ball bearings, Fred gets here, beforremm back? You can
12:19
Speaker 1: tell the start without me. Hell you need ball bearings, fool.
12:22
Speaker 1: Come on, guys, it's so simple. Maybe you need a
12:25
Speaker 1: refresher course. Hey, it's all ball bearings nowadays.
12:31
Speaker 2: I mentioned the New Jersey connection. There's a connection there
12:33
Speaker 2: with the name. What's behind that name? And how does
12:36
Speaker 2: the newly emerging online internet search air also help put
12:39
Speaker 2: the stamp of approval on this name. It's a very
12:41
Speaker 2: googleable name that I said that I pronounce it.
12:46
Speaker 1: Uh.
12:46
Speaker 3: They were named after a home furnishing outdoor goods store
12:50
Speaker 3: in the town of Wayne, which I have not personally
12:53
Speaker 3: been to. The store unfortunately is closed now. But the
12:57
Speaker 3: story again that they used to tell was that Adam's mom,
13:00
Speaker 3: who worked as an arts publicist, was driving past his
13:03
Speaker 3: store and saw the sign. Thought, oh, that's a really
13:05
Speaker 3: distinctive name. You should call your band. Bet. They went
13:08
Speaker 3: back and forth on it. It's an unusual name, and
13:12
Speaker 3: neither of them were totally in love with it, but
13:15
Speaker 3: it was a distinctive name. One other thing that they
13:17
Speaker 3: did also is they went to the fountains of Wayne
13:20
Speaker 3: store and asked them if this was okay. Adam said
13:24
Speaker 3: that at first when the store owners got the requests,
13:28
Speaker 3: they thought it would be some hardcore gangster rap to
13:31
Speaker 3: use the name, but when it turned out it was
13:33
Speaker 3: just two nice Supergram guys and their friends, then they
13:36
Speaker 3: were okay with it.
13:37
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Stacy's mom off that third album two thousand
13:41
Speaker 2: and threes Welcome Interstate Managers, but two really good albums
13:45
Speaker 2: that come before that. Talk about the first album from
13:47
Speaker 2: ninety six, that's the self titled debut. The label was
13:51
Speaker 2: looking for another Pearl Jam, but that's not what Chris
13:54
Speaker 2: and Adam were going to give him. This was power pop.
13:56
Speaker 2: How was the album received critically and commercially and then
14:00
Speaker 2: what kind of helped did they get from the Atlantic label.
14:02
Speaker 2: It didn't seem like they were behind it enough.
14:05
Speaker 3: Well, the critics loved it, and Chris has said in
14:09
Speaker 3: later years that it's the sound of two young guys
14:13
Speaker 3: drunk in the city having fun, and that's sort of
14:16
Speaker 3: the vibe that comes across from it. Atlantic liked it
14:19
Speaker 3: enough to promo it to They initially pushed Fountains as
14:23
Speaker 3: an alternative act because there were college stations, there were
14:28
Speaker 3: alternative stations with an alternative format in mainstream radio, and
14:33
Speaker 3: it did well enough that the label let them do
14:36
Speaker 3: a second album. It's interesting though, that even though that album,
14:40
Speaker 3: that first album wasn't a hit per se, they played
14:43
Speaker 3: songs from it throughout their entire career, so it was
14:46
Speaker 3: really strong in the songwriting, and the fans really liked
14:50
Speaker 3: the song and it got them enough attention that the
14:53
Speaker 3: label was willing to invest in a second album. But no,
14:56
Speaker 3: they weren't Pearl Jam. They hated grunch. They thought it
14:59
Speaker 3: was just noisy chords and guys grunting and moaning over
15:03
Speaker 3: top of it, and they didn't want to be a
15:05
Speaker 3: grunge band for sure.
15:07
Speaker 2: Radiation Vibes a good song, Sink to the Bottom, Survival
15:10
Speaker 2: car Barbara, h Leave the Biker. They're all solid songs.
