Shine On, Shine On, Shine On

Last night Adam Schlesinger, best known as the bassist and principal songwriter of the band Fountains of Wayne, died while being treated in the hospital for COVID-19. I am a huge Fountains of Wayne fan and am pretty saddened to hear this news. Though there have been many celebrities with cases of corona, and many more deaths all over the world from the virus, Schlesinger's made all of this a lot more real for me and hit me harder than I would have expected it to.

The first that I will say is that Fountains of Wayne are way more than the one song you know them for. They've suffered from the problem that plagues seemingly every one-hit-wonder in which their silliest and poppiest song (maybe not the case here, but we'll get there) is known by everyone out of the context of the band's catalogue. "Stacy's Mom" bangs, for sure, but it's not indicative of what Fountains of Wayne is like. They were such a smart and snarky band who wrote songs in a way that no other rock band does, with a layer of hooks and rock history layered throughout every song. Since I heard the new about Schlesinger's death, I've been listening to the band nonstop. I'd really recommend you doing the same. It's such a rewarding experience.

In my mid-twenties I got heavy into power-pop music, starting with Cheap Trick and then working my way through others from the 1970s and 80s. For some reason, this style of music immediately clicked with me and it felt like this was actually the genre that I had liked for my entire life. I realized that all of my favourite songs from a wide array of bands were just their power-pop songs. Something about the unabashedly sincere pop music played on electric guitar rang extremely true to me.

I can't tell you exactly when it happened, but upon hearing "Stacy's Mom" one day, I realized that it was just a blatant Cars pastiche (one of the prominent figures in my power-pop deep dive) and that was enough for me to check out the album the song had come from. Welcome Interstate Managers was not what I was expecting, but in the best way possible. As soon as "Mexican Wine" kicked into it opening guitar lead, I knew that this was the best case scenario in looking into this record and it was hitting all the notes that I was looking for in music at time.

Beyond the 3rd/4th hammer-on, that is. (When you're writing about Schlesinger, you gotta make pop music theory puns).



The best thing about the album was that it was way more intellectual than I thought it would be. Rather than the typical themes of young love and... *checks notes, no, that's it* the songs were all self-contained stories about different characters. This carried over to the sound as well, as each song was almost like a vignette of a slightly different genre, one country, one 80s, one surf-y, etc., all being covered with a power-pop varnish.

Oddly, the album seemed to focus on characters who were travelling salesmen or middle management, which also only furthered how distinct and realized it felt. At the time, I had recently watched the movie Cedar Rapids, in which Ed Helms plays a Midwestern insurance salesman who goes out and experiences the world for the first time by travelling to an insurance conference. I couldn't help but associate the two things, and Welcome Interstate Managers kind of seemed like Cedar Rapids: The Albums. Worlds were colliding!

But this is about Adam Schlesinger, not Fountains of Wayne, though I can't imagine that the band will continue now that he has died. Schlesinger was absolutely what set the band apart from their peers and huge reason they were so different from all of the other pop-rock bands. As a good bassist who was amazing at a singing harmonies he was already the dream band member for a frontperson, but it's crazy that he would bring fully formed songs to the table too. Michael Jordan doesn't win six titles without Scottie Pippen.

Watch this video and pay attention to how much singing the guy playing bass does. Now try to think about what the song would sound like without that.



I identified with him right away because he was what I aspired to be as a musician. I never really wanted to be the frontperson of a band and I was comfortable being one of the supporting musicians. Though I wasn't the face of the band I was in, I tried my best and wanted to be an active contributor, adding as much to the sound and strength of the group as I could. Did I do much beyond play bass? No, but like I said, what Schlesinger was able to do was what I aspired and hoped to do.

Even more impressive is that his music production didn't end with Fountains of Wayne. He also played in the shoegaze-y band ivy, played in the power-pop supergroup Tinted Windows (amazing name and Bun E. Carlos on drums!), and contributed songs upon songs upon songs to movies, TV shows, and other artists. Among those, the best-known one is probably this, absolutely the best song ever written for a film:



He was an incredible talent, an all-time bass player hero, and someone whose music significantly impacted the way I approach playing guitar and bass.

Following his death, Marc Maron posted an interview he had done with Schlesinger in 2012, in which he talked about his love of power pop and mentiong doing a Kinks cover as part of a tribute compilation. I can't think of a better way to eulogize him.