15:15
Speaker 2: I picked the ones that were I think I picked
15:17
Speaker 2: the ones that are singles for the episode playlist, but
15:20
Speaker 2: also ones that were popular on Spotify among the fans too,
15:23
Speaker 2: So I think I put together a nice collection. But
15:26
Speaker 2: you can let me know if when you see it.
15:29
Speaker 2: But it was a two man creation to start essentially,
15:32
Speaker 2: but then to tour they needed to get a band.
15:35
Speaker 2: So this is where we see the full lineup come together.
15:37
Speaker 3: That's right, that's fine. Jody and Brian joined them, and
15:41
Speaker 3: they also kind of had an official fifth member. Adam's
15:44
Speaker 3: friend Stephen Gold toured with him quite a bit as
15:46
Speaker 3: a keyboard player because Adam was busy playing bass, so
15:49
Speaker 3: he could really do the keyboard stuff that was on
15:52
Speaker 3: on the albums.
15:53
Speaker 2: They toured with the Smashing Pumpkins in ninety seven they did.
15:57
Speaker 2: Then they did some headlining shows and smaller venues after that.
16:00
Speaker 2: It's interesting to read about Adam had written a song
16:02
Speaker 2: that Thing You Do for the movie of the same
16:04
Speaker 2: name with Tom Hanks. People. I'm sure many were listening
16:08
Speaker 2: to this and watching this recognize that one. But there
16:10
Speaker 2: was a reason it wasn't played live by Fountains of Wayne.
16:14
Speaker 2: Why was that.
16:15
Speaker 3: Because it wasn't the Fountains of Wayne's song. I think
16:17
Speaker 3: Adam's enery He was very conscious throughout his career that
16:21
Speaker 3: about keeping his other work separate from his Fountains of
16:24
Speaker 3: Wayne work. I think that was a smart decision. I mean,
16:27
Speaker 3: I guess they could have got some mileage out of
16:29
Speaker 3: playing it, but it wasn't their song. None of them
16:32
Speaker 3: performed on it except Adam and Gosh. Adam got nominated
16:37
Speaker 3: for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for that song,
16:39
Speaker 3: so there was a lot of potential publicity value, but
16:43
Speaker 3: it was not a Fountains of Wayne song, and they
16:45
Speaker 3: to say they didn't want to associate themselves with it
16:48
Speaker 3: sounds like it's an awful song, which it isn't. It's
16:50
Speaker 3: a wonderful song. But they were very clear about establishing
16:54
Speaker 3: their own identity as a band, despite one of their
16:57
Speaker 3: members having done this other project that was getting a
16:59
Speaker 3: lot of attention.
17:01
Speaker 2: What do you think about that pairing with Smashing Pumpkins.
17:03
Speaker 2: Was that a good idea?
17:04
Speaker 3: I think it was at that stage of their career
17:06
Speaker 3: because that's when Smashing Pumpkins were quite big and they
17:11
Speaker 3: got to play arenas, which they wouldn't have done if
17:14
Speaker 3: they had been booked on their own. Now, admittedly, they
17:17
Speaker 3: were the opening acts, so you know, they had the
17:19
Speaker 3: little space at the front of the stage with one
17:22
Speaker 3: spotlight and forty five minutes, and we all know that
17:25
Speaker 3: a lot of people show up for the headliners and
17:27
Speaker 3: don't bother showing up for the opening acts, which their loss.
17:31
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it was a good way to
17:33
Speaker 3: get them out there to get some audiences to see them,
17:37
Speaker 3: and part of what it also helped with is I
17:40
Speaker 3: think something that often gets overlooked in what bands do
17:44
Speaker 3: is it's not just the albums, and it's not just
17:47
Speaker 3: the touring. There's also the whole publicity side of it,
17:50
Speaker 3: doing interviews over the phone, doing interviews at radio stations,
17:54
Speaker 3: doing interviews in person. One of their peers in the band, Semisnic,
18:00
Speaker 3: has written his autobiography about his time in that band,
18:04
Speaker 3: and he talks about having to spend entire afternoons in
18:07
Speaker 3: sound booth saying Hi, I'm Ira from Semisnic and you
18:11
Speaker 3: are listening to XFM. That sort of work doesn't often
18:15
Speaker 3: get put into what bands do in terms of their
18:18
Speaker 3: commitments and their energy and so going out as an
18:22
Speaker 3: opening act, yeah, you play first, and you play for
18:25
Speaker 3: forty five minutes, but you also go to cities where
18:27
Speaker 3: you can meet radio people and promotion people and media.
18:31
Speaker 3: So it's a it's a good way to get your
18:34
Speaker 3: name and your presence out there as a new band.
18:37
Speaker 2: It's got to be exhausting, though, answering the same questions
18:40
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. Gotta have a lot
18:42
Speaker 2: of patience.
18:43
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. One of the things I did in structuring
18:46
Speaker 3: the book was I had a big fat notebook, and
18:49
Speaker 3: I had a couple of pages for each year, and
18:52
Speaker 3: just to help me figure out where they were at
18:55
Speaker 3: particular times, I listed all the dates that I could
18:59
Speaker 3: find records them having played. I was exhausted just writing
19:03
Speaker 3: down all those dates. They played live a lot. It
19:07
Speaker 3: is exhausting. I mean, it's not just the forty five
19:10
Speaker 3: minutes or the hour and a half of people adoring
19:12
Speaker 3: you and clapping and screaming your name. It's also getting
19:15
Speaker 3: the gear in and out, getting to the hotel, maybe
19:18
Speaker 3: getting some sleep, getting on the bus or the plane,
19:22
Speaker 3: and then doing all the promotional work on top of
19:24
Speaker 3: it is it is exhausting.
19:26
Speaker 2: Nowadays you have to do the social media thing these bands.
19:30
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, like oh.
19:32
Speaker 2: Something every day. You know, well, what am I going
19:34
Speaker 2: to post anything? Just keep going for a walk with
19:37
Speaker 2: your dog. Put that out there. It's like, okay, I
19:41
Speaker 2: guess I'll do that. Well.
19:42
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting that their careers sort of started
19:45
Speaker 3: out when if you wanted a record, you went down
19:48
Speaker 3: to the record store and bought it, or if you
19:49
Speaker 3: want to hear a single, you listen to it on
19:52
Speaker 3: the radio and you had a radio and by the
19:55
Speaker 3: time they did their last album, which was twenty eleven,
19:58
Speaker 3: it came out on bank Camp and you could stream
20:02
Speaker 3: it online. And just how the whole industry transformed in
20:06
Speaker 3: that time fascinating.
20:07
Speaker 2: That's a quote I was going to read in here
20:09
Speaker 2: to you read it in the book. The Fountains career
20:11
Speaker 2: coincided with a time of massive evolution in the music industry.
20:15
Speaker 2: That's when vinyls being replaced by CDs. You got the
20:18
Speaker 2: world Wide Web, online file sharing, MySpace, Napster, MTV, still
20:23
Speaker 2: big iTunes, media, corporatezation, and concentration. They were in such
20:30
Speaker 2: a bizarre period and really the last great era of
20:34
Speaker 2: rock and roll being mainstream. Even they've had that difficulty
20:38
Speaker 2: of where are we going to fit.
20:41
Speaker 3: And how are people going to find us? Sure, you know,
20:44
Speaker 3: there's streaming, there's video, there's downloads, you know, and also
20:49
Speaker 3: anyone you know can put something up on SoundCloud and
20:52
Speaker 3: promote it. And how do you get hurd amongst all
20:55
Speaker 3: that noise is a bit harsh, but you know what
20:58
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just so much content out there. How
21:01
Speaker 3: does a new band or a new artist get themselves hurt?
21:04
Speaker 1: Yeah?
21:04
Speaker 2: And then I think it was Chris. Towards the end
21:05
Speaker 2: of the book, you quote him as saying, after they
21:09
Speaker 2: made it with their big hit, times are changing again,
21:12
Speaker 2: and he's like, I just don't know where we fit
21:13
Speaker 2: in with this would have been like early two thousands,
21:16
Speaker 2: maybe you know where do we fit in now? It's
21:19
Speaker 2: a constantly moving target until you could build up a
21:22
Speaker 2: loyal fan base. They had a pretty loyal fan base though. Huh.
21:26
Speaker 3: They had an extreme they had and they have to
21:28
Speaker 3: this day.
21:31
Speaker 2: Which we've got some good news at the end of
21:32
Speaker 2: this interview to share. That's really cool, really cool. Author
21:35
Speaker 2: Fiona McCrory making her debut on the podcast. Her book
21:39
Speaker 2: is titled Fountains of Wayne, the first full length biography
21:42
Speaker 2: of the band. Fountains of Wayne second album, nineteen ninety
21:45
Speaker 2: nine's Utopia Parkway quite an impressive collection of songs, a
21:48
Speaker 2: thematic approach to the music. It was about life in
21:50
Speaker 2: suburbia and an ambitious young man with dreams. I think
21:54
Speaker 2: that was the overall theme. And they were proud of
21:57
Speaker 2: the songs, including the lead single Denise. But this single
22:01
Speaker 2: sparked a conflict between the band and Atlantic.
22:04
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So while they were doing the sessions for
22:07
Speaker 3: Utopia Parkway. They recorded it just I think as a laugh.
22:11
Speaker 3: They recorded a version of Britney Spears Baby One More Time,
22:15
Speaker 3: and they did it as sort of a stripped down
22:16
Speaker 3: acoustic ballad. They did it just for you know. They
22:21
Speaker 3: did it and the record label heard about it, and
22:24
Speaker 3: the record label said, oh, we're going to make that single.
22:27
Speaker 3: They did not want it as a single, first because
22:29
Speaker 3: it wasn't their song, and secondly because they didn't want
22:33
Speaker 3: to be tagged as the guys who did that weird
22:35
Speaker 3: cover of the Britney Spears song. The record company wanted
22:38
Speaker 3: to put it on the B side of the Denise single,
22:41
Speaker 3: and the Fountain said no. So the record company refused
22:45
Speaker 3: to put it a single, and it kind of went
22:48
Speaker 3: sideways from there. I think that might be one of
22:51
Speaker 3: the turning points at which their relationship with that particular
22:55
Speaker 3: label started to go a little bit off the rails.
22:58
Speaker 2: Howard Stern got his hands on it and he played
23:00
Speaker 2: it right.
23:01
Speaker 3: You might have got it off Napster because it also
23:03
Speaker 3: popped up as a file on Napster.
23:06
Speaker 2: That just made things worse for him. Yeah, he's such
23:09
Speaker 2: a huge audience. Yeah, so critical praise, growing fan base,
23:13
Speaker 2: including Elton John by the way, which is so cool
23:17
Speaker 2: to read. He loved the band, hated how the label
23:20
Speaker 2: didn't support them enough. They end up signing with the
23:22
Speaker 2: new label s Curve Records. That all happens thanks to
23:26
Speaker 2: that project. You mentioned that VH one project. They got
23:29
Speaker 2: the music to get behind that, so now we get
23:31
Speaker 2: to Welcome Interstate Managers. It blows up in the summer
23:35
Speaker 2: of two thousand and three, Stacy's Mom number twenty one
23:39
Speaker 2: single on Billboard, all over MTV. So tell us the
23:41
Speaker 2: story behind the song. Who wrote it? Who is it
23:44
Speaker 2: inspired by?
23:45
Speaker 3: Adam wrote it. He wrote the first version of it.
23:47
Speaker 3: It was inspired by something he talked about in his
23:50
Speaker 3: adolescence when one of his friends told him his grandma
23:53
Speaker 3: was hot, and he suce that as the stepping off
23:58
Speaker 3: point for the song. They recorded obviously in the Welcome
24:02
Speaker 3: Interstate Manager session, and they were reluctant to have it
24:05
Speaker 3: as a single because they thought, you know, it's about
24:08
Speaker 3: what we would now call an Mlif it's going to
24:11
Speaker 3: be a novelty song, I don't know. You know, it
24:13
Speaker 3: doesn't it It doesn't really represent who we are as
24:16
Speaker 3: a band, which is true. But also if you look
24:20
Speaker 3: at the range of tracks on Welcome Interstate Managers. I mean,
24:25
Speaker 3: there's a country song on there, there's a really loopy
24:28
Speaker 3: and hippie psychedelic track. There are a lot of songs
24:31
Speaker 3: that don't represent what they are as a band because
24:34
Speaker 3: they did so so many different styles. But I could
24:37
Speaker 3: I could see the reluctance, especially since you know, if
24:41
Speaker 3: you watched MTV or in my case, much music back
24:45
Speaker 3: in the days, there were a lot of videos with women,
24:48
Speaker 3: you know, rolling around on car hoods and running around
24:51
Speaker 3: in bikinis under sprinklers and stuff like that. And they
24:55
Speaker 3: didn't want to be one of those bands, you know.
24:57
Speaker 2: They they didn't even want to make a video for it, right, ye.
25:00
Speaker 3: But the record label played the track for the head
25:03
Speaker 3: of MTV and she said, this sounds good. That does
25:06
Speaker 3: make a good video. So the record company shelled out
25:09
Speaker 3: a lot of money. They got Rachel Hunter, who was
25:12
Speaker 3: actually the band's first choice. They thought, oh, I wonder
25:16
Speaker 3: if Rachel Hunter would do this, and they contact her
25:18
Speaker 3: and she said, yeah, sure. I have to say that
25:22
Speaker 3: at that point, personally, I had had enough of women
25:24
Speaker 3: in bikinis running around in videos like play the damn song.
25:28
Speaker 3: But I like the Stacy's More on video a lot.
25:31
Speaker 3: I think it manages to have that aspect of the song,
25:34
Speaker 3: but it also makes fun of it. I mean, it
25:36
Speaker 3: makes fun of the ridiculous depictions of women and in
25:40
Speaker 3: songs about being lustful. I think it did a really
25:44
Speaker 3: fine job of balancing those two extremes.
25:47
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcast We'll be back after this The
25:50
Speaker 2: figure is now chapter eight titled The Strange and Foreign Place,
25:59
Speaker 2: and you leave with quote. Although it was exciting for
26:01
Speaker 2: Fountains of Wayne to finally have a hit single, the
26:03
Speaker 2: band was realistic about what the success of Stacy's Mom
26:07
Speaker 2: might mean for their careers in the long run. There
26:10
Speaker 2: was the follow up to Welcome Interstate manager's album featuring
26:14
Speaker 2: Stacy's Mom, which was two thousand and sevens Traffic and Weather,
26:17
Speaker 2: and this explored and detail in the book. But you say,
26:20
Speaker 2: Traffic and Weather has its moments, but it lacked the
26:23
Speaker 2: verve and confidence of earlier records. Critics were lukewarm as
26:26
Speaker 2: well with their response to it.
26:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, it got mixed responses. I think by that time,
26:31
Speaker 3: the record reviewers who knew who Fountains of Wayne were
26:35
Speaker 3: knew what excellent songwriters and musicians they were, and they
26:38
Speaker 3: really tried to be positive about it, but it was
26:40
Speaker 3: a very troubled record, partly because Chris Collingwood had had
26:44
Speaker 3: a bad episode of mental health while they were on
26:48
Speaker 3: tour and that sort of led to him not being
26:50
Speaker 3: able to contribute as much to the albums as he
26:53
Speaker 3: usually did. Most of the songs on that album were
26:56
Speaker 3: written by Adam and I think because they were trying
26:59
Speaker 3: to because they sort of had the weight of expectations
27:02
Speaker 3: of let's have another hit single, partly because the follow
27:06
Speaker 3: up single to Stacy's Mom, Mexican Wine, hadn't been successful
27:10
Speaker 3: that the record company was really expecting, you know, great
27:13
Speaker 3: things this time around. So they were not in a
27:17
Speaker 3: totally happy place when they made this record, and I
27:19
Speaker 3: think it shows in the record itself. But there are
27:22
Speaker 3: some songs that are tremendous and there are others that
27:25
Speaker 3: are kind of space filler. I mean, I don't think
27:28
Speaker 3: Founds of Way never made a really bad song, but
27:31
Speaker 3: there are definitely songs that are not up to the
27:34
Speaker 3: usual standard.
27:35
Speaker 1: I think.
27:36
Speaker 2: And then Sky full of Holes from twenty eleven, the
27:38
Speaker 2: last studio album. In fact, before we started recording, there
27:41
Speaker 2: was a song I mentioned I'm a fan of From
27:44
Speaker 2: that album was the one again about the dipping your
27:46
Speaker 2: toes in the ocean. Dipping the ocean, Yeah, dip in
27:50
Speaker 2: the ocean. Mean, there's again some great songs on there,
27:52
Speaker 2: but luke warm reviews did okay, and it seemed like
27:56
Speaker 2: for Adam, now in his forties with children, things where changing. Chris,
28:01
Speaker 2: as I mentioned earlier, this is where his quote is
28:04
Speaker 2: in the book about it's not sure where the band's
28:05
Speaker 2: music is going to fit in, you know, as they
28:08
Speaker 2: get into the twenty tens. Adam was quoted in twenty
28:11
Speaker 2: thirteen saying he and Chris were thinking about making another record.
28:14
Speaker 2: That never happened, and it seems like it was really
28:17
Speaker 2: due mostly to the fact that maybe Chris and Adam
28:19
Speaker 2: both they had successful careers on their own now, so
28:23
Speaker 2: that was keeping him very busy music for TV film Broadway.
28:27
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, is that the reason why you think
28:30
Speaker 2: the two never reformed Fountains of Wayne.
28:32
Speaker 3: I think it was partly that, but also they both said,
28:35
Speaker 3: and Jody Porter has said this as well, that making
28:38
Speaker 3: Skyfell Holts was really a challenging process for them because
28:44
Speaker 3: Adam wanted to keep along with the sort of the
28:47
Speaker 3: lighthearted songs, well, not completely heard, but the songs with
28:50
Speaker 3: the pulp culture references and that sort of thing. And Chris,
28:54
Speaker 3: especially having gone through his mental health challenges, basically didn't
28:58
Speaker 3: want to be the funny band anymore. He wanted to
29:01
Speaker 3: write about more serious things, and some of the songs
29:04
Speaker 3: on Sky Full of Holes are about like the title
29:07
Speaker 3: song is about a military funeral. The metaphor that the
29:10
Speaker 3: title is from is the idea that the guns go
29:13
Speaker 3: off at the military funeral is a tribute to the fall,
29:16
Speaker 3: and then they make holes in the sky. And within
29:19
Speaker 3: the band there were some pretty big discussions about is
29:22
Speaker 3: this really a Fountains of Wayne song? Is this what
29:24
Speaker 3: our fans are going to like? So I think they
29:27
Speaker 3: were at a point where there were different visions of
29:30
Speaker 3: what the band could be. And I think what Sky
29:33
Speaker 3: Full of Holes shows is they could do funny songs
29:36
Speaker 3: and they could do more serious songs. But the album
29:39
Speaker 3: didn't gel quite as well as some of the previous
29:42
Speaker 3: ones did, even though some of the previous ones had
29:45
Speaker 3: song styles that were all over the place too. And
29:49
Speaker 3: like you say, they were in their forties and they'd
29:51
Speaker 3: been playing together since they were eighteen, and just like,
29:55
Speaker 3: you know, if you work at a workplace for that long,
29:57
Speaker 3: or you have friends that you know for that long,
30:00
Speaker 3: you're not the same people that you were thirty years later.
30:03
Speaker 3: And sometimes people just grow apart and want to do
30:07
Speaker 3: different things and go out on their own.
30:10
Speaker 2: Then The Terrible News twenty twenty, chapter thirteen, titled Unwelcome
30:14
Speaker 2: Fate leads with quote twenty twenty was a terrible year,
30:16
Speaker 2: was it ever?
30:18
Speaker 3: Yeah?
30:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, the years started. It started off great for Adam.
30:21
Speaker 2: One day he's out for a walk with his girlfriend,
30:23
Speaker 2: and the next he has COVID and then.
30:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, he thought he had the flu, and his girlfriend
30:28
Speaker 3: took care of him, and then he didn't get better
30:31
Speaker 3: and she figured he should go to the hospital. And yeah,
30:34
Speaker 3: I had to take my time writing that chapter because
30:38
Speaker 3: it was it was pretty upsetting, and you know, I
30:41
Speaker 3: never met him, and I didn't know him personally, but
30:43
Speaker 3: just how random it was and how awful it was.
30:48
Speaker 3: And I point out in the book, you know, literally
30:51
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of people around the world died that
30:53
Speaker 3: same week, but Adam was so talented and had done
30:58
Speaker 3: so much for someone of a realtively young age. It
31:02
Speaker 3: was just such a loss. It was just so it
31:03
Speaker 3: was so sad.
31:04
Speaker 2: I remember seeing the headline in Rolling Stone, and I
31:08
Speaker 2: remember hearing about people that I knew in my own
31:12
Speaker 2: day to day life, people in town, and that's you
31:15
Speaker 2: realize that this is serious, this is really I mean,
31:18
Speaker 2: this is it was such a surreal time like Twilight Zone. Yeah,
31:22
Speaker 2: how did you find out?
31:24
Speaker 3: I think I saw it online and it was it
31:28
Speaker 3: was a really sad week in our house. Also because
31:30
Speaker 3: my husband is a huge John Prime fan, and so
31:33
Speaker 3: am I and John Prime passed away that same week,
31:36
Speaker 3: and we were like, what else, what else is going
31:39
Speaker 3: to happen? Like how how much worse can this possibly get?
31:42
Speaker 3: At the same time, this isn't in the book because
31:44
Speaker 3: it's not I didn't want to drag my own story
31:48
Speaker 3: into it. But my dad had passed away the week before,
31:51
Speaker 3: not from COVID, but while he was in the hospital,
31:55
Speaker 3: you know, everyone was wearing masks and you could tell
31:59
Speaker 3: that things were getting really really serious. So it's like
32:02
Speaker 3: what next, Like what next?
32:04
Speaker 2: But you're able to end with good news in this book.
32:06
Speaker 2: You emailed me, I think it was a few weeks ago.
32:09
Speaker 2: You sent me a new updated epilogue which came. Yeah,
32:13
Speaker 2: just as the book is going to press. I'll let
32:15
Speaker 2: you tell the rest.
32:16
Speaker 3: I wrote the book on the assumption that things were
32:18
Speaker 3: pretty much done for Fountains of Wayne, because they hadn't
32:21
Speaker 3: made a record since twenty eleven, they hadn't played any
32:24
Speaker 3: reunion shows even before Adam passed away. They did one
32:28
Speaker 3: gig for a online COVID benefit for New Jersey after
32:33
Speaker 3: Adam passed, but otherwise that was it. So I thought
32:37
Speaker 3: it was a pretty safe assumption that I could write
32:39
Speaker 3: this book in the past. So I finished the manuscript.
32:43
Speaker 3: I sent it off to Jeff, the publisher. I get
32:45
Speaker 3: up one morning and I open my phone and I
32:47
Speaker 3: go on Facebook, and I'm tagged in all these posts,
32:50
Speaker 3: and I'm like, what is going on? So I opened
32:55
Speaker 3: the posts and it founds of Wayne announced reunion show,
32:58
Speaker 3: and I went, oh, oh, my god, this is fantastic,
33:03
Speaker 3: And the other half of me went, are you effing
33:05
Speaker 3: kidding me?
33:05
Speaker 2: Now?
33:05
Speaker 3: I have to rewrite the damn exactly.
33:10
Speaker 2: My god. Yeah.
33:12
Speaker 3: Well, luckily the file had not gone to the printer's yet,
33:15
Speaker 3: so Jeff was able to hold it back and I
33:19
Speaker 3: had three or four days to rewrite all the parts
33:22
Speaker 3: that needed to be rewritten, and.
33:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, who's going to be taking on Adam's plays?
33:29
Speaker 2: Is it all of the guys from the band before?
33:32
Speaker 2: What's the line?
33:34
Speaker 3: It's Chris and Jody and Brian and their friend Stephen
33:39
Speaker 3: Gold who I mentioned before who's played keyboards with them
33:42
Speaker 3: live on several tours. And the new boy is Max Collins.
33:46
Speaker 3: He was in a band called Eve six he also played, Yeah,
33:51
Speaker 3: he was in a side project with Brian. He's a
33:54
Speaker 3: huge fan of Fountains of Wayne. He's actually done a
33:56
Speaker 3: couple of power pop podcasts where he's talked about how
33:59
Speaker 3: much he likes them, so he's, you know, he's a
34:03
Speaker 3: pretty good choice. He's also a very good bass player.
34:05
Speaker 3: And it's also been announced that Adam's family were consulted
34:09
Speaker 3: about this project and they've given it their blessing, so
34:13
Speaker 3: it's probably about as good a scenario as you could expect.
34:17
Speaker 2: Now.
34:17
Speaker 3: They've only announced two shows so far, both at festivals
34:21
Speaker 3: over the summertime, and of course the fans and selfishly
34:25
Speaker 3: myself are hoping that if they put in the time
34:28
Speaker 3: and effort to rehearse for two festival gigs, that maybe
34:31
Speaker 3: they might do some gigs on their own as well,
34:34
Speaker 3: So I never got to see them when they're an
34:39
Speaker 3: active band.
34:39
Speaker 2: So all right, and the book is the release date
34:42
Speaker 2: is March thirteen, and you can find it wherever books
34:45
Speaker 2: are sold, and people can find you where online.
34:48
Speaker 3: I'm on x slash Twitter as writing on music, and
34:53
Speaker 3: that's also my website, writing on music dot Com, and
34:56
Speaker 3: I also put in a plug for my publisher, jCard Press.
34:59
Speaker 3: You can order the book directly from the publisher if
35:02
Speaker 3: you don't want to give Jeff Bezels your money. If
35:04
Speaker 3: you order the book from the publisher, you got a
35:06
Speaker 3: special bookmark.
35:08
Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah, we've been in touch back and forth. He
35:10
Speaker 2: was asking if I had read the book, think maybe
35:13
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago, and it was like a
35:14
Speaker 2: day or two before I was going to start reading.
35:16
Speaker 2: And then a couple of days after that I emailed
35:18
Speaker 2: him like, damn, man, this band is good and this
35:22
Speaker 2: book is outstanding. I mean really, it was really well written,
35:25
Speaker 2: and I would I can't imagine the fans being disappointed
35:28
Speaker 2: at this one. So, Fiona McCrory, thank you so much
35:31
Speaker 2: for coming on and talking about the book.
35:33
Speaker 3: Thank you Eric, and thank you for supporting authors because
35:36
Speaker 3: just like musicians, there's a lot of stuff out there,
35:39
Speaker 3: and it's sometimes hard to get noticed, so what you
35:41
Speaker 3: do is a great help.
35:43
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
35:51
Speaker 1: That's it.
35:52
Speaker 3: It's in the books